March 2019 – Nick Momrik's Fitness Logs

Beat Barbara

The strained muscle in my back is feeling better and better. My low back has felt pretty good and not feeling any affects from the cleans on Friday. Hamstrings are still a little sore from the GHRs. Went to open gym at noon.

Warm-up

5:00 Assault Bike (46 cals)
Dead Hang
Bottom Squat Hold
Kip Swings

Conditioning

Barbara
5 rounds, each round for time

20 Pull-ups
30 Push-ups
40 AbMat Sit-ups
50 Air Squats
3:00 Rest

This workout has never been a strength of mine, but was hoping I could go sub 20 today for a big PR. I knew it was a big ask to think I could average less than four minutes per round, especially if you look at my history of rounds. New strategy today though. I wanted to try all sets of 5 for pull-ups and push-ups with very short rests.

Worked out really well! My rests got a little longer between pull-ups and push-ups, but still very short. It felt like my sit-ups slowed down the most and I was able to keep pushing myself on the squats. Crushed my goal and went 18:44 for a PR by nearly three minutes! When I came in at exactly four minutes in round four I pushed hard in that final round trying to make sure it was better because I really wanted 4:00 or better when it was my goal to average that round time.

Date	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	Total
Sep 22, 2012	4:23	4:26	4:26	4:33	4:27	22:15
Nov 16, 2014	3:37	4:12	4:29	4:59	5:07	22:24
Apr 16, 2017	3:52	4:06	4:19	4:42	4:38	21:37
Mar 31, 2019	3:27	3:41	3:37	4:00	3:59	18:44

Something fun to think about, with no way to know, is what contributed most to this improvement? Am I really that much fitter than 2 years ago? Doubt it. Is the Engine Builder program already paying off? Maybe a little bit. Did my lighter body weight help? Definitely some. How much did the new strategy help? Probably a lot. The PR is probably due to a combination of all of these things.

Accessory

3 Sets

30 Arms Only Rowing Strokes
30 Rower Curls

Started with the damper at 1, then 2, and finally 3. This was a huge arm pump! Everyone was laughing at our unique use of the rowers.

Strength

Bench Press

5×45#
5×95
5×125
5×155
5x5x185

Didn’t have much left in the upper body for benching, but good to hit it fatigued for something different.

After the Duke game I finished the 4th week of Engine Builder.

Engine Builder – Interval

3k Row
3:00 Rest
2k Row

My goal was to hold a 1:50/500m pace through both, which I thought would be extremely difficult after already having done a long workout. I did it for the 3k with a time of 10:59.5. I couldn’t hold on during the second half of the 2k, finishing with a time of 7:24.7, which is only 4.7 seconds off that goal. Calories were 221 and 145.

To be honest, it turned out better than I expected, especially after 250 squats this morning.

I really love having a rower at home and the numbers don’t lie, especially this month after starting Engine Builder.

This doesn’t tell the whole story though, because I also do plenty of rowing in class at the gym. Here’s a chart from BTWB for rowing distances.

Three months in, 2019 is nearly my second biggest year for rowing. The chart for rowing calorie workouts shows a different story.

After I looked into these charts, it makes a lot more sense that 2015 had been my best Open finish until this year. In my opinion rowing is the best way to improve your engine.

Row & Row

Even though I was up late watching the games last night I got up and went in for 9am. Good crowd this morning.

Warm-up

Line Drills

Conditioning

Team of 3

Accumulate 6,000m Row
Rotate every minute. After getting off the rower:
- 15 Burpees
- 50 Double Unders

Teamed up with Tom and TJ. I started and averaged about 1:48/500m throughout, feeling good on the rower. I got through my 9th row and Tom finished off the 6,000, but I finished that round of burpees and my double unders at 25:41. I kept a nice steady pace on the burpees, but missed quite a bit on the double unders. Ended up getting 20-25 seconds of rest each round. Our team averaged just over 230 meters per turn.

Reminded me a lot of two workouts we did last year with these movements:

I’m beginning to think this is my triplet!

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Started feeling some soreness in my hamstrings after sitting at home.

After lunch I did more rowing.

Engine Builder – Anaerobic

10 Rounds

20s Row
1:40 Rest

Didn’t bother to warm-up. My distances were 113-114-112-113-115-114-115-113-115-115 meters. I was under 1:30/500m by the third pull and kept it at about 1:27. My average pace for the workout was 1:27.7, which is also the pace when getting 114 meters. Recovered really well between intervals, so probably should have gone harder.

