Nick Momrik's Fitness Logs

Bench is Back, I Hope

Yesterday I walked 18 holes and it was nice to do a lot of moving with how sore I am from the lunges. My back was tight through a lot of the front nine in the chilly weather and it affected some swings for sure.

With my legs and ass super sore and my back being tight yesterday I’m delaying the rowing intervals until tomorrow. I think it’s been over a week since I did rowing intervals! The next rowing session is high power so it wouldn’t have been a great one to do before lifting anyways.

Year of the Engine – Speed/Threshold

30:00 Airdyne

Did 950 calories and 18.79 km, which is 20 cals and 0.19 km more than a month ago. Even though this is an all-time best for 30 minutes I’m wondering, based on heart rate, if I’m pushing hard enough. I was still in zones 2-3 the entire time, which is endurance. It was far from easy or a conversation pace though. Or maybe WHOOP’s estimate of my max heart rate is too high, causing all the zones to be wrong. For comparison, a few weeks ago in a 30 minute polarized workout with five sprints of seven seconds each, I went 18.13km and 889 calories. I’m not sure how much faster my legs can push though because they were already burning nearly the entire workout.

2019-10-22-airdyne-hr

Bench Press

2x8x45#
8×135
4×175
2×205
6x4x235
2×250
1×260
1×265

I switched up my warm-up sets to limit fatigue. Same weight I used in week 2 of the last cycle, where my notes said I thought about decreasing the weight several times. Today the working sets weren’t an issue and I didn’t even ask Kevin to spot me on those. He did spot on the heavier sets and those felt good too. Hopefully this means the accessory work is helping!

Back Squat

10×45#
6×135
10:00 EMOM
- 3×155

Nothing crazy with my back still tight and legs being super sore. Speedy reps.

One Lunge at a Time

Last night I could feel my triceps getting sore. My back is a lot less tight this morning and my chest is definitely sore from the increased ROM with those dumbbell bench presses. Went to open gym at 10am.

Warm-up

3:00 Echo Bike (30 cals)
2 Sets10/10 Leg Swings
- 10 Toe Touches
8 Pendlay Rows (45#)
10 Bent Over Rear Lateral Raises (5# DBs)
8 Pendlay Rows (75#)
10 Bent Over Rear Lateral Raises (15# DBs)
10 Cossack Squats

Accessory

4 Sets

8 Pendlay Rows (95#)
12 Bent Over Rear Lateral Raises (20# DBs)
10 Goblet Cossack Squats (44#)

Those cossack squats are nasty.

Midline

3 Sets

30s/30s Side Planks
30 Plank Jumps
6 Evil Wheels

Finished in 8:10.

Conditioning

400m Walking Lunge

Went over to the track at the school across the street. Today I alternated between 20 step-through lunges and 20 bringing my feet together for a slight pause. It really helped me focus on something and keep up a solid overall pace. I finished in 10:39, which is a huge PR by 1:16!

Year of the Engine – Endurance

44:00 Run

I wanted to give my back more time to recover from 20.2 so I delayed rowing intervals a couple more days. Plus it was great weather for a run around 4pm. I had a little goal of 4.5 miles and ended up going 4.57.

Cool that I’m never going over a 10:00/mile pace now, even as the runs are getting longer.

Pull-up PR

Didn’t sleep well at all and got out of bed around 6am. My back is really tight from 20.2. Went to the gym during the morning 8 and 9am classes to do my own thing, so I could use the 60 pound dumbbells.

Warm-up

5:00 Assault Bike (45 cals)
3 Sets
- 5 Scap Pull-ups
- 10 DB Bench Presses (30-40-50#)

Strength / Accessory

5 Sets

MAX Strict Pull-ups
10 DB Bench Presses (60#)
3:00 Rest

I got 15-12-10-10-10 on the pull-ups, which sets a new PR set! I haven’t maxed out strict pull-ups since 2014 when I did 13. I weighed about 200 pounds back then and I’ve been around 202 lately. The bench started to feel pretty heavy in the last two sets.

