May 2020 – Nick Momrik's Fitness Logs

Add Hip Abduction

Each night my back seems to be a bit worse, though hasn’t bothered me rolling over yet. Has been fine after I’m up and moving around, which is good. My ass is sore from yesterday! Out in the garage at 10am.

Warm-up

10:00 BikeErg (4,426m)
Monster Walks
20 PVC Passes

Back

5 Sets

10 Straight Arm Pull Down (35, 4×50#)

4 Sets

10 Wide Grip Lat Pull Downs (80#)
10 Behind Neck Lat Pull Downs (80#)
10 Close Grip Lat Pull Downs (80#)

This gets so bad. I think the 40 muscle-ups from yesterday really affected those close grip pull downs.

4 Sets

10 Seated Cable Row (75#)
MAX Strict Chin-ups (10-8-6-5)

Why are strict chin-ups so hard after all this stuff?

4 Sets

10 Inverted Bar Row
10 Seated Bent Over Back Flies (30# DBs)

Haven’t done the bar rows in a long time. I like those.

Midline

4 Sets

12 Low-Pulley Knee-In w/ pause (20#)
12 Plate Crunches w/ pause (45#)
5/5 Hip Abducted Evil Wheels
50m Sandbag Carry (100#)

I’m going to be feeling this for a few days. I feel like I’ve gotten pretty good with evil wheels, but the hip abduction is a game changer. I used a PVC pipe through a 45# plate, which also adds a lot more instability compared to a barbell with plates.

In the evening I modified an old ab wheel.

The World is Our Playground

My legs are tired from yesterday’s workout. We loaded up the truck at 10am and went to Elmer Lange Park, which is a couple of minutes down the road.

Warm-up

100’ Monster Walks (lateral, then front/back)
10 Monster Squats

Conditioning / Strength

20-18-16-14-12-10-12-14-16-18-20
* I Go You Go

Weighted Plyo Lunges (35# DBs)

The last time we did this our time was 8:37, with me using 30# dumbbells and Brandi taking the vest off part way through. I figured I’d bump the weight back up today and Brandi wore an 8# vest the entire time. I had to start breaking my sets on the way up at 14, but Brandi did every set unbroken. We finished in 8:43 with both of us doing harder versions, so that’s a big win!

Gymnastics

16:00 EMOM (alt)

5 Muscle-ups
10 Decline Pushups (feet on swings)

This park is much better than the school I went to for 30 muscle-ups because the swing set is at least a foot higher.

The muscle-ups felt really good and I never was in danger of missing any reps. Even my kip for the dip felt great. As I went for my last set I noticed the straps had slid closer together and the buckles had moved all the way down. The damn rolled up extra strapping was smacking me in the face on the last three reps! Here’s a video of that final set.

Conditioning

10 Sets

70m Hill Sprint
Walk down

I never knew this hill was there otherwise I’d have been using it for years! This was a really fun session away from the garage.

Soak up the Sun

My back was a little worse through the night and when I woke up this morning. Could feel it a bit here and there through the day. My hands ached this morning as I sat and drank my coffee. Worked out at 2pm today.

Warm-up

Monster Walks
10 Monster Band Squats
20 PVC Passes

Midline

4 Rounds

12/12 Hanging Oblique Raise
12 Weighted V-ups (20# MB)
12/12 Wood Chopper (30# DB)
30s Seated Plate Twist (10# plate)

Took exactly 16:00!

Conditioning

40:00 AMRAP

40/30 cal BikeErg
30s Rest
40 DB Push Jerks (30/20# DBs)
30s Rest
400m Run
30s Rest
40/30 cal Row
30s Rest

I mapped out the 400 meters to be out to edge of Dundee and back. Originally I had the SkiErg programmed, but replaced it with the push jerks to break it up a bit.

We took the machines and dumbbells outside for some sun. I held a pretty steady pace on everything. Went 24-16 on the first and fourth rounds of jerks and 15-15-10 on the second and third. Finished 4 rounds plus 40 calories on the bike with 16 seconds to spare on the clock. I really like that bike and am so glad I bought one.