Back Survives Powers

The outside of my pecs and my shoulders were fairly sore from Wednesday. Went to the 4pm class.

Warm-up

5:00 Row (1,200m)
2 Rounds
- 15 PVC Passes
- 15 Air Squats

Weightlifting

Power Cleans

10×45#
5×95
5×115
2×135
2×155
2×175
2×190
2×205

I think I put on the belt for 190 and 205.

Conditioning

400m Run
9 Power Cleans (205#)
400m Run
6 Power Cleans (205#)
400m Run
3 Power Cleans (205#)

Kept the belt on for this. Ran at a pretty good pace, right ahead of a runner the entire time. I was able to pick the bar back up pretty quickly after each rep. Finished in 8:15.

Accessory

4 Sets

10 GHRs (red band)
20 Banded Pull-throughs (green band)
40/40s Single Leg Stands (squeeze glute)

When I was testing out the glute hame raises I could feel them in my back a bit, so I knew I wasn’t keeping a solid position. Tried without a band, then the tiny orange, and finally settled on the red. I even used my hands to push off a little on the pad. Probably should tell me something that GHRs have always been a huge weakness for me.

I should probably also get in one of the Engine Builder workouts today, especially with the 95% recovery score in WHOOP, but I’ll do it tomorrow.

Got this new pair of kicks, the Speed TR Flexweave. The Speed TRs have been my favorite style of shoes over the last couple of years and these are even better. Felt great lifting and running.

My Best Open

Scoring is pretty much done for the Open. How did it shake out for me?

19.5

Open: 33,595 / 137019 (75.5%)
Masters 35-39: 6,053 / 27,976 (78.4%)

Overall

Open: 17,092 / 185,548 (90.8%)
Masters 35-39: 2,544 / 37,522 (93.2%)

Didn’t end up as low as I expected for 19.5, but still not happy with my effort. My overall ranking dropped less than one percentile from the performance though, so it was good enough to be my best Open, beating 2015 by 0.1! Not the best of my three Masters years though, because 2017 would have been 93.6% if I had been able to complete 17.5 in time (got injured and did it a few weeks later)

My percentile rankings over the years:

2012 – 55.3%
2013 – 87.9%
2014 – 88.1%
2015 – 90.7%
2016 – 88.6%
2017 – 89.8%
2018 – 81.5%
2019 – 90.8%

Note: I calculate percentiles based only on the number of athletes who completed a score for that workout (or who posted at least one score in the Open overall). This is much different from the percentiles I see in the CrossFit Games app because they calculate based on everyone who registered in the division, which is misleading if you ask me. For example, by their math, my 19.5 score would be in the 82.8%. I don’t care that I beat the people who didn’t show up to play. Might as well calculate the percentile based on world population!

I’m happy with those results for this year, especially considering my back was injured for the last three workouts and I was unable to attend CrossFit classes through that time. Now we wait for the second Open of 2019 in October. Time for me to heal up my back and shoulder, and see if building up my posterior chain helps prevent any future back tweaks.

Got on the bike in the afternoon.

Engine Builder – Endurance

26:00 Airdyne (AD2)

As the time domain increased another two minutes I was hoping to be able to keep the 75 RPM I did last time. I was successful. Ended up with 747 calories and 9.66 miles.

Version A

I forgot to mention it during my San Diego trip, but we stopped at the Rx Smart Gear office because I’d been wanting to try the Alec Smith gymnastics grips. I hated them! Way too bulky, even with the extra support strap off, which pulled really bad on my wrists. It’s like they needed to have a size bigger than large. Glad I didn’t buy them online. Also tried their EVO Jump Rope and there is no way I’d pay $125 for that!

Engine Builder – Speed

10:00 AMRAP

Airdyne calories (AD2)

This workout is also known as “300 FY” because the goal on other Airdyne models is to get 300 calories. It’s really easy to do on the AD2, but still a good relative test. My previous best was 365 cals where I went out hot for 60-90 seconds and fell in to a pace. Today my plan was to hold 85 RPM and hopefully push at the end. I didn’t have much push left, but it worked beautifully to get a 15 cal PR with 380 calories! Was 4.23 miles. I did an easy five minutes to cool down for 1.42 miles.