E20S – Until Failure

3 Strict HSPU

I wrote numbers up to 20 on the board kind of joking and ended up maing it through 17 rounds. My first idea was to do a 5:00 AMRAP, so this was just an extra 40 seconds and made sure I didn’t blow up too early. In round 12 I made the mistake of stopping in the bottom on my second rep. I eventually was able to press out of it, but it ruined me for the rest of the way. I had to do three singles in my last two rounds and barely made it so didn’t attempt the 18th round.

5 Sets

10/10 Single Leg Lateral Step-ups (30″)
30s/30s Single Leg Standing Balance (70#)

Then I was out in the garage around 11.

Year of the Engine – Polarized

36:00 Airdyne
**Endurance pace with 7s sprint @ 8, 16, 24, 32

976 calories and 20.88 km.

Time for some food and a nap.

20.2

Another complete rest day yesterday and my legs were still pretty tight. At the 4pm class for the workout.

Warm-up

2:00 Echo Bike
Bottom Squat Hold
Dead Hang
Various DB Thrusters
2:00 Echo Bike
Various DB Thrusters
1:00 Echo Bike

CrossFit Games Open Workout 20.2

20:00 AMRAP

4 DB Thrusters (50# DBs)
6 Toes to Bars
24 Double Unders

It’s a big surprise to see thrusters in week 2, but I’m so glad for the small sets if we have to use dumbbells. I feel like picking a good starting pace is important this week as well, so was hoping to do better than 20.1. Last night, 16 rounds seemed like a good goal, which would require a pace of 1:15 per round. Today, after seeing the leaderboards I decided to shoot for 18 rounds.

I did my early rounds and rested until 1:06 had passed for that round. I was feeling pretty good and doing 3-3 for all of my T2B. Then I missed some dubs, lost my rest, missed more dubs, was resting all over the place, and really fell off pace over the second half of the workout. Ended up with 15 + 32. Like week 1, it felt like the weight was affecting me more than it should have, making my T2B and double unders more tiring. I think I only did 3-4 rounds of dubs unbroken, which is not good for only 24 reps. It’s a good thing I broke the T2B too because the second set of three in my last two rounds turned into one of those where I had to reset and stopped my feet at the bottom.

My back was getting tight throughout the workout and I can really feel it afterwards. Definitely not doing it again. Less happy about my effort in this one because I started resting all over the place.

Rocket Bike

My legs have gotten pretty sore from the wall balls and probably some from the squats yesterday as well. With rowing in today’s workout at the gym I thought I’d switch things up and do intervals on the bike. Out in the garage during lunch.

Year of the Engine – Rocket Race

18 Rounds

45s Airdyne
45s Rest

Was doing around 90 RPM through the first 9 or 10 rounds and then started to pick it up and was doing 95-97 by the end. Total of 652 calories and 9.77 km.

Loaded up my GHD in the truck, hauled it across town, and unloaded it for a friend who bought it. It’s nice to get more space back in the garage. Went to the 4pm class.

Warm-up

3 Sets
- 15 Reverse Hypers (50#)
2:00 Echo Bike (22 cals)
3 Rounds
- 8 PVC Good Mornings
- 5 Ring Rows
- World’s Greatest Stretch
- 10 PVC Passes
Deadlift
- 10×45#
- 5×135
- 5×185
- 5×225

Conditioning

E4M – 5 Rounds

500m Row
5 Deadlifts (245#)

I belted up for the deadlifts to be safe and used a neutral grip for every set. Going in my plan was to row around a 1:43 pace, but I was feeling good. I did 1:41.5, 1:41.5, 1:41.0, 1:40.0, and 1:37.5. Didn’t really screw around getting to the bar and wasting time before lifting either. I’m loving how well I’m able to recover now in a workout with rest like this.

Since the rower felt great, I checked the drag factor afterwards and it was at 114, so maybe I should lower mine even more at home.

