I’m still sore in my quads a little bit from 19.5! I strained one of my left spinal erectors on Sunday, so add that to the list of shit bothering me. I was definitely glad for the rest day yesterday. After my morning meeting I hopped on the rower and did 733 meters in 3:00 to warm up.
Engine Builder – Max Aerobic Power
20 Rounds
30s Row
30s Rest
Got to > 1,600 cal/hr by the 4th pull and then held 1,650-1,750, though was over 1,800 at times too. My starting leg drive faded in the second half of the workout so I had to hold a higher pace after getting the flywheel up to speed. I got exactly 13 calories each time for 260 total and went 3,105 meters for an average of 155.25 with a range of 156-154. A few weeks ago when it was 18 rounds, my average was 147.4 meters with a range of 150-145. Much better in every aspect today. Most of the improvement probably comes from having a better idea of what pace I’m capable of.
Went to the gym at 4pm, my first class (not counting Open workouts) since March 6th when I tweaked my back.
Warm-up
3 Rounds
10 cal Bike
10 Kip Swings
10 Push-ups
Gymnastics
10:00 EMOM
5 Strict Pull-ups
5 Strict Ring Dips
In the seventh minute I started doing 3-2 on the pull-ups.
Conditioning
Partner Workout
100 cal Assault Bike
100 Sumo KB Deadlifts (40kg)
100 Burpees
I worked with Weston and Brandi who did their part at the same time. The were on rowers and did regular deadlifts. I actually think it may be quicker to rack up calories on the Assault Bike for 20-30 seconds with rests because I think I was under 30 seconds most rounds. It just wears on you more because I was really slowing down by the 4th and 5th ones. We split the deadlifts up in 10s and the burpees in 5s. Took us around 12:43.
Accessory
4 Sets
10/10 Single Leg Hip Thrusts (20″ box)
20 Banded Pull-throughs (green band)
We had time so I knocked out some butt stuff. Single leg hip thrusts are much harder than glute bridges!
I guarantee I’m not going to any time soon, but I keep thinking I want to redo 19.5 to put in a better effort. Hopefully I stop thinking about it after today’s workout. I have to remember I got through these last three workouts with a significant injury, which prevented me from attending classes; I haven’t been able to squat at all or press any weight overhead. It will still be close to my best, if not the best, Open percentile ranking in the 8 years I’ve done it.
My quads and traps are incredibly sore today. Probably worse than post-Karen DOMS. Went to open gym at noon.
Warm-up
3:00 Assault Bike (33 cals)
Dead Hang & Stretching
Shoulder Passes
Conditioning
J.T. 21-15-9
HSPU
Ring Dip
Push-up
The first time I tried this hero WOD, we greatly underestimated it and had to scale back to 21-11. Then two summers ago I completed it in 10:06. My goal for today was to go sub nine. The plan was 3×7, 3×5, and 5-4 for both types of push-ups and all triples for the dips. Figured it would come down to the ring dips.
I ended up doing 3 equal sets for all HSPU. Ring dips were 7×3, then 2 sets of 3 and the rest quick singles. For push-ups I struggled through 3×7 and then did triples the rest of the way. Finished in 8:04 for a 2:02 PR!!
108-72-36 Double Unders
36-24-12 Goblet Lunges (53/35#)
12-8-4 Burpee Broad Jumps
Missed two dubs in the first round after 71 in a row and I don’t think I missed in the other sets. I thought the lunges were going to be harder than they were. Took me 8:01.
Accessory
3 Sets
Dumbbell Curls – 21s (25#)
10/10 Single Leg Glute Bridges (squeeze at the top)
30s/30s Single Leg Stand (squeeze glute)
Midline
4 Rounds
10/10 Side V-ups
20 Leg Circles
10/10 Wood Choppers (25#)
20 Plank Jumps
20 Flutter Kicks
Took 10:23, which is 2:17 quicker than about a month ago. Wonder if the plank jumps will fire up my hip flexors like last time.
I planned to do some rowing intervals tonight, but my WHOOP recovery is only 12% and Mom is visiting for the night, so cancel that. Tomorrow will probably be a complete rest day, unless I get back in the green. Either these Open workouts are really blowing me up or the cardio work is more taxing than I’d expect.