Went to the 4pm class at CrossFit Whip.

Warm-up

3 Rounds

10 cal Row
10 PVC Passes
10 Overhead Squats (PVC)

Strength

Overhead Squat

2x5x45#
2x5x75
2x5x95

I kept a narrow grip on the bar and went with a slow controlled descent and slight pause in the hole for every rep. Wasn’t pushing the weight with my back and shoulder issues.

Conditioning

Warmed up my push jerks with 5×95 and 5×115.

E3M – 5 Rounds

20 cal Row
15 T2B
10 Push Jerks (135#)

I probably went a little hard on the first row, getting it done under 45 seconds, with 1,700+ most of the way. Each round got slower and slower but kept over 1,250 throughout. My toes to bars were 3×5 every round, wearing grips and push jerks were unbroken. My round times were about 2:00, 2:11, 2:22, 2:25, and 2:25 and I really started to feel it in round 3. Push jerks were a struggle at the end of the 4th and 5th round. These are the type of workouts I’ve really liked from the Ben Smith programming because you have to really push yourself to finish and get some rest.

Accessory

Dumbbell Curls – 21s

Switched it up to Version A from T Nation and wasn’t sure how it would feel so I used 20 pound dumbbells for the first set and then 25 for two more sets.

Back at Class

I’m still sore in my quads a little bit from 19.5! I strained one of my left spinal erectors on Sunday, so add that to the list of shit bothering me. I was definitely glad for the rest day yesterday. After my morning meeting I hopped on the rower and did 733 meters in 3:00 to warm up.

Engine Builder – Max Aerobic Power

20 Rounds

30s Row
30s Rest

Got to > 1,600 cal/hr by the 4th pull and then held 1,650-1,750, though was over 1,800 at times too. My starting leg drive faded in the second half of the workout so I had to hold a higher pace after getting the flywheel up to speed. I got exactly 13 calories each time for 260 total and went 3,105 meters for an average of 155.25 with a range of 156-154. A few weeks ago when it was 18 rounds, my average was 147.4 meters with a range of 150-145. Much better in every aspect today. Most of the improvement probably comes from having a better idea of what pace I’m capable of.

Went to the gym at 4pm, my first class (not counting Open workouts) since March 6th when I tweaked my back.

Warm-up

3 Rounds

10 cal Bike
10 Kip Swings
10 Push-ups

Gymnastics

10:00 EMOM

5 Strict Pull-ups
5 Strict Ring Dips

In the seventh minute I started doing 3-2 on the pull-ups.

Conditioning

Partner Workout

100 cal Assault Bike
100 Sumo KB Deadlifts (40kg)
100 Burpees

I worked with Weston and Brandi who did their part at the same time. The were on rowers and did regular deadlifts. I actually think it may be quicker to rack up calories on the Assault Bike for 20-30 seconds with rests because I think I was under 30 seconds most rounds. It just wears on you more because I was really slowing down by the 4th and 5th ones. We split the deadlifts up in 10s and the burpees in 5s. Took us around 12:43.

Accessory

4 Sets

10/10 Single Leg Hip Thrusts (20″ box)
20 Banded Pull-throughs (green band)

We had time so I knocked out some butt stuff. Single leg hip thrusts are much harder than glute bridges!

Unrecovered PR

I guarantee I’m not going to any time soon, but I keep thinking I want to redo 19.5 to put in a better effort. Hopefully I stop thinking about it after today’s workout. I have to remember I got through these last three workouts with a significant injury, which prevented me from attending classes; I haven’t been able to squat at all or press any weight overhead. It will still be close to my best, if not the best, Open percentile ranking in the 8 years I’ve done it.

My quads and traps are incredibly sore today. Probably worse than post-Karen DOMS. Went to open gym at noon.

Warm-up

3:00 Assault Bike (33 cals)
Dead Hang & Stretching
Shoulder Passes

Conditioning

J.T.
21-15-9

HSPU
Ring Dip
Push-up

The first time I tried this hero WOD, we greatly underestimated it and had to scale back to 21-11. Then two summers ago I completed it in 10:06. My goal for today was to go sub nine. The plan was 3×7, 3×5, and 5-4 for both types of push-ups and all triples for the dips. Figured it would come down to the ring dips.