Midline

3 Rounds

1:00 Plank
20 Russian Twists (30# MB)
10 Barbell Sit-Ups (45#)
1:00 Rest

This took around 2:05-2:10 per round.

Chilly Run

On Sunday night I started to feel my calves getting sore from Saturday’s 500 double unders. My shoulders and arms in general were feeling beat yesterday so taking a true rest day where I didn’t do much of anything was nice. My quads got sore from the wall balls too.

Year of the Engine – Endurance

42:00 Run

It was 53 degrees when I started my run during lunch. I’m starting to feel really good during these runs and soon it’ll be too cold out. I got stopped at a light for about 30 seconds in the middle of mile 4 and then picked up the pace from there on in since my heart rate wasn’t near zone 4 yet. Went until 42:30 because of the stoppage and made it 4.29 miles. Two months ago I only ran 3.83 miles over 42 minutes and with a much higher heart rate. Here are my mile splits today:

2019-19-15-run-splits

Kevin came over around 4pm.

No B.S. Bench Press

10×45#
10×95
5×135
5×185
5×205
4x5x225
MAX @ 225 – 7
2×245
1×255
1×265

Starting this third cycle at the same base weight as the second cycle since it went so poorly. Just under two and a half months to get to 300. All three times I did a max reps set at 225 last cycle I got 7 reps and the 7th today was a struggle. The working sets were no walk in the park, but I did feel pretty beat in my shoulders and arms from the early sets. Adding in some heavier doubles and singles went well though and felt better than last week.

Back Squat

8×45#
8×135
8×165
8×195
8×225
MAX @ 165 (12)

I liked the immediate drop set that was the class programming last week, when it was sets of three and I did 6×225 and 10×165 for two max reps sets. Decided to go for sets of 8 today and things were still feeling good, so I pushed the drop set more (not really a true max reps set). I’m hopeful I can build up my leg strength again. I may never come close to that 400# goal I had several years ago, but you never know.

High Strain Weekend

After hitting my highest WHOOP strain ever yesterday, with an 18.0, I recovered to 83% today on 7.5 hours of sleep. My body is sore in a few more places from the last two days and my glutes are the worst of it, though only about a 5/10. Open gym at 10am.

Warm-up

Bottom Squat Hold
Dead Hang

Pretty much a non-existent warm-up to be honest. My shoulders were feeling pretty smoked from 20.1 and the strict HSPU I did last night.

Conditioning

2019-2020 Wodapalooza Online Qualifier Workout 4

150 Wall Balls (20/14#, 10/9′)
75 T2B

**Perform in any order, until completion of total work. Can be broken down or performed in any order.

My plan was 5 Sets of 15 + 8 (4-4) and 5 Sets of 15 + 7 (4-3). Could I keep transitions to a minimum? I remembered to shave my calluses this morning and I wore grips.

The plan worked out well and it took me 10:52. I was done with three rounds in just over 3:00, so I didn’t slow down very much. Around the sixth round, the wall balls started to feel hard after 10 reps, but I wasn’t dropping it. My toes to bars felt good and I’m curious if I could have done all sets of 8 and 7 unbroken or if that would have forced me to break up or do singles late in the workout. Doing 4-4 and 4-3 gave me a few seconds of rest. I did the last set of 7 unbroken. My heart rate was in the 160s the whole workout.

Accessory

A friend recommended some accessory stuff to help with my bench press. I’d never done reverse grip bench, which was weird at first, but I ended up really liking it. To warm-up (plus get a feel for the hand placement, loading, and bar path) I did 10×45, 5×75, 5×95, and 5×115 for the reverse bench and 10×35 skull crushers.

5 Sets

10 Reverse Grip Bench Press (135#)
10 Skull Crushers (65#)
20 Weighted Lunges (35# DBs)

Had some midline stuff planned, but it was already after 11:20 and that was enough. After lunch and mowing the lawn I went to work on the rower and the computer worked fine. Hopefully it continues to work. Out in the garage around 6pm.