My body (and ego) was already very sore when I got out of bed this morning. Thinking back on 19.5, it’s not the first time I gave in on a 20 minute Open workout when shit got tough. I knew I was resting way too long between sets of thrusters, but I didn’t make a change. Not thinking to switch to kipping C2B after I felt the butterfly disappear was a huge mistake too. As always, more things to improve and at the end of the day, it’s just fitness.
Last night after dinner I ate a whole pint of ice cream for the end of the Open. I ended up eating 3,700 calories for the day and dropped a pound on the scale! After finally recovering to the green zone yesterday morning, it was a high strain day at 15.5, so I probably shouldn’t have stayed up until almost 2am. Apparently I’m recovered to 61% this morning though.
Strength
Bench Press
8×45#
8×95
8×125
8×155
8×180
8×195
8×205
It’s an extra challenge on this wider Titan Fitness rack, especially when using the spotter arms. Made me slow a bit on my reps and focus. Went 10 pounds heavier than the last couple of times I did sets of 8.
The BTWB fitness level keeps using rowing intervals (I’ve brought it up to their Support team in the past) as if it’s a time trial, so this workout was specifically to improve some of my rankings in the speed category. I did a 16.2 for the first 100 so bumped the damper up to 8 and got 15.9, still off my 15.5 PR. I left the damper for the 250 and got 40.3 seconds, also off my PR of 38.3.
Look how much the rower moved during those first 3 sprints! I bet I lost some time.
Then I set the damper back to 5-6. Got 1:30.5 for the 500 meters, which is pretty far off my best 1:23.5. I faded pretty hard on the last quarter of both the 250 and the 500. Hoped for 1:45/500m pace on the 1k, but my legs didn’t have it. Ended up with a time of 3:34.7, which is only 5 seconds faster than the 1k repeats I did last night. Those sprints really drained my power. Then I was holding an easy 2:10/500m pace for the 4k, which took 17:16.8.
Still a lot of room to bring the 1k and 500m times closer to my potential.
Having a high skill like bar muscle-ups helped me in that workout. After last year’s terrible 46.6 percentile in 18.2 with bar-facing burpees I worked on the movement all year. So I’m happy that this year’s workout with the burpee was the 81st percentile. Wish I wasn’t injured because I could have done even better. The lower workout ranking didn’t drop me much in either of the overall standings. One more week, so I was looking for a good performance to finish my best Open.
This is the dumbest workout ever programmed in the Open. The majority of people are going to be working for 20 minutes on two movements, which means A LOT of resting. The huge sets to start off don’t do us any favors.
After looking at some of my previous results, it quickly became clear that my goal should be to finish under the time cap. Small sets right from the start and hopefully with short rests. If I don’t go slow at the beginning, I know my heart rate would be way too high by 5:00 and I’d be standing around way too much is the last 75% of the workout, especially if pull-ups blow up.
The plan for thrusters was 6-6-6-5-5-5, 6-6-5-5-5, 6-5-5-5, 5-5-5, 5-4. For pull-ups three at a time as long as possible.
Speaking of strategy… people give some terrible recommendations in posts and videos during the Open. One guy on reddit shares his post every week and he recommended taking your max set of C2B and doing sets of 50% (or more) of that number! For example he said if you can do less than 7 reps, aim for sets of 4 and less than 14 max should do sets of 8!! I don’t care what kind of athlete you are, that’s a one way road to Blow Up City in the round of 33. I really hope these kind of people are not coaches.
The round of 33 went as planned and took me about 5:10. I was even feeling good about my pull-ups. Then it was a shit show. I kept my thruster sets as planned but stared at the barbell too much the rest of the way. I think I did one chest-to-bar triple to start 27 and singles the rest of the way. Wish I had thought to try a regular kip, but I totally spaced on that. Only got through the round of 15s, for 192 total reps. Not a good effort and not how I wanted to end the Open. 😦
At least my back felt pretty good, but I have to remember that the only time I’ve picked up a barbell in the last 2.5 weeks was 19.4, so the squats probably took more out of me than they should have. Maybe next year I’ll make it through an Open without an injury. My quads were sore within an hour so I think my body is going to be beat for the next few days.