Low Bar Muscle-ups

Made the last minute decision to golf yesterday morning because the weather forecast showed rain for today. Last night I had to mow the damn lawn again. When I got in bed last night I felt my back a bit and then each time I got up to use the bathroom; like a very minor tweak. After properly waking up and moving around it hasn’t bothered me throughout the day though. Out in the garage at 4pm.

Warm-up

5:00 Airdyne (99 cal, 2.51 km)
Steamboats
5 Wide Grip Bench Press (45#)
5 Bench Press (45#)
5 Close Grip Bench Press (45#)

Strength / Accessory

3 Sets

10 Wide Grip Bench Press
10 Bench Press
10 Close Grip Bench Press

I used 95-105-115# and it made me feel so weak. Haha!!

3 Sets

12 Underhand DB Bench (45#)
24 Single Arm Underhand DB Fly (20#, standing, alternating)

3 Sets

10 Z Press (30-35-35# DBs)
10/10 Half Kneeling Windmill Press (25# KB, 35-35# DB)

Nasty superset.

4 Sets

10 Front to Lateral Raise (8# DBs)

Wouldn’t really want to go much heavier than that to keep safe.

Was screwing around on the pull-up bar that I lowered since adding the one built from pipe and realized I can do jumping bar muscle-ups in a workout!

View this post on Instagram

Bar Muscle-up and Jumping Bar Muscle-up on a really low bar?!

A post shared by Nick Momrik (@nickmomrik) on May 28, 2020 at 1:41pm PDT

Conditioning

12:00 EMOM (45s Work)

cal BikeErg
Parallette HSPU (4” deficit)
T2B
50m Farmer Carry (70# & 53# KBs)

I hit back on the monitor going in to round two and it took forever to save, so didn’t start up right away, but I assume I was pretty close to my other rounds, which were both 20 calories. Went 5-4 on the handstand push-ups each round. Got 20 toes-to-bars each time, but with a different strategy each round, doing 10-10, 10-5-5, and 4×5. I did not wear grips today. Had some extra rest time on the carry, but that got shorter each round.

The Family is Complete

My hands are tight, I can feel my lats some, and my legs are a bit sore. Overall pretty good the day after Murph though! Out in the garage at 3:30 to put together my new toy!

bikeerg

Nothing like 90° and high humidity for a workout!

Warm-up

Monster Walks
Pause Front Squats (3s)
- 5×45#
- 3×95#

Strength

5 Sets

3 Front Squats (3s pause)
8/8 Lateral Step-ups (30/24″)
2:00 Rest

I didn’t go crazy on the weight after the 300 air squats yesterday. Went 3 sets with 135 pounds, 145, and 165. Felt solid.

Conditioning

5:00 AMRAP

Buy-in: 40/32 cal BikeErg
MAX alt Single Arm Devil’s Press (50/35#)

**5:00 Rest & Repeat

Wasn’t sure how the calories turn over on the bike compared to the rower and skier. Seems pretty similar to the rower though. I was holding around 1,500 cal/hr. First time I got 27 devil’s presses and then 30 the next time. Doing the single arm variation was a good intro back to the movement for me with my back and felt good

I watched a couple of quick videos earlier that said you want to hold 80-95 RPM and then change your effort based on the damper, which was good for me at about 5. I also watched how to setup the seat and handles and ended up on the 23 setting for both. May have to mess around with higher handles to see how it feels.

Midline

5 Sets

10 Weighted V-ups (25# plate)
20 Side Plank Jumps
30 Hollow Scissor Kicks

After round one I knew this was going to suck. Held on for unbroken though, finishing in 7:29.

2020 Murph

Yesterday I did several hours of yard work and then rested other than a few frog stands. Out in the garage at 9am today, when it was already hitting 70° and still near 100% humidity. We just haven’t had this type of weather yet, so today was a hell of a workout for an intro to it!