Year of the Engine – Time Trial

20:00 Airdyne

A few weeks ago I did 12.73 km and 656 calories. Today I wanted to do a better job of holding 80 RPMs, which I did. I started out faster in the first minute, found my pace, and then kicked in over last two minutes. Finished with 12.94 km and 683 cals, a big improvement.

It was another big WHOOP strain day. I need the rest day tomorrow.

Technology Troubles

I’m a little sore from 20.1. Suprisingly, the worst of it is in my glutes. I woke up with the decision not to redo it. At the end of the day my score doesn’t matter for anything. One. And. Done. I’m already feeling good about it. 🙂 I was out in the garage around 10:30am for rowing intervals, but the computer wasn’t working so I had to pull a switcheroo.

Year of the Engine – Polarized

34:00 Airdyne
** Endurance pace with 7s sprint @ 6, 12, 18, 24, 30

After the third sprint I pulled a wheelie to scootch the front of the bike over and the computer fucking reset! During some of the sprints the front of the bike tends to drift over towards my treadmill and I didn’t want to end up with the handles getting too close. I took the numbers from 16 minutes to estimate totals of 1,015 calories and 20.5 km.

As I was sitting down and updating notes, I accidentally deleted my entire Workouts note, where I plan about a week ahead and have a lot of workout ideas saved. Undo on iOS didn’t work and there is no revision history in Bear. Fuck! I checked both laptops and they’d already synced across the updated empty note. The best I could do was restore an old copy, which had the majority of what I need. I should stay away from computers the rest of the weekend.

During the day I cut up a dead tree that fell two weeks ago and hauled the wood over to a friend’s house. There were some pretty good weighted carries hauling logs to the truck! I got to the gym just before 6pm to use the rower.

Row Tests

100m
2:00 Rest
100m
2:00 Rest
250m

I got 15.8, 15.6, and 39.7. Only 0.1 seconds shy of matching my PR for 100 meters. I had set the drag factor to 130 to start and then for the second 100 I moved the damper from around 5.5 up to 7. I moved it back down for the 250, which was 1.4 seconds slower than my PR. Not too bad with these weak ass legs.

2019-10-12-row-tests

BTWB’s stupid 6 month history always screws my Fitness Level score, so I’ve been wanting to hit a few of these tests to get it back up to realistic levels. I really hate that they count interval work as a PR attempt, which is using 1:47.3 as my recent best 500m time, only good for a level 18! Come on bro, that’s about the pace I hold when doing 500m repeats in a metcon. The 1k row wasn’t a test effort either.

Photo Oct 12, 2019 at 61127 PM

Anyway, that served as a good warm-up for the short intervals.

Year of the Engine – Rocket Race

15 Rounds

20s Row
40s Rest

I got 114-116 meters every round. Still had pretty good power left in my legs after the test rows.

Since it was a quick workout and I made the drive out, I figured I might as well do some other stuff.

Strength / Gymnastics / Conditioning

E2M – 5 Rounds
- 2 Weighted Pull-ups (30#)
- 5 Strict Handstand Push-ups
- 50 Double Unders
E2M – 3 Rounds
- 3 Weighted Pull-ups (30#)
- 7 Strict Handstand Push-ups
- 50 Double Unders
E2M – 2 Rounds
- 4 Weighted Pull-ups (30#)
- 10 Strict Handstand Push-ups
- 50 Double Unders

The plan was do do 10 rounds of 2-5-50, but it was too easy and I was getting 1:10 of rest each round. Then it was still too easy. Finally it was almost too hard. I missed a double under in round 1, 6, and 7. Then in round 9 after 30+ dubs it was like I’d never done a double under before or the rope was possessed. I missed 4 or 5 times and my rest was down to about 25 seconds! Doing those two sets of 10 strict handstand push-ups was a good challenge. 66 total strict HSPU and I made sure to get an exaggerated lockout on every rep as prep if they come up during the Open again.

Tomorrow I’ll have to see what’s up with my rower’s monitor. I remembered that I can swap with the Ski Erg to see if the problem is with the monitor or somewhere else.

