Nick Momrik

Slow and Steady

I haven’t taken a full day off since Monday, but didn’t do much of a workout on Friday. Survival Fitness was closed today because over 20 folks were down in Ohio to do a Tough Mudder. I decided to put in some miles on the road because I haven’t run any real distance in preparation for next weekend’s duathlon. My goal was to run a real slow 10:00 minute per mile pace. I went a total of 4 miles in 38:24. According to RunKeeper my mile splits were 9:31, 9:49, 9:39, and 9:25. How’s that for consistency?

Simple Saturday

Planned on going to the 10am class, but stayed up too late last night, so went in for the 11am, which only had 4 of us.

Warm-up

100 Sit-ups

I knocked them out in 1:55 using the gym standard, which is to have your shoulder blades touch the floor and then only get up enough so you can touch your feet.

WOD

20:00 Team AMRAP

5 Deadlifts/Power Cleans
10 Burpees

We had 135# of the bar, which is a really easy deadlift, so after 2 rounds of that, Matt had me switch to power cleans to slow me down and give my partner more rest. I’m glad he did, because it made things a lot tougher for me. I think we got through 7 full rounds and then I did 5 additional power cleans.

Mobility

At the end of class we did a bunch of mobility stuff with bands and mashing with the bar, K-star style.

Do What You Want

The last 3 days were pretty good WODs, so I decided to just go in to Open Gym tonight and work on a few things. I warmed up with a 300m run. Then I alternated between snatches and HSPU, taking long rests in between. For the snatch work I started at 75# and went up by 10# each time, doing doubles or triples. Made it up to 125# and then failed at 135# before calling it quits. I tried HSPUs on plates and one AbMat for the first time so that it was a true HSPU. I was able to do 4 in the first set! Next set I did 2 and after that I switched to 1 AbMat with my hands on the floor. Nice easy day, but worked on a few things that needed work. Matt took some videos of a few snatches and they were not the greatest. I’m jumping pretty far backwards, which will never work at higher weights. Good to see on video and learn from it.

My Poor Feet

Stayed with the night class routine I’ve been doing this week.

Warm-up

5 Rounds

1:00 Bottom Squat Hold
1:00 Jumping Jacks

Not too bad, but coming up out of the squat hold after a minute is a little rough. Quads and knees felt a bit locked up each time.

WOD

20:00 AMRAP

5 Suit Case Deadlifts (each side)
10 Burpee Broad jumps
15 Box Jumps

I used an 88# KB for the suit case deadlifts. Not a big fan of those because it’s hard to keep a good position. Burpee broad jumps and box jumps were fine. I used a 24 inch box as usual. I think I got 6 full rounds. It may have been 7, but I’m leaning towards 6. Matt our trainer kept track and I forgot to look at the board after the workout. In addition to the complete rounds I finished the 5 suit case deadlifts on each side and 8 of the broad jump burpees.

Finisher

Jingle Jangles

These are short sprints. Starting off with 3 lengths in the first minute and then rest for the remaining time. Jump up by 3 sprint lengths every minute until you fail to complete the number of sprints. So each minute you are doing more running and getting less recovery. I got through 21, but thought I was one short one of the girls was a bit ahead of me and went another length, so I didn’t get to go up to 24, which started almost immediately.

I am not wearing my Inov-8 Bare-XF 210’s anymore until after the move to the new location. We did the entire workout outside on the pavement and it was brutal on my feet with all of the pounding. The broad jumps were especially bad so I had to shorten them up. Doing the sprints on the pavement with these shoes was no walk in the park either.

Angie Rx

Since I worked out later yesterday it would have been a short rest to hit a morning class, so I went to the 5:30pm again.

Warm-up

3 rounds

1m Flutter Kicks
1m Side Plank (30s each side)
1m V-ups
1m Mountain Climbers
1m Bicycles
1m Rest

Great ab crushing warm-up.

WOD

“Angie”

100 Pull-ups
100 Push-ups
100 Squats
100 Sit-ups

I had only done “Angie” once before, nearly 4 months ago. At the time I did all jumping pull-ups and some kneeling push-ups to finish in 35:10.

