Nick Momrik

Screw the Rest Day

I couldn’t help myself and had to get in for a WOD tonight. Matt had posted some pictures on Facebook showing that deadlifts were part of the WOD today. I love deadlifting, so I got all excited and it didn’t take long for me to decide I’d hit the gym. Well, he switched up the WOD for the night classes and no deadlifts. Night classes got one of the Hero benchmarks instead.

Warm-up

25-20-15-10-5

Lunges
Tuck Jumps

WOD

“Helton” Hero Benchmark
3 rounds

800m Run
30 DB Squat Cleans (40#)
30 Burpees

WOW! This one was a bruiser of a WOD, as most of the Hero benchmarks usually are. The WOD calls for using 50# DBs as Rx, but we don’t have any and I wouldn’t have been able to do that anyway. I could have tried the 45s, but I wouldn’t have been able to keep up much intensity. I settled on the 40s which worked out pretty well. If I had used 35s I would have been able to push a little harder, but I was still able to finish under the 40 minute time limit we had, so I’m happy. I finished in 36:56.

For the first two rounds I tried to stick to sets of 5 squat cleans, other than at the beginning when I probably did a few more reps in the first couple of sets to start. In the 3rd round I was getting mostly sets of 4. All burpees were done unbroken, but pretty damn slow.

After doing 110 goblet squats and 110 burpees yesterday, this WOD had a lot of similarities, so hopefully the next two days will be something completely different. Then Saturday and Sunday are rest days for sure since I’ll be out-of-town visiting some friends.

Killer Medicine Ball Warm-up

Still pretty sore from Sunday’s WOD and some new soreness from doing “Cindy” yesterday. I can really feel all of those push-ups. I don’t remember the last time I was this sore to be honest.

Warm-up

30 yards down and back

Zombie Kicks
High Knees
Butt Kicks
Power Skips

5 rounds with 20# MB

1m OH Lunges
1m Sit-ups
1m Front Squats
1m Diamond Push-ups (on ball)
1m OH Squats
1m Rest

The MB work was a real arm and shoulder killer. It got the legs nice and loose for the WOD too.

WOD

20-18-16-14-12-10-8-6-4-2

Burpees
Goblet Squats (50# KB)

The burpees were much harder than usual due to doing 186 chest-to-ground push-ups yesterday and about 60 MB diamond push-ups in the warm-up. All sets of burpees were done unbroken, but I had to break each round of goblet squats into 2 sets until I got to the round of 10 when I went unbroken the rest of the way. I finished in 15:08.

Strength

5×5 Weighted Pull-ups
Take 2 minutes of rest after each set and try to increase the weight each set.

For my sets I used 8#, 10#, 12#, 15#, and 15#. I might have even come up just short on the 5th rep in the last set, so I’m glad I didn’t try to increase to 20# which would have been the next jump. I actually stayed after class to finish this off because there was a 15 minute gap before the next class started. I know I need the work to increase my strength. This is a huge improvement over the last time I did weighted pull-ups and used 12# for the last 3 sets.

My Revenge on “Cindy”

My lower back has been pretty sore all day from yesterday’s multiple short WODs involving hang power cleans and deadlifts. It’s a good sore though.

Warm-up

5 rounds

15s Jumping Jacks
15s Squats
15s Mountain climbers
15s Squat Jumps

I took it easy during the warm-up because I knew what was in store and there were a lot of squats coming in the WOD.

Skills

Tabata: Ring L-sits

Tabata: Over the box jumps (24″)

For the Ring L-sits I wasn’t able to keep my legs out for long and had to resort to holding my knees up as long as possible. My arms actually started to give out sooner once I switched to the knee tuck version. Over the box jumps were new and a welcome challenge. Since my basketball days I’ve always enjoyed jumping. I managed 6 or 7 over the box jumps during each 20s period.

WOD

Today we each got to choose between “Cindy” or “Mary” for the WOD. I have a little history with “Cindy” so this was an easy choice for me. Without that history I would have chosen “Mary” because I could use the work on HSPUs and lots of pull-ups. So, what’s that history with “Cindy” you ask?

I started CrossFit almost 8 months ago. My first on-ramp session was supposed to be a 1/2 “Cindy”, but I only made it into minute 6 or 7 before I nearly passed out and was literally on the ground for the next 30 minutes. I was doing ring rows instead of pull-ups and only managed 3 rounds. It was one of the most humiliating moments of my life, but I was instantly hooked on CrossFit.