20.1

Yesterday I walked 18 holes. It was a beautiful day and now the weather is shifting tomorrow.

I’m curious how I’ll do this year in the Open. I didn’t do any special “Open prep” work, like the Thruster Attack program or additional gymnastics volume. I’ve been doing the engine builder work, but that’s since February, so not new. My training hasn’t been very consistent for the last couple of months either.

Warm-up

Bottom Squat Hold
Dead Hang
PVC Passes
2:00 Echo Bike
Snatches
C&J

Maybe could have done a better warm-up. 🤷🏻‍♂️

CrossFit Games Open Workout 20.1

10 Rounds

8 Ground to Overhead (95#)
10 Bar-facing Burpees

Last year for the three rounds of 10 snatches and 12 bar-facing burpees in 19.4 my rounds were 1:20, 1:32, and 1:30. Plus I had a pretty badly tweaked back which slowed me down. Based on the video. I estimated a quick round of this workout would be a little more than a minute with snatches. That was my big question though, to snatch or to clean and jerk?

I think going unbroken on the snatches is a trap for the majority of us. When I did 17.5 I split up my thrusters 5-4, so my plan was to do something similar with 4-4 today, and even 4 snatches + 4 c&j. The break helps to slow you down, which in needed in a workout like this. That rest for your grip is a huge help as well. Mixing up between snatches and c&j saves from taxing any specific muscle groups and breaks up the monotony of 80 reps.

My rounds were 1:11, 1:19, 1:22, 1:26, 1:40, 1:41, 1:51, 1:48, 1:51 and I ended up needing 7 more burpees to finish. So I did 9+11. I clipped the bar once with a foot and had to redo a burpee. I started out with 4 snatches and 4 c&j, which was working great. At some point I decided to give up on the snatches and do 2×4 c&j. If I had to guess it was in round 5, where I fell off 14 seconds. Then at some point I went to singles. Guessing it was when I dropped another 10 seconds in round 7. I think I did 1-3-1-1-2 in the 10th round and then 3 quick burpees.

My first four rounds took 5:18 and I don’t think I’d want to go much slower than that or there is no room to slow down the rest of the way. The next four rounds took 7:00, so if I can bring that down to the 6:00-6:30 range I’ll be solid. I mentally gave in for whatever reason. I can keep doing the two movements of four reps, which would be huge for my time. Pretty sure I’m going to give this one another try.

I checked WHOOP and my heart rate got up to 150 quickly and then stayed at 145-160.

On to the Next Cycle

My legs are fucking sore! Out in the garage during lunch.

Year of the Engine – Rocket Race

12 Rounds

1:30 Row
1:00 Rest

On August 20th I averaged a 1:45.3 pace for this same workoutand the results were not good on the BTWB leaderboard. I think I should be going much faster for this, so my goal today was 1:40-1:41/500m. I did 1:40.8 for 446 meters every round. That’s a 226 total meter improvement from the last time.

2019-10-09-row

Kevin came over around 4pm.

No B.S. Bench Press

10×45#
6×115
4×145
4×185
2×215
2×235
2×255
2×260
1×260 (fail 2nd)
1×260
2x1x265

Was supposed to do 4×2 @ 265-275#, but that didn’t happen. With all the struggles lately I’ve completely lost all confidence on the bench. I have a long way to go to get 300 this year. Fresh start with this next cycle, so I’m going to try some other things:

Be more conservative with the weights in the program to keep speed through reps and not struggle so much.
Lift 2-3 doubles or singles after the working sets each week to get used to heavier weight.
Accessories on another day to target chest, back, and triceps.
More protein.

Accessory / Conditioning

10 Rounds

5 Strict C2B Chin-ups (fat bar)
10 Goblet Squats (50#)
10 Banded Tricep Push Downs (green band with Fat Gripz)
5/5 Single Leg Lateral Step-ups (30”)

I did 3-2 and then all singles with a drop from the top for the chin-ups. Sped up the squats and step-ups over the last 3-4 rounds. Finished in 20:08.