Nick Momrik's Fitness Logs

Rake It

My glutes are still sore today. Woke up with an alarm at 7:30 to make sure I had enough time to eat and shower before the 9am class.

Warm-up

High Knees
Butt Kicks
Zombie Kicks
Power Skips
10 PVC Passes
10 Air Squats
400m Run

Conditioning

Team of 3

12:00 AMRAP
- 250m Row
- 2 Dumbbell Snatch (50#)
- 2 Dumbbell Squat C&J (50#)
- 2 Dumbbell Snatch
- 2 Dumbbell Squat C&J
3:00 Rest
12:00 AMRAP
- 200m Run
- 15 Air Squats
- 10 Push-ups
- 5 Strict C2B Chin-ups

One person is always rowing or running. After the cardio piece, you do your other work and then rest. I teamed up with Tom and Doug. I got through 4 rounds of the first AMRAP and then 4 rounds of the second plus about 150 meters of the run when time ran out. Decided to do the chin-up variation today and they felt really good. All of the bicep work must be paying off.

Decided I won’t do an Engine Builder workout today since I’m going to rake the lawn and my WHOOP recovery score is low.

Squat a Bit

Late morning row…

Engine Builder – Max Aerobic Power

5 Rounds

3:30 Row
2:00 Rest

Settled on a goal pace of 1:48/500m. Halfway through the first interval I knew it was going to be a battle. I was almost going to try 1:45! It was 73 calories each round and it’s hard to get more consistent than 973-973-974-973-973 for meters. I really had to hold on to the pace after the first one or two.

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Went to the 4pm class.

Warm-up

Rowling

Rob and I smoked everyone.

Strength

Back Squat

10×45#
6×95
3×135
3×165
3×185
3×205
3×225
8×185

I belted up at some point. Could feel my glutes working more, especially since they are still sore.

Conditioning

Partner workout

1,600m Run
2,000m Row
100 Burpees

Only one person working at a time, even on the running, which was nice. The alternate option from a 4k bike was supposed to be a 2k run, but we cut the course short and were a ways behind the guys that used the Assault Bike anyway. I felt good on the runs, each doing a lap at a time, which was probably about 160 meters instead of 200. We alternated 500m rows to eliminate too much switching. I probably was sub 1:45 on the first one and right around 1:45 on the second one. We started out alternating sets of 10 burpees through 60 and then sets of 5 to finish at 18:41.

Sore Glutes

My glutes are a bit sore today. So either those longer one minute single leg stands work or I’m starting to activate my glutes more for things like the wall balls and deadlifts we did yesterday.

Engine Builder – Endurance

28:00 Airdyne

Aimed for 75 RPM again, even though the duration keeps increasing by two minutes. Went 10.46 miles (16,834m) and 813 calories.

Something I’ve noticed in the last couple of weeks is that I’m getting tired by 10pm. I think it’s due to the extra conditioning work from this program. I’m also getting up by 8am every morning now with improved sleep due to having the WHOOP.

Strict EMOM

I’m still sore from Barbara. Could feel some tightness in my low back this morning that seemed to be from the reverse hypers I did yesterday. Before lunch I got on the rower in the garage.

Engine Builder – Anaerobic

5 Rounds

400m Row
5:00 Rest

To improve on a month ago my goal was a pace of 1:35/500m, which I beat without a problem. My splits were 1:15.9, 1:15.5, 1:15.3, 1:15.2, and 1:15.0. It always feels good to get negative splits and I was able to recover really well in the five minutes, which probably means I should be pushing harder for this type of workout. Supposed to go at 90-95%, but it’s hard to know what that is exactly, so maybe I’m my recovery is just improving. Averaged 1:34.2 and was 14 seconds faster overall than a month ago.

Went to the 4pm class, which was a small one today.

Warm-up

5:00 on a machine
2 Rounds
- 5 Strict Pull-ups
- 10 Hand Release Push-ups
2 Rounds
- 5 Inchworms
- 10 PVC Passes

Gymnastics Strength

10:00 EMOM

5 Strict C2B Pull-ups
5 Strict Ring Dips

Was programmed as 5 muscle-ups (same as last week), but my right shoulder is still bothering me, so I’m not doing those any time soon. Did strict pull-ups last week in this format, so tried chest to bars today. I did 3-2 for the first three rounds of pull-ups, but then did singles for the rest of the way. Dips were all unbroken.

Conditioning

5 Rounds

10 Deadlifts (155#)
20 Wall Ball (20#, 10′)

Knew I wasn’t trying the Rx 225. Thought about 185, but settled on 155 and figured I’d just be faster. Warmed up with 10×45, 5×95, and 5×125. My hamstrings started to feel tight in the 3rd set of deadlifts, but overall I felt good in this one, going unbroken on everything. Finished in 6:23.

Accessory

3 Sets

Dumbbell Curl 21s (25#)
1:00/1:00 Single Leg Stand

Did the T Nation A version again for 21s. I could really feel the stands in my glutes after doing those deadlifts.

400 Sit-ups in 3 Days

Throughout yesterday I got sore in my quads, shoulders, core, lats, and biceps. Pretty much everywhere. I finally cleaned out my gym bag yesterday too.

After morning meetings at work I got on the bike.

Engine Builder – Speed

5 Rounds

2:00 Airdyne
30s Rest

I wanted to hold 87-90 RPM, because I had to go faster than I did for a straight 10 minutes, right?! Made it, but would like to be more consistent. Those 30 second rests were over in the blink of an eye. My calories were 90-84-82-85-89 (430 total) and 4.35 miles. I did an easy five minutes for 1.36 miles to cool down.

Went to the 4pm class.

Warm-up

400m Run
Front Rack Stretch
10 Muscle Cleans (45#)
10 High Hang Power Cleans (45#)
10 Hang Power Cleans (45#)
10 Power Cleans (45#)

Weightlifting

Power Cleans

5×95#
5×135
3×165
2×185
8x2x205

No belt. Worked on not leading with my hips, which alleviated some pressure on my low back. Go figure!

Conditioning

20:00 EMOM (alt)

20 cal Row
20 Sit-ups

I was really excited (/sarcasm) for 200 more sit-ups after doing 200 on Sunday! My goal was to hold 1,500 cal/hr on the rower and I did it with ease. Average was probably 1,550-1,600. I was finishing the row in 46-47 seconds each round and pushed the last one to finish in 43 seconds. I was barely even breathing heavy when I got off the ground after sit-ups each round. I actually felt pretty good with these smaller sets of sit-ups and did them in 30-31 seconds every round.

Accessory

4 Sets

12/12 Single Leg Hip Thrusts
15 Reverse Hypers (90#)

Definitely got a low back pump from the RHs.

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.