Fast forward a month and a half after that, when I did jumping pull-ups during “Cindy” and completed 12 rounds plus 5 more jumping pull-ups and 1 push-up. Oh, and I also had to switch from regular push-ups to knee push-ups in round 7 or 8.

As you might expect, I wanted my revenge on that bitch!

“Cindy”
20:00 AMRAP

5 Pull-ups
10 Push-ups
15 Air Squats

Today I completed my first Rx “Cindy” doing kipping pull-ups and chest-to-ground push-ups the entire way. Those first 3 rounds were done right around the 3:00 mark. All pull-ups were unbroken and other than a few sips of water, I never took more than a 1 or 2 second break during some of the push-ups and air squat sets. I definitely had to take the most breaks during the push-ups, but would only rest for a second or two at the top of a push-up before doing more. I ended up with 18 rounds plus 5 pull-ups and 6 push-ups, so scored 18+11 on the WOD!

Take that “Cindy”! I hope we can be friends now. 🙂

Hang Power Clean Work

My body is pretty sore from Friday even though I took yesterday off from the gym. I did walk 18 holes of golf in the tournament, which was exhausting enough out in the hot sun for close to 6 hours.

Warm-up

2 rounds

10 PVC Shoulder Shrug & Roll
10 PVC Shoulder Pass-thrus
10 PVC OHS
10 Plank Push-ups

Skill Warm-up

Hang Power Cleans

5x 45#
5x 65#
5x 85#
5x 105#
5x 115#

WOD

Score is total reps performed during 3 AMRAPs.

7:00 AMRAP

10 Hang Power Cleans (115#)
10 Burpees

2:00 Rest

5:00 AMRAP

7 Deadlifts (135#)
7 Ring Dips

1:00 Rest

1:00 AMRAP

Air Squats

I really liked this WOD because we got in some barbell work and switched things up with smaller time domains where you could go all out. We paired up and one person completed the entire WOD while the other person counted. Then we switched roles.

For the first AMRAP, I did 4 rounds plus 10 hang power cleans and 8 burpees. 135# is Rx for guys, but when I saw the WOD, I figured 115# would be a good weight for me. I was right. I had to break each round of cleans up into 2 or 3 sets after that first set. Burpees were all done unbroken. If it was full power cleans I think I would have tried 135# even though I would have been much slower.

In the second AMRAP, I did 5 rounds plus 4 deadlifts. The ring dips took the most time for me because I had to break them up into small sets pretty early on. I think I did the first round unbroken, but not after that. Deadlifts at 135# is pretty easy, but we stuck to a standard of everyone adding 20# to whatever weight they used for the cleans.

To finish things off I did 45 air squats. My endurance with the air squats is starting to get better, but is still nowhere near the top dogs in the gym. So my reps were 98, 74, and 45 for a 217 total.

I think I’ll probably go for a run later to finally test out the Nike Frees.

Update: It wasn’t too much later. I figured there was no point in showering more than I had to for the day so I rested a bit and then went out for the run. Went 3.6 miles in 28:55 and was able to keep an unbelievably steady pace, which never happens for me. According to RunKeeper, my mile splits were 8:05, 8:06, and 8:06. I picked up the pace at the end and averaged a 7:47 pace for the last 3/5 of a mile. The shoes felt really good for a first run and not being used to them.

Double Me

Last night I went for a 3.65 mile brisk walk to break in the Nike Free shoes and just relax. This morning I had the first round of the Saginaw District Golf Association Invitational Tournament, so walked 18 holes on the course. I shot terrible!

Warm-up

8:00 AMRAP

10 PVC Shoulder Pass-thrus
40 Lateral Hops (20 each leg)
30s Plank

I have no idea how many rounds I did. Didn’t count since it was the warm-up and the pass-thrus are not something to rush through.

WOD

4 rounds

20 Pull-ups
30 KBS (53#)
40 Box Jumps (24″)

I finished in 21:50. I’ve really been struggling with my pull-ups lately, but they came back around today. I concentrated on really snapping my hips and pushing away from the bar at the top, which I’ve been forgetting to do. For the box jumps I rebounded off the floor on well over half of the reps.