I ended up doing 3 equal sets for all HSPU. Ring dips were 7×3, then 2 sets of 3 and the rest quick singles. For push-ups I struggled through 3×7 and then did triples the rest of the way. Finished in 8:04 for a 2:02 PR!!

108-72-36 Double Unders
36-24-12 Goblet Lunges (53/35#)
12-8-4 Burpee Broad Jumps

Missed two dubs in the first round after 71 in a row and I don’t think I missed in the other sets. I thought the lunges were going to be harder than they were. Took me 8:01.

Accessory

3 Sets

Dumbbell Curls – 21s (25#)
10/10 Single Leg Glute Bridges (squeeze at the top)
30s/30s Single Leg Stand (squeeze glute)

Midline

4 Rounds

10/10 Side V-ups
20 Leg Circles
10/10 Wood Choppers (25#)
20 Plank Jumps
20 Flutter Kicks

Took 10:23, which is 2:17 quicker than about a month ago. Wonder if the plank jumps will fire up my hip flexors like last time.

I planned to do some rowing intervals tonight, but my WHOOP recovery is only 12% and Mom is visiting for the night, so cancel that. Tomorrow will probably be a complete rest day, unless I get back in the green. Either these Open workouts are really blowing me up or the cardio work is more taxing than I’d expect.

Speed Levels

My body (and ego) was already very sore when I got out of bed this morning. Thinking back on 19.5, it’s not the first time I gave in on a 20 minute Open workout when shit got tough. I knew I was resting way too long between sets of thrusters, but I didn’t make a change. Not thinking to switch to kipping C2B after I felt the butterfly disappear was a huge mistake too. As always, more things to improve and at the end of the day, it’s just fitness.

Last night after dinner I ate a whole pint of ice cream for the end of the Open. I ended up eating 3,700 calories for the day and dropped a pound on the scale! After finally recovering to the green zone yesterday morning, it was a high strain day at 15.5, so I probably shouldn’t have stayed up until almost 2am. Apparently I’m recovered to 61% this morning though.

Strength

Bench Press

8×45#
8×95
8×125
8×155
8×180
8×195
8×205

It’s an extra challenge on this wider Titan Fitness rack, especially when using the spotter arms. Made me slow a bit on my reps and focus. Went 10 pounds heavier than the last couple of times I did sets of 8.

Accessory

4 Sets

10 Good Mornings (45#, 33X1 Tempo)
20 Banded Pull-throughs (green)

View this post on Instagram

Trying out tempo good mornings. Don't need much weight. I'm working on posterior chain strength to rehab my low back issues. Paired these with banded pull-throughs.

A post shared by Nick Momrik (@nickmomrik) on Mar 23, 2019 at 10:21am PDT

Conditioning

100m Row
2:00 Rest
100m Row
2:00 Rest
250m Row
4:00 Rest
500m Row
8:00 Rest
1,000m Row
4:00 Rest
4,000m Row

The BTWB fitness level keeps using rowing intervals (I’ve brought it up to their Support team in the past) as if it’s a time trial, so this workout was specifically to improve some of my rankings in the speed category. I did a 16.2 for the first 100 so bumped the damper up to 8 and got 15.9, still off my 15.5 PR. I left the damper for the 250 and got 40.3 seconds, also off my PR of 38.3.

Look how much the rower moved during those first 3 sprints! I bet I lost some time.

Then I set the damper back to 5-6. Got 1:30.5 for the 500 meters, which is pretty far off my best 1:23.5. I faded pretty hard on the last quarter of both the 250 and the 500. Hoped for 1:45/500m pace on the 1k, but my legs didn’t have it. Ended up with a time of 3:34.7, which is only 5 seconds faster than the 1k repeats I did last night. Those sprints really drained my power. Then I was holding an easy 2:10/500m pace for the 4k, which took 17:16.8.

Still a lot of room to bring the 1k and 500m times closer to my potential.

19.5 is Dumb

Here are my results for the previous workout…

19.4

Open Men: 29,091 / 153,496 (81.0%)
Masters 35-39 Men: 4,653 / 31,148 (85.1%)

Overall

Open Men: 15,389 / 185,449 (91.7%)
Masters 35-39 Men: 2,134 / 37,500 (94.3%)

Having a high skill like bar muscle-ups helped me in that workout. After last year’s terrible 46.6 percentile in 18.2 with bar-facing burpees I worked on the movement all year. So I’m happy that this year’s workout with the burpee was the 81st percentile. Wish I wasn’t injured because I could have done even better. The lower workout ranking didn’t drop me much in either of the overall standings. One more week, so I was looking for a good performance to finish my best Open.

