Feeling it from the last few days at the gym. Out to the garage in the afternoon.
No plan going in. Lift some shit. No belt and no fancy shoes today. Didn’t even bother to tie my shoes. Gotta switch things up to keep the body alert.
30:00 on the Air Dyne (AD2) for 6.7 miles.
Slept great last night. Was pretty wore out from “McGhee” and needed the rest. Woke up and could instantly feel my hands. It hurt to fully open or close my palms. I used the TENS unit on my back last night and it’s feeling pretty good today. Feeling all of those reps in my legs, glutes, shoulders, and triceps too.
Planned to get in to the gym during the day, but worked out to meet Bryan there at night and my hands could use the extra rest before the pull-ups.
Final week of the cycle before a new one begins. I’m following a week behind so the Skill WOD is actually doing tests this week. Going to skip those and then be caught up to start the new cycle when it’s released for next week. Sounds like it’s going to be pretty cool.
3 sets
Again, I really love these warm-ups.
3 sets
Easy this week.
5 Sets
Felt smooth even though my pull seemed a little weak.
The combo set felt really good. I’d been trying to increase the 70% sets each week and last week I got 16 and 10-6, so I shot for the same 16s today. Started to lose my butterfly on the last two reps of the second set but made every rep. Booyah! Just 4 weeks ago my max for a single set was 20. All this volume is dialing in the movement.
3 Supersets
The hangs felt easier than any other week, but I felt weak with the rows. Probably due to the 260 push-ups I did yesterday. 🙂
I was not even attempting MU on the end again, so I substituted with some C2B. Was hoping to increase each set, but my grip and pull was shot by the time I got done with the toes to bars. Wasn’t going to push it too much either because I already had a few places peeling on my hands.
I understand that this complex is getting you to be fatigued by the time you got to the final movement, but I’m just not on that level. The volume is definitely building solid movement and strength though.
Wanted to get in a little extra work.
Shoulders felt pretty beat after the pull-ups so I figured the recovery protocol was good to get in. I never do it anymore.
Feeling a little sore in my shoulder areas from the lifting yesterday. Legs and back seem good though.
With the release of 2016 Games season we know it’s now 66 days until the first Open workout announcement. Long metcons this Sunday and text, then will probably transition into more skill based work and higher intensity conditioning pieces. Maybe I’ll bring back some of the thruster program.
25:00 to work up to a heavy set of the complex of a squat clean + thruster + push jerk. So that’s essentially 2 squats and 2 shoulder to overheads in there.
Had 245# in my mind going in to this. Having done a 250# thruster and a 255# push jerk before I’m pretty happy with the 240# with this combination. When I brought the bar back down into the front rack for the jerk on my last set I felt it a bit in my back.
“McGhee” – 30:00 AMRAP
I’d only done this once before. It was over 2.5 years ago and I got exactly 17 rounds. After feeling my back during the lifts I knew I wanted to wear the belt and figured it would help pace me a bit with having to loosen and tighten it each round. Worked out well. I did all of the deadlifts unbroken, went 5-4-4 on push-ups until the final round where I tried to go through them faster, and did all jumps on the box, but no rebounding. Had 10 rounds in just before the 15 minute mark and ended up with 19 rounds plus the deadlifts, push-ups, and 3 box jumps. Nearly kept the same pace in the 2nd half of the workout. It would make a huge difference if I could do the push-ups in 2 sets throughout.
Even got a little “Fran-lung” from this for about 30 minutes after. Back help up during the deadlifts and box jumps but I can tell it’s going to be sore and tight for the next couple of days.
Had planned to lift with Bryan today at 10. Woke up with a headache and debated skipping out on the gym. Hauled my ass in though. Glad I did!
Didn’t realize how many sets we were doing at the time. It was feeling food but nothing special. Then 200# felt great and I had been thinking to stop there but went for one more. I think I’ve only done it once and 215 once. Good place to move on with no misses.
Don’t usually like to take such big jumps but now that I’ve figured out how to jerk I’m not afraid of it anymore. After nailing 260 and the jerk feeling easier than it ever had I literally said, “Fuck it!” and went for another 15# increase. I’m catching the clean so high. Haven’t missed a clean or jerk in quite some time now.
Music in the video is “Algorithm Of Desire” by Measles Mumps Rubella.
Felt good. Maybe should have gone for 325 which I’ve never attempted before (even though I’ve done 320 for a double), but I’m still holding back a bit and moving up slow with the squats and deadlifts. Don’t break what’s been working. I know I’ve said it so many times, but it sure is nice to have my back healthy so I can lift big again.
Hurried home, showered, and went to Star Wars. Great movie!
Bumped up the muscle-up focused workout a day this week so that I could get an extra day in between before the pull-ups.
My shoulder has been bothering me a little bit since the handstand push-up workout so it’s time to get back in the habit of using the Crossover Symmetry bands more often. Did the Activation protocol.
3 sets
We hadn’t been doing the first thing quite right. You’re supposed to hold in the top of the pull-up, do a swing from there, and then transition into the muscle-up. Was really weird on my first 2 attempts but got the hang of of it then.
1 rep of complex is:
First two sets are 3 reps of the complex and then the 3rd set is for max reps. I got 6 reps on the max set again like last week. Felt similar when I got to that last one.
Yep, pretty sure I’ll never be able to hold a front lever.
We were messed up on these too. Didn’t know the pull-ups were supposed to be strict, which makes quite a bit difference in fatiguing those pulling muscles. Felt good in the first set. Then 5th rep in the second set was rough. Managed to get 4 in the final set. Hopefully muscle-ups, when we don’t fatigue with other movements, are going to be feeling really easy soon.