Warm-up

Monster Walks
20 PVC Passes

“Murph”

2020-murph-mile

1 Mile Run
100 Pull-ups
200 Push-ups
300 Air Squats
1 Mile Run

*Partition the pull-ups, push-ups, and squats anyway you like.

I was hoping to run the first mile a little faster and be more consistent through the 20 rounds of 5-10-15 than last year, when I set a PR with 35:28. Then hold on far that last mile run. It was exactly 8:00 on the clock when I jumped up to the bar, compared to 8:26 last year. It took me 17:11 to get through the 20 rounds, compared to around 18:17 last year. Run may have been a little slower this year (9:07) though. My time was 34:18 for a PR by 1:10!

I wore my Garmin watch and planned to use the lap timer because it worked so well last year. I forgot to hit the button after round one and then in round five my wrist must have hit a button to quit the workout so I took it off. I did have a camera going and roughly figured out my round times, which were all under a minute. They were 40, 44, 43, 50, 49 (grabbed chips when watch reset), 46, 47, 51, 51, 54, 52, 56, 57, 55, 54, 55, 55, 56, 57, and 59 (grabbed sunglasses and turned around) seconds.

View this post on Instagram

🇺🇸 34:18 Murph! 🇺🇸

A post shared by Nick Momrik (@nickmomrik) on May 25, 2020 at 7:26am PDT

Over the years…

2012 – 44:26
2013 – 39:41
2014 – 40:17
2015 – 37:18
2016 – 37:11
2018 – 43:10 (ring rows)
2019 – 35:28
2020 – 34:18

Not bad to keep improving at 40-years-old!

The heat and humidity was pretty nasty. Brandi had the bright idea to do some ab work after, so we did.

Midline

5 Sets

10/10 Side V-ups
10 Parallette Shoot Throughs

We did these I Go You Go style. My core strength is coming back because the shoot throughs were much easier than about a month ago.

Another Pull-up Bar

Feeling my ass a bit from yesterday’s lunges. I was out in the garage working on a new pull-up bar before Monday. I might redo the board because the right side has some flex to it.

new-pull-up-bar

Finally started our workout around 10:30. Doing back day on Saturday this week since tomorrow will be a rest day.

5 Sets

10 Straight Arm Pull Down (45#)

5 Sets

10 Wide Grip Lat Pull Downs
10 Behind Neck Lat Pull Downs
10 Close Grip Lat Pull Downs

Nasty super set! I used 60-60-70-80-80#.

5 Sets

10 Seated Cable Row (60#)
10 Leaning Seated Cable Row (60#)

5 Set Drop Set

8 Incline Prone DB Rows (50#)
4 Max rep Drop Sets (45-40-35-30#)

The idea here is to hit a heavy set of eight, then decrease the weight and hit a max set until you get in five total sets. I got 12-10-10-16 on my max rep sets.

We skipped ab work since we just did some yesterday and those were some brutal sets today!

In the afternoon I remounted the pull-up bar because one side of the board was flexing too much. It’s solid now!

pull-up-bar-v2

Weight on the Curtsy

News if the golf course was able to open flip-flopped yesterday morning and then eventually they opened. I took advantage of the beautiful day and it was so nice to be out on the course. Mowed the lawn in the evening too. Out in the garage at 4pm today.

Warm-up

5:00 SkiErg (1,056m)
Monster Walks
Muscle Snatch
- 5×45#
- 5×75#
Power Snatch
- 5×95#

Gymnastics / Weightlifting

10:00 EMOM (alt)

45s HS Hold
5 Power Snatch (115#)

Had to get this combo in because I had to bail out a couple weeks ago an the snatches and did seated dumbbell shoulder presses instead. I haven’t done a snatch since February 9th, when I returned from Dubai and then it led to the bad back tweak the next day. Felt ok today.