Today I performed everything as prescribed, doing kipping pull-ups the whole way and all normal push-ups. I didn’t even rip my hands on pull-ups, so I’m getting better at recognizing when I’m close and readjusting my position or taking a break. I broke the pull-ups down into pretty small sets. It took me just under 12:00 to complete the pull-ups, which is by far the longest part of this WOD. I started out strong on push-ups, but was breaking them into sets of 2-4 at the end to get through. For squats I started out with 2 sets of 20 and then pretty much did 10s the rest of the way. Sit-ups were pretty easy and I knocked those out in 50-30-20.

My total time was 24:42, which is over 10 minutes faster and that’s even doing everything as it should be done!

Quad AMRAPs

Went to a night class since the only morning class is 5:45am on Tuesday. It was kind of nice, even though I really like how I feel throughout the day when I workout in the morning.

Warm-up

5 rounds

1m Russian Twists
1m Plank

I used a 20# KB for the twists and got a total of 292 (counting each side) through the 5 minutes.

WODs

4 different 3:00 AMRAPs

At each station perform the buy-in exercise and reps. Then do max reps of another movement for the remaining time of the 3 minutes. Keep track of max reps for each station. Rest 2 minutes between stations.

20 Box Jumps
-MAX DB power cleans
20 Burpees
-MAX Push-ups
300m Run
-MAX Ring Rows
20 KBS
-MAX Wallballs

I used a 24 inch box for box jumps, 35# DBs for power cleans, a 53# KB for Russian swings, and a 20# MB for wallballs. I think my reps for the MAXs were 31, 41, 37, 35, but I might be off by a few on some of those.

Strength

Find 1 rep MAX for clean + thruster. We broke into groups by strength and formed lines to each take a shot at a weight before moving up. I think we went 65#, 85#, 105#, 125#, 145#, 165#. Those all went up pretty well for me. I was the only one left, so Matt pushed me to go for my body weight of 180#. I got the weight up with a power clean without too much trouble. I normally would do a full clean as it gets this heavy, but I knew I needed to squat for the thruster. The clean was a 15# PR. I went for the thruster and got it about half way over my head. I think if we had done this before the WOD I could have gotten it, but I was pretty fried. I’m thrilled about the clean PR especially since it was a power clean. 165# is a lot more than I’ve ever attempted with a thruster as well.

First Ride

I woke up this morning and my entire body was sore from the weekend workouts. Good reason to take a rest day from CrossFit and get out on the bike. The duathlon is less than 2 weeks away so I needed to switch the pedals, fill the tires, and grease everything up at some point anyway. My plan was to go for a slow ride over an hour. Turns out it was hella windy and I hate running or riding in the wind, so I tried to keep a good cadence going and shortened the duration. I rode 8.88 miles in 42:07. My legs felt good, but my ass was getting sore somewhere after half way.

Carry the Medicine Ball

Got another solid night of sleep last night. It’s great to be home sleeping in my own bed again.

Warm-up

600m Run
Power Skipping
Walking Zombie Kicks
But Kicks

WOD

A religious CrossFit box somewhere came up with this partner WOD. It’s supposed to be based on the 14 stations of the cross. I’ll hold off on any comments about the religious nature.

400m Run (both partners)
50 Pull-ups
40 Burpees (both partners)
80 KBS (Russian)
60 MB Thrusters
100 1-arm Push Presses
100 Lunges (both partners)
60 MB Cleans
200 Sit-ups/Plank
60 K2E
50 Pull-ups
100 Lateral Hops
100 HR Push-ups
800m Run (both partners)

One partner holds a medicine ball at all times except when doing burpees, lunges, and sit-ups/plank. I partnered up with Matt, the owner, since we had an odd number of people in class. We used a 20# MB for the workout. When performing burpees and lunges each partner completes the prescribed number of reps. During the runs, we handed off the MB at the half-way point. As an example, we split up the pull-ups into several sets, each doing a total of 25 pull-ups. Then we each performed 40 burpees on our own. For the push presses, each partner should end up doing 25 with each arm. When you get to 200 sit-ups/plank, one partner is doing sit-ups while the other is holding a plank.