Finisher

Death by Burpees

I finished off the round of 12 with over 30 seconds left in that minute and then Cari turned off the clock for the end of class. Not exactly sure why since it was open gym right after. Would have been nice to see how far I could get, but I guess I won’t complain about doing less burpees since I did 115 of them yesterday and that’s another 78 today.

Open Gym

First thing on my agenda was to set a deadlift PR. I did the following:

10x 135#
5x 225#
5x 265#
3x 305#
1x 335# (matching PR)
1x 355# (new PR)
FAIL at 365#
1x 365# (new PR)

BAM! That’s more that twice my body weight and a 30# PR. Hell yeah!

After that I worked on snatches for a while, doing some small sets with 85#, some small sets with 105#, and a few singles at 125#. Then I moved back down to 85# and worked on the squat snatch for a while. I have no idea how many sets or reps I did of any of this. I was more concerned with working on some technique.

I was going to start some work on butterfly pull-ups, but my hands were already pretty sore from the 80 pull-ups and deadlifting. With the 2nd round of the tournament tomorrow, I need to be able to swing a golf club. So I got out the prowler instead. Loaded it up with four 45# plates and did a 30 yard (?) high push followed by a low push back. Did that 5 times, with plenty of rest in between each down and back, before my legs just couldn’t do the low push anymore.

I was ready to head home, but Casey was doing some strict shoulder presses, so I jumped in with him.

3x 85#
3x 105#
3x 105#
3x 125#
3x 125#
1x 135#

I didn’t realize it at the time, but this was a 10# PR! Looking back at my posts, I had done 125# for 5 reps, but never more than that. I mistakenly thought I had done 145#, but it was the push press. (I had to update this section of the post 4 times because I kept getting the weights wrong)

I’m spent! I got to the box just after 4 for the 4:15 class and left open gym just before 7pm. Three hours of solid work. Tomorrow is going to be a rest day for sure.

Resting Burpees

Not much rest after hitting the 8pm class last night, but I wanted to attend the 9am this morning and give my body all day to rest up for tomorrow. It’s the first round of the Saginaw District Association Invitational Tournament, which I qualified for a couple of weeks ago. My tee time is at 9:20am and then 10:30 on Saturday.

Warm-up

5 rounds

1m Plank
1m V-ups
1m Mountain Climbers
1m K2E
1m Russian Twists (35# KB)
1m Rest

I pushed hard in everything except for the K2E because I didn’t want to mess up my hands for the golf tournament.

WOD

100 DB Squat Clean Thrusters (30# DBs)
Every minute on the minute (except for at the beginning), do 5 burpees.

In the past, we’ve been allowed to take a minute off, but after Matt talked to some people at the CrossFit Level 1 course, that’s not what they usually do. You can skip the clean thrusters for a minute, but you have to do the burpees if you want to perform the worked Rx. I figured I’d give it a try.

In the first minute I was able to get 12 reps for a decent start. During each minute I tried to stop doing the clean thrusters with 10-15 seconds left as a little rest period before starting my burpees. It didn’t take long to realize that 5 reps per minute was going to be a good number for me. I went straight through to 50 reps, did the burpees and took the rest of the minute off. Then I did sets of 6-5-4 to get me to 65, where I did my burpees and rested the rest of the minute. I did that again to get to 80 reps, and did my last burpees with rest minute. Then I think I did 6-6-4-4 to finish off with a time of 23:42.

The 100 squat clean thrusters is no joke, but the sneaky hard part of this WOD was the burpees. If you don’t take any minutes off they really add up. I did 23 rounds of 5 burpees for a total of 115. Hell, 100 burpees for time is a WOD on its own! This was one of the tougher WODs, but I really liked it because thrusters are one of my weaknesses.

Update: Wow, this was my 200th post on this blog. What an incredible journey this has been. I can’t wait to see where the next few months go.

Karen Plus Helen

Today was another scorcher and I had gone out walking 18 holes of golf this morning, so I went to the 8pm class hoping it would cool off some. I just got home (9:15 pm as I write this) and it’s still 86 degrees out.

Warm-up

50-40-30-20-10 DUs
25-20-15-10-5 Burpees

I finished in 7:59 and had good rhythm with the DUs through each set.

WOD

Split up Karen 6 ways and mix the pieces with Helen. What do you get? Haren? Kelen? How about a suck fest?