I’m on vacation until the 4th now. Hopefully I’ll make more time for conditioning.
Did not want to get out of bed this morning but had to set the alarm to make sure I did because Dad is stopping by tonight.
All done touch-n-go style.
10:00 AMRAP: 2-4-6-8…
Didn’t even try to rebound any. Held a nice steady pace to keep moving. Finished the round of 14 plus 16 box jumps and 4 burpees.
Midline4 Sets
We got a bunch of new slam balls so I had to try out the 30 pounder.
Took a much needed complete rest day yesterday. Got on the scale this morning for the first time in weeks. Knew this was coming, but first time over 210, weighing in at 211.5 pounds! At least my strength numbers are going up with it, but this gymnastics stuff sure would be easier if I dropped back to around 2 hundy. Had my monthly adjustment at the chiro and then went to the gym
3 Sets
Deadlifts
Comes out to 419# on the last set, which is only 16 shy of my best 5, back in November 2013 a couple months after I pulled 515. I did 5×425# back in January of this year for a more recent set. Back when I did the 5×435, I was pretty dumb with my warm-ups. Look at this shit… I did 135-225-315-385-435. Today I took almost twice as many sets to get up close to that. Felt good too. Nice to have my back holding up.
3 sets
The narrow grip overhead squats felt rough today.
4 Sets
Felt better with the handstand holds, but still used the wall as my crutch to kick up and then took my feet off the wall for as much as I could.
In my notes from last week I see 3″ for the working sets, but my record on BTWB says 3.5″ so not sure which was correct. The bump to 4 was not easy though. Should probably decrease and get in more reps next week.
3 sets
Put feet up on a box for the push-ups this week and didn’t really feel any harder.
1-2-3-4-5…
Fucking terrible. I only got through 5 burpees and 3 HSPU this week. I’m not sure what happened but since doing the max deficits last week I’ve started to put my back up against the wall during the push-up. It’s really throwing me off, especially in the kipping reps. I was hoping to get more than the first week, but got an entire round less. Almost makes me wonder if I messed up my counts and did the round of 4 twice. I don’t think so, but it’s weird to be an entire round less an just a 5 minute workout. Oh well I guess. 
My body is definitely in vacation mode with this last week of work before break. Got to the gym around 9:30.
3 Sets
Back Squat
The pause sets were all for about 2 seconds. I really like using that during warm-up sets. Wanted to get at least 300 today and that was almost 309#. Put on the belt for the last 2 or 3 sets (don’t remember).
3 sets
3 sets
Could already feel the fatigue here.
5 Sets
These were tougher than they should have been.
Wanted to increase again, up from the 15 last week. Got 16 on the first set, dropped after 10 on the second set, and did 6 more after a short break.
3 Supersets
Coming into today I had already decided I wasn’t doing any bar muscle-ups unless it was banded to work on the technique and positions with a looser grip. Then going into the bonus I decided I was only going to do some strict work since I was feeling so beat. Had to try in that first set, but didn’t even go for the toes to bar. Got in a few sets of strict reps and got out of there.
I think only taking one day between the muscle-up day and the pull-up day is less than ideal. Too much pulling without time to recovery. My grip felt it today. The 100 American kettlebell swings yesterday may have played a role too. At least I didn’t rip my hands open this week. 🙂 Rest day tomorrow.
Middle of December and it’s 50+ outside. We even had thunder and lightning today. Was hoping to run but the weather had other plans.
5 Rounds
Comes from the Long category on BTWB as a fitness level workout. Didn’t even realize we did it on the 14th of December last year. I screwed up and wrote 50 dubs on the board though when it should have been 40. I messed up way too many times with the rope. Did jumps and step-downs the first 4 rounds, but the middle left of my back was cramping up, so I did step-ups in the 5th round. All swings were unbroken. Time was 17:22, which is almost 1.5 minutes slower than a year ago. The 50 extra dubs wouldn’t make that much of a difference and I even broke up the swings in 3 of the sets last year. I did only do one round of jumps and 4 rounds of step-ups last year though so that’s likely where the difference came because I wasn’t resting in between movements.
4 Sets
Something different to get in some twisting motion.
3 Cycles
Triceps burnt out fast after all of the dips yesterday. I did 4+11, 5, and 4+11.
Done in an hour today.
Woke up feeling a little beat from the PRs last night. Low to middle are of my back being the stiffest. Not the area where I’ve had my issues though, so that’s good. In at 11am to close out the 2nd week of the cycle.
3 sets
Skin the cats really stretch out that shoulder area.
Felt a little better with the complex this week though I start swinging back with the pull-up and it messes up my kip a little. Didn’t feel as good with the box drill. Maybe I didn’t have the heights of things set right. The banded drill was better though.
1 rep of complex is:
First two sets are 3 reps of the complex and then the 3rd set is for max reps. Increased from 5 to 6 on the max set.
These are tough and doing 3 compared to 1 was a big difference in fatigue.
Went for #6 on the 3rd set and squeezed it out. Caught myself in a super low ring dip, but a rep is a rep. Maybe next week if I get those first 3 sets I’ll go for a 4th.
Some nice increases from the first week and without having to figure out that first skill section we finished up in just under an hour. My shoulders still feel wrecked after all that though. I wore my leather grips for everything but the warm-up and no further damage to my hands. I just don’t have the grip problem on the rings like I do with bar muscle-ups.
Bryan and I jumped on the rowers for 10 minutes. Went 2,535 meters. Didn’t get into a good rhythm until the final 90 seconds.
Nick Momrik's Fitness Logs 