Engine Builder – Interval
4 Rounds
1k Row
1:00 Rest
Figured I might as well get on the rower while watching Duke and see if I could put in a good effort for the day. My goal was to hold a 1:50/500m pace and I pulled it off. Had to really hold on after the second interval. I got 73 calories each interval and the times were 3:39.8, 3:39.7, 3:39.6, and 3:39.7. Can’t get more consistent than that.
I’m getting a lot of sleep, but WHOOP says I’m still not recovering to the green zone; been in the yellow every morning after 19.4 and the rowing I did on Friday. My back continues to feel better each day. My legs feel tired walking up the stairs today.
Too much I’d have to substitute at the gym again, so did everything at home.
Warm-up
3:00 Row (805m)
Engine Builder – Anaerobic
6 Rounds
45s Row
3:30 Rest
Tried to get over 2,200 cal/hr by the 5th pull and stay there. My calories were 26-27-27-27-26-26 and you can see below that I started running out of steam after the 3rd interval. This was pretty nasty.
Looking back at my 250m PR, I pulled 45 strokes/min. I guess I need to cycle through my strokes faster.
Accessory
Dumbbell Curls – 21s
3 Sets 7-7-7 @ 25#
Got up to the 25s with all three sets. One more session and then I’ll switch things up. Really happy with the progress in under 2 months.
Conditioning
5 Rounds
20 Hand Release Push-ups
30 Sit-ups
Wanted something where I could keep moving but not too intense after the anaerobic work. This did the trick. I did 4×5Â every round of push-ups. First set was done in 40 seconds and about 50 for round two before I started taking a little more rest between every five push-ups. Sit-ups felt good the whole way and took about a minute each round. Finished in 9:35.
My back is feeling a lot better. I’m not putting any load on it, so I stayed home from the gym. Out in the garage just before 4pm.
Engine Builder – Speed
3 Rounds
4:00 Airdyne (AD2)
90s Rest
My goal was ~85 RPM and it was a success. Calories per interval were 152-152-155.
Accessory
4 Sets
15 Hip Thrusts
15 Banded Pull-throughs (green)
I learned that hip thrusts are when you elevate your torso on a bench or box, which gives you a deeper range of motion. First time trying pull-throughs and it takes a set or two to understand how to balance so you don’t keep tipping over backwards. Curious to see if my ass will be sore from these.
Conditioning
4 Rounds
200m Ski Erg
20 Plyo Lunges
20 Alternating Leg V-ups
Quick one. I tried to get my pace down to 1:50/500m and hold there. Took me 7:51 to finish.
Back to work today after the week of vacation. Feeling pretty good after yesterday’s workouts.
Engine Builder – Endurance
24:00 Airdyne (AD2)
On March 9th when I did 22 minutes, I held 68-70 RPM to keep my heart rate in the 70-75% zone, so I was expecting a similar pace today. It was taking a long time for my HR to go up and I ended up holding 73-75 RPM through the workout. Maybe my back was really affecting me before.
Today ended up being 666 (👹) cals – 8.77 miles. That’s 27.75 calories per minute compared to 24.36, which is 14% better. According to WHOOP, my average HR was lower today too; 124 compared to 131. Those differences are nuts, plus it was two minutes longer.
Good to be home and get a good night of sleep. I’m already missing the great San Diego food though. I put on almost three pounds, but that may all be water weight from so many carbs. WHOOP was saying that I burned around 4,000 or more calories most days I was out there because of all the extra walking I was doing. My recovery score is low again at 36% after no workouts yesterday, but the travel home from SD.
Strength
Bench Press
10×45#
10×95
3×135
3×175
3×205
3×225
3×240
3×250
My best triple is 255 almost exactly two years ago, so I’m happy to hit this today. If I can’t work on my lower body lifts, at least I’m getting my bench press back and can make another run at 300.
Conditioning
15:00 AMRAP
5 Strict C2B Pull-ups
10 Hand Release Push-ups
15 Hollow Rocks
20 Side Plank Jumps
I did all singles on the chest to bars and was surprised at how great they felt through the entire workout. Push-ups were all unbroken sets and didn’t slow down much. The side plank jumps were the gasser. This was a deceiving workout. I did 8 rounds plus 5 pull-ups.