Warm-up

5:00 Assault Bike (40 cals)
Bottom Squat Hold
10 Air Squats
Dead Hang
Shoulder Passes
Kip Swings
Thrusters
- 5×45#
- 5×75#
5 Pull-ups

CrossFit Games Open Workout 19.5

33-27-21-15-9

Thrusters (95#)
C2B Pull-ups

This is the dumbest workout ever programmed in the Open. The majority of people are going to be working for 20 minutes on two movements, which means A LOT of resting. The huge sets to start off don’t do us any favors.

After looking at some of my previous results, it quickly became clear that my goal should be to finish under the time cap. Small sets right from the start and hopefully with short rests. If I don’t go slow at the beginning, I know my heart rate would be way too high by 5:00 and I’d be standing around way too much is the last 75% of the workout, especially if pull-ups blow up.

The plan for thrusters was 6-6-6-5-5-5, 6-6-5-5-5, 6-5-5-5, 5-5-5, 5-4. For pull-ups three at a time as long as possible.

Speaking of strategy… people give some terrible recommendations in posts and videos during the Open. One guy on reddit shares his post every week and he recommended taking your max set of C2B and doing sets of 50% (or more) of that number! For example he said if you can do less than 7 reps, aim for sets of 4 and less than 14 max should do sets of 8!! I don’t care what kind of athlete you are, that’s a one way road to Blow Up City in the round of 33. I really hope these kind of people are not coaches.

The round of 33 went as planned and took me about 5:10. I was even feeling good about my pull-ups. Then it was a shit show. I kept my thruster sets as planned but stared at the barbell too much the rest of the way. I think I did one chest-to-bar triple to start 27 and singles the rest of the way. Wish I had thought to try a regular kip, but I totally spaced on that. Only got through the round of 15s, for 192 total reps. Not a good effort and not how I wanted to end the Open. 😦

19-5

At least my back felt pretty good, but I have to remember that the only time I’ve picked up a barbell in the last 2.5 weeks was 19.4, so the squats probably took more out of me than they should have. Maybe next year I’ll make it through an Open without an injury. My quads were sore within an hour so I think my body is going to be beat for the next few days.

Engine Builder – Interval

4 Rounds

1k Row
1:00 Rest

Figured I might as well get on the rower while watching Duke and see if I could put in a good effort for the day. My goal was to hold a 1:50/500m pace and I pulled it off. Had to really hold on after the second interval. I got 73 calories each interval and the times were 3:39.8, 3:39.7, 3:39.6, and 3:39.7. Can’t get more consistent than that.

Maybe I should have doe

In the Yellow

I’m getting a lot of sleep, but WHOOP says I’m still not recovering to the green zone; been in the yellow every morning after 19.4 and the rowing I did on Friday. My back continues to feel better each day. My legs feel tired walking up the stairs today.

Too much I’d have to substitute at the gym again, so did everything at home.

Warm-up

3:00 Row (805m)

Engine Builder – Anaerobic

6 Rounds

45s Row
3:30 Rest

Tried to get over 2,200 cal/hr by the 5th pull and stay there. My calories were 26-27-27-27-26-26 and you can see below that I started running out of steam after the 3rd interval. This was pretty nasty.

2019-03-20-row

Looking back at my 250m PR, I pulled 45 strokes/min. I guess I need to cycle through my strokes faster.

Accessory

Dumbbell Curls – 21s

3 Sets 7-7-7 @ 25#

Got up to the 25s with all three sets. One more session and then I’ll switch things up. Really happy with the progress in under 2 months.

Conditioning

5 Rounds

20 Hand Release Push-ups
30 Sit-ups

Wanted something where I could keep moving but not too intense after the anaerobic work. This did the trick. I did 4×5 every round of push-ups. First set was done in 40 seconds and about 50 for round two before I started taking a little more rest between every five push-ups. Sit-ups felt good the whole way and took about a minute each round. Finished in 9:35.

Complete rest day tomorrow.