Conditioning

5 Rounds

20 Front Rack Curtsy Lunges (95/65#)
30 Plyo Lunges
20 HR Push-ups
1:00 Rest

I was going to do a goblet variation of these curtsy lunges last week but decided to go unweighted being the first time with them. Saw these front rack lunges from Eramo’s training and had to try them. My round times were 1:53, 2:12, 2:26, 2:23, and 2:28 to finish at 15:22 on the clock. The plyo lunges got real nasty in the third round, but I held on doing both lunge movements unbroken throughout. I stuck to 4×5 on the push-ups every round, but got progressively slower.

Midline

4 Rounds

6 Strict T2B
20 alt Weighted V-ups (15# plate)
10 Renegade Rows (35# DBs)
45s Rest

Finished this in 8:34.

Balancing

5:00 Frog Stands

I’m already so much better with these in this being my third session.

Area Flooding

I got some super sleep with about 9.5 hours last night and woke up to massive flooding in the surrounding areas. Luckily I’m five miles from the Tittabawassee River. My body feels pretty good. Out in the garage at 4pm.

Warm-up

3:00 SkiErg (635m)
Steamboats

Conditioning

15:00 AMRAP – 1-2-3…

HSPU
Burpee
Power Clean (115/80#)

Thinking back, this is 3x as long with one more movement, compared to five minutes of burpees and HSPU last month, when I did 7+10. Definitely required more pacing today. I started out at a pretty solid pace though and was through round six around 5:00. I had done all my handstand push-ups unbroken at that point. Then I started breaking them up, going 4-3, 4-4, 3-3-3, 4-3-3, 6-2. Final score was 10+8. I was able to do every set of cleans unbroken, which felt good.

Strength / Accessory

4 Sets

8 DB Shoulder Press (35#)
50m Double DB OH Carry (35#)

Holding two dumbbells overhead is a real mobility test!

4 Sets

6/6 Single Arm DB Bench Press (50#, w/ rotation)
6 DB Bench Press (50#)

This was much harder than I expected.

3 Sets

12 DB Underhand Bench Press (40#)
24 Alt Seated Underhand Raise (20# DBs)

Gymnastics

Later in the evening I did five minutes of practice doing frog stands to work on hand balance. Then I also did this long hold after a bit of rest to get a video for the ‘gram.

Front, Pistol, and Air

Rained for almost two straight days so no golf yesterday and it may not dry up enough to play Thursday. I got some water in my basement that I had to clean up and later spent a little time making improvements to the cable pulley system. In the evening I spent about five minutes practicing hand balancing with the frog stand and wow do my hands and wrists feel it today! Out in the garage at 4pm.

Warm-up

8:00 Airdyne (158 cals, 4.01 km)
Monster Walks
Monster Squats
Front Squat
- 10×45#
- 5×95
- 5×135

Strength

5 Sets

5 Front Squat (165#)
16 Pistols

Front squats felt much heavier than I’d like and the pistols got my heart rate going. Happy to be squatting though. Haven’t done a workout with pistols since November, so they went surprisingly well.

Conditioning

25 T2B
50 Air Squats
25 Pull-ups
4:00 Rest & Repeat

The plan was 25 Goblet Squats (53#), but I didn’t want to push it after the strength work. Fifty air squats turned out to be the worst part of the workout; going from hip flexors in toes-to-bars to that many squats lit up my hips! I went 15-10 on both gymnastics movements for 3:01 in the first attempt. Then I jumped the gun and got up for a few reps after only three minutes of rest! Went 15-10 T2B and 15-5-5 pull-ups for 10:09 with the second attempt.

Midline

4 Rounds

10 Hollow Rocks
10 V-ups
10 Tuck-ups
10s Hollow Hold
1:00 Rest

**Try to do each round unbroken

It’s been over a year since we did this one. It also happened to be the first time I made it through unbroken with a time of 6:08. I was falling apart in round three and then hit the wall in round four and had to break. Still managed a 6:12 though.

I did a little bit of floor PT exercises, which I’ve been slacking on.