Accessory
4 Sets
5 Jefferson Curls (45#)
10 Glute Bridges (3s hold)
New movement with the Jeffersons. Damn good stretch down the posterior chain and especially in my hamstrings at the bottom. The Oly coach out in San Diego said I might have weak glutes that result in my back tweaks, so I’ll try adding in more accessory work like this. I guess the rehab stuff I did last year had a good amount of glute work, so I’ll have to go back and look at that too.
Dumbbell Curls – 21s
7-7-7 @ 25#
7-7-7 @ 25#
7-7-7 @ 20#
That lighter third set felt pretty easy now, but the next two sessions will be all with 25s before switching up to one of the alternative 21s workouts.
Engine Builder – Endurance
While watching Michigan vs. Michigan State I thought I’d add an extra cardio session since all I have planned for tomorrow is 24 minutes on the Airdyne.
24:00 Row
The plan was to hold an easy 2:05 / 500m pace and I was spot on the entire way. Finished with 366 cals – 5,760 meters.
My shins we getting show from the hike last night already. My HRV and recover score are the highest recorded so I should be ready to crush this workout.
My percentile rankings for 19.3 turned out to be exactly the same as 19.1 (when rounded to 1 decimal place) in both the Open and Masters divisions. Looking at scores and tiebreak times of some fit people I know, my HSPU strategy worked amazingly well. I’ve been doing singles when workouts have strict pull-ups and may have to play around with this type of strategy for other movements.
I wish my back had been healthy, which would have allowed me to get through the first two movements quicker and have even more time for HSPU. That’ll be a fun workout to redo later this year. The high ranking in 19.3 gave me another good boost in the overall rankings. My best 3 week start to an Open by far.
Note: I forgot to mention it in previous ranking updates, but I only count against people who posted a score for the workout or have at least one score for overall placing. The iOS app looks like it calculates percentiles based on everyone registered, but there are always plenty of people who never post a score.
Was really hoping I’d be fine with the snatches today after not picking up a barbell since last Wednesday. When we got to the gym it was painful bending over in to position to start a snatch with a PVC pipe! Laying on the lacrosse ball really opening things up for me though. Debated waiting until Sunday or Monday to do the workout.
Going in I was hoping to get some bar muscle-ups in the third round. I had to be really careful with the snatches though and you can see that with how long it takes me to pick up the bar and get my first rep. I did 6-4 on the snatches each round with normal powers. Felt like my burpees were getting slower each of the first three rounds. I finished with a tiebreak of 4:22.
Felt fine when I first got on the bar and did 5 bar muscle-ups and wanted to get 5 more, but could feel things going south already. I did 3-2 to finish. After the burpees I did a double and 8 singles with too much rest between each one, but I did not want to miss and each rep was a struggle. Got my second round of burpees done and had about 10 seconds left, but I knew I didn’t have it in me to get another bar muscle-up so I collapsed to the ground. It wasn’t worth risking a fly off the bar moment. So I finished 5 rounds for 110 reps. Early ranking on BTWB is only the 79th percentile.
I did another five minutes on the Assault Bike to cool down.
I worked out my splits on the workout. Here are the times each movement ended and then in parens are the times (in seconds) per movement, including transition/rest.
My snatches were slower than normal because I had to be extra careful with my back.
I should have gone unbroken on the last round of snatches and pushed the burpees after.
Overall pretty consistent with the burpees.
The second round of bar muscle-ups were the workout. It took me two minutes to get through them.
I should have jumped up to try for a muscle-up at the end.
While heats of the workout were going I jumped on the rower since tomorrow will be a travel day.
Engine Builder – Max Aerobic Power
12 Rounds
500m Row
1:00 Rest
I did 1:49.9 twice, 1:49.8 four times, another 1:49.9, and five at 1:49.8 to finish. Consistent!
My back was getting really tight sitting around the gym while everyone did the workout. Glad I ended up doing 19.4 though so I have more time to recover for 19.5 next week.
My hips and calves started feeling sore yesterday evening. Must have been from all of the walking. Woke up to my first WHOOP recovery score in the red at 25%. It says I slept well but my HRV is much lower than it has been.
Nick Momrik's Fitness Logs 