25 Wall Balls (20# MB)
400m Run
21 KBS (55#)
25 Wall Balls
12 Pull-ups
400m Run
25 Wall Balls
21 KBS
12 Pull-ups
25 Wall Balls
400m Run
21 KBS
25 Wall Balls
12 Pull-ups
25 Wall Balls

I knocked out the best time of the day at 20:59 with one of the owners, Cora, right behind me setting the 2nd best time of the day at 21:06. After we were both done we were talking about how we would not have pushed as hard if the other hadn’t been there, which is so true. Out of the corner of your eye you might see someone close to your level catching up to you or taking a break. That small glimpse makes you push to extend your lead or catch up. In the end, we all make each other better.

Chase’s Birthday WOD

Sometimes we’ll do a birthday WOD on or near someone’s birthday. Usually it has something to do with their name and their age. Last Thursday was Chase’s birthday, but he was out-of-town, so we “celebrated” today. For the 5:30 class it was 92 degrees with 40% humidity. I think the weather contributed to a smaller class size than usual especially since it looked like the 4:15 class only had a handful of folks as well. We had 6 people show up and only one was female, which is very rare for Survival Fitness. I bet membership is 2-1 in favor of the women, but I’m not complaining about that ratio. 🙂

Yesterday I went to Dick’s Sporting Goods to try on some Nike Free running shoes if they had any is a size 14. Luckily they had just the pair I was looking for. I tried on the 4.0 v2 and absolutely loved them. They are so light, minimal, and comfortable, without being too close to a true barefoot style running shoe. I didn’t buy them right away because I wanted to check around online for color options and better pricing. I couldn’t find anything I liked better than the black/gray or a better price, so I went back today and bought them. I’m looking forward to going out for a recovery run on my next rest day.

Warm-up

Tabata Box Jumps (24″)
Tabata Deadlifts (85#)
Tabata Wall Ball Sit-ups (20# MB)

Instead of a Tabata mash-up we did all 8 rounds at a station before moving on. The deadlifts were light, but for a warm-up I could actually feel them by the end. Wall ball sit-ups were something new and really worked the abs. I’m a fan of those!

WOD

27:00 AMRAP

Chest-to-deck Push-ups
Hanging Leg Raises
Aabove the head plate lunges (10#)
SDLHP (75#)
End each round with a 150m run

Do 27 reps of each, except the run. I completed 3 full rounds, 27 push-ups, 27 leg raises, 27 lunges, and 27 SDLHP for a 3+108 score. There were about 20 seconds left on the clock and I knew I couldn’t finish the run in that time so I didn’t even make the attempt. I sort of defeated myself with the SDLHP and I’m disappointed. I should have pushed through them harder to give myself enough time to finish the run. I beat myself before I even started the first rep. Ugh!

Five Station Warm-up

I’m pretty sore from the long run yesterday, most of which is in my calves. I attended the 7pm class today. It was a hot and humid night. I thought I might stick around and do some strength work after class, but decided against it after sweating so much.

Warm-up

3 rounds

1m Box Jumps (Big Tire)
1m Star Jumps
1m Hang Cleans (85#)
1m Russian KBS (62#)
1m Mountain Climbers
1m Rest

If you did the Hope workout or have done Fight Gone Bad, this format should be familiar. I really enjoyed the hang cleans, but it was tougher than I expected to keep going for the entire minute with what was a relatively light weight. I didn’t count reps since this was only a warm-up.

WOD

10 rounds

15 HR Push-ups
100m Run (sprint)
90s Rest

For the 100m sprints we ran 50m down and then back. I finished in 19:12. I tried to jump out of the gates too quickly and as a result, tweaked my left calf. It was pretty tight for the 2nd and 3rd sprints, but then it loosened up. I was able to do all of the push-ups unbroken, but as the rounds went on the 10th through 15th reps got slower and slower.

Finisher

150 Air Squats with 5 burpees after every 25 squats (except the last 25). I didn’t check the clock when I started, so no idea how long this took.

10k

Stormy weather prevented us from being able to golf this morning, so Dad and I each headed out for runs in separate directions. I was planning to go for 3 or 4 easy miles. As I got in to the run I was feeling pretty good, so decided to see if I could push it to a 10k.

I didn’t have the RunKeeper app set to announce time and distance very often and didn’t look at the distance when I turned around, so my run ended up a bit shy of a true 10k, but it was damn close. I ran 6.16 miles in 53:51 and was able to keep a pretty steady pace. It was really nice running through the woods and along Lake Huron on the bike path.