It took us 42 or 44 minutes to finish, I don’t remember the time. The last half of the 800m run was straight into a strong wind. Absolutely brutal holding the MB. I highlight for me was getting kipping K2E for the first time. I wish I had figured this out a couple of weeks ago for all of the T2B.

Partner WODs are always fun on weekends. Now it’s time to enjoy Masters Sunday.

Back at Survival Fitness

I was absolutely exhausted last night when I got home. Went to bed at 10pm for a solid 10.5 hours of sleep! First day back at Survival Fitness this morning and it felt great. It was a pretty big class from what I remember the size being a few months ago. I’m excited that SF will be moving to a much bigger space soon.

Warm-up

300m Power skipping while with OH PVC
30 Air Squats
20 PVC Pass thrus
30 OH Squats

The power skipping was pretty taxing, especially having to hold the PVC overhead. I hadn’t done anything like that before.

Skill

5 rounds

30s Handstand
30s Deep squat hold

This was really easy considering I’ve been doing scaled handstand push-ups. I could feel it in my wrists a bit though.

WOD

1 Mile run
100 box jumps
MAX HR push-ups
100 sit-ups
MAX pull-ups
100 KBS
1 Mile run

There are over 20 people from SF doing the Tough Mudder next weekend, so this WOD was designed to prepare them. It was a good test for me as well since I have the duathlon coming up in two weeks. I ran the first mile in about 6:40. The last time I did a mile test was November 20, 2011 in 7:47, so I was thrilled with my progress. I used a 24 inch box for the jumps without a problem. It’s just that 100 is a lot to knock out in a row. For maximum HR push-ups I was able to get 26 unbroken. I split sit-ups into sets of 50-25-25. I went with strict dead hang pull-ups, since the bars aren’t high enough for me to do kipping, and set a new PR with 7. The worst part of this workout was doing 100 KBS. I used a 53# KB and broke them into sets of 10 for most of the way. The last mile took me about 8:20 for a total time of 39:19. Along with another guy, we were the only people to finish under the 40:00 goal. He smoked me pretty good on both runs, but since I did fewer push-ups and pull-ups I was able to get a head start on the last run.

Buh Bye CrossFit Full Strength

Today was my last workout at CrossFit Full Strength in Phoenix, AZ. I’m starting the drive back to Saginaw, MI later today after I pack and clean the apartment. I’m going to miss everyone here. It’s been a lot of fun making new friends and hanging out with the crew from the box. I’ve learned a ton of new movements and techniques. My strength has progressed more than I could have imagined over 3 months. Hopefully I’ll be back soon.

My hands are beat up from the last few days of pull-ups, T2B, and death by deadlifts. Oh look, more pull-ups today! Two off days are going to feel great.

Yesterday I went in for one last session at the chiropractor. He was able to get in and adjust my neck so much easier than even last Friday.

Warm-up

90s-60s-30s
- Sit-ups
- Plank
20 Supermans

Strength

4 Sets

3-5 Shoulder Presses, 2-0-X-1 tempo
90s Rest
2-3 Weighted Pull-ups, 2-1-X-0 tempo
90s Rest

I did a couple of warm-up sets today, starting with the bar for 8 reps and then 75# for 5 reps. Started with 95# for the working sets and moved up to 105#, 115#, and 125# for the full 5 reps each time. Last time we did this I was only able to get 125# up 3 times, so good progress there. I used an 18# KB for the first set of weighted pull-ups and did 5 reps because that’s what we usually do. I should pay more attention sometimes. Switched to a 25# KB the rest of the way and was able to stay in the 2-3 reps.

WOD

3 Rounds

10 Pull-ups
30s Rest
15 KBS
30s Rest
20 DUs
30s Rest

Not a timed WOD today, other than the rest periods, which was weird. I used a 62# KB for the swings and did well on pull-ups and DUs. No new tears on my hands and I did all 10 kipping pull-ups in a row on the last round.

I’ll be back in a few days. Hopefully I’ll be able to make it in to Survival Fitness on Saturday if I get home at a decent hour on Friday night. I know I’ll need the workout after 3 days of driving.