Nick Momrik's Fitness Logs

Recovery

Feeling more back to normal today, although I did wake up with a headache again. Went at 10am and Kevin and I did our own thing today.

Warm-up

I did a 500m Row and some PVC pass-thrus.

OLY Technique

1 Snatch EMOM for 10:00

I started out at 75# and worked my way up, doing the last 2 or 3 with 135#. It’s been far too long since doing a full squat snatch so it felt a bit awkward today.

Strength

5×3 OHS

Haven’t done heavy overhead squats since I set a 1 rep max of 165# last year. Went 95-125-145-155-160. Pretty tough, but felt good to do them again.

10:00 EMOM

Evens: 5 Weighted Pull-ups (20-20-20-20-25)
Odds: 5 Weighted Dips (20-20-20-25-25)

I had my belt so strapped on a KB for the weight. I don’t think I can count 5 full reps for my last set of pull-ups. Maybe should have added a 2.5# plate instead of taking the 5# jump.

Finisher

5 Rounds

50m High Prowler Sprint (90# sled + 135#)
50m Low Prowler Sprint (90# sled + 135#)
20 Unbroken DU
1-2 minute rest

On the last round I pushed another 15-20m for extra misery.

Solid workout today, without too much intensity to kill me after being off for 3 days.

Saturday was a planned rest day and I did a bunch of work around the house, including tearing out a floor. I woke up feeling “off” on Sunday with a headache and it quickly turned to an achy body with no energy. Felt like the flu. Needless to say I didn’t do any training. Went to bed at 8 and slept for 12 hours. Today has been better as the day progresses, but I took a sick day from work to rest.

Since I’m feeling better tonight, I decided to see if I could get in my back squats for the week. Warmed up with 5 reps on the empty bar and then 5 at 135#. My working sets today called for:

6 @ 185
6 @ 205
6 @ 220
6 @ 235
6 @ 250

Was a bit rough in the last two sets, but I got through it. Hopefully I’m back close to 100% tomorrow.

Gymnasty Friday

Feeling pretty good today after a tough WOD and some good strength work last night. Trained at 10:30am with Matt, Cora, Kevin, and Steve. Kevin came up with the programming for the day and Matt ended up using it for the Survival Fitness classes too. Was a good one!

Warm-up

Did a 500m row, 3/3 Turkish Get-ups with a 35# KB, some PVC pass-thrus, and then worked up to heavy push presses.

Strength

10:00 EMOM

Evens: 3 Push Presses
Odds: 10 Pistols

I was planning on trying 185#, but it was really heavy warming up, so I dropped down to 175# and used it for the first four rounds and then bumped to 185# for the last round. Programming called for only 6 pistols, so I was going to try wearing my 20# vest but it was pretty awkward so I did 10 each round instead. I can fly through them pretty fast now and don’t run into many problems.

WOD

12:00 AMRAP with 1 Deadlift EMOM (285#)

5 HSPU
7 Pull-ups
9 Air Squats

The deadlift kind of served like a forced break in this. My first round was a little fast, but then I kept the same pace until the last 2 or 3 rounds when my HSPU got a little slower. I came up 2 squats shy of 12 full rounds for a score of 11+19. All of my HSPU were unbroken which was nice. Pull-ups and squats were only broken up due to coming on a minute and having to do the deadlift.

Finisher

10 Rounds

15s Air Dyne sprint at 100%
1:45 Rest

This felt easier than when we did it last Saturday. Didn’t have that sick feeling throughout, but it did hit us all about 5 minutes after. Kevin and I got 287 calories on our AD, which was up from 269.

13.1 Redemption

Another Competition Thursday at Survival Fitness and I was not excited about the WOD since I did horrible on it, but excited that I’d get the chance to improve my score. Went to the 5pm class.

Warm-up

30 Air Squats
20 PVC Pass-thrus
30 PVC OHS
Snatches

WOD

The WOD for today was CrossFit Games Open Workout 13.1, which I scored a 142 on during the Open, with a 15:52 tiebreaker at the end of the 135# snatches.

17:00 AMRAP

40 Burpees
30 Snatch (75#)
30 Burpees
30 Snatch (135#)
20 Burpees
30 Snatch (165#)
10 Burpees
Max rep Snatch (210#)

I was much faster today and didn’t die as bad on the burpees, although they still sucked. I finished the 75# snatches at 5:01, which I think was about 20 seconds faster than in the Open. Was on the bar starting 135# snatches around 8:35-ish and finished them at 14:58 (I’m going to call that a 6:23 “Isabel” PR, since I still haven’t done it standalone), nearly a whole minute faster, which gave me plenty of time to got those last 20 burpees. I was extremely slow on them though and only had 18 seconds to spare. I didn’t even bother trying to put weight on the bar and try 165# because I would have just ended up hurting myself. I’m glad I was able to hit 150 reps this time and do everything a lot faster.

Strength

Second week of my squat program and front squats were on the menu. Warmed up with 5 fast reps at 115# and then had to do 5 reps each at 160#, 175#, 185#, and 200#. Solid work… not too easy and not too hard.

Garage Work

Headed over to Kevin’s place and did a bunch of hamstring and low back work.

3 Rounds (not for time)

10 Reverse Hypers (120#, 170#, 190#)
7 GHR
5 Good Mornings (135#)
20 GHD Sit-ups

Low back was already feeling a little spicy from they heavy cleans yesterday and today’s WOD, so this just lit it more. Good stuff though. Those GHR are rough and my form isn’t very good on them.

Rested Wednesday

Needed that day off yesterday. Worked out at 10:30 today. Kevin and I split off and did our own thing.

Warm-up

“Russian Twist Annie”
50-40-30-20-10

DU
Russian Twists (35# KB)

My DU were not the greatest, but finished in 5:03. Did another set of 40 unbroken DU a couple of minutes after finishing.

Strength

10:00 E2M

5 HSPU
5 Ring Dips
5 Pull-ups

All movements are done strict, moving as fast as possible between them. On the last set, MAX out each movement. Finished each of the first 4 rounds in about 40-45 seconds, so had over a minute to rest. This combination was much tougher than expected. I got 5-6-5 in my last set and it was a struggle!

Warmed up a little more with some lighter clean and jerks.

WOD

5 Rounds (205#)

5 Deadlifts
3 Power Cleans
1 Jerk
10 Pull-ups

Rough. The 3rd power clean every round was pretty ugly and the jerk was by far the hardest part of the whole thing. Starting off with those 5 deadlifts wiped me out more than expected. Was shooting for this to take about 10 minutes and I fell just under, with a time of 9:57.

Finisher

We loaded up the 90# prowler sled with four 45# plates. Did 4 rounds of 25m high down and low back, then finished with a 40m low down and high back. Rested 1-2 minutes between each round.

Squats & Presses

My body is feeling a little beat up today, but planned to rest tomorrow anyway, so might as well hit it hard. Matt, Cora, Kevin, and I trained at 10:30am.

Warm-up

500m Row
PVC Pass-thrus
Back squat and shoulder press warm-up with light weights

Strength

Second week of the squat program, so while everyone did the 5 sets of 3 back squats around 90%, I did 4 sets of 8 with increasing weight.

10:00 EMOM MOFO

Evens: 3 Back Squats (90% of 1RM)
Odds: 3 Shoulder Presses (90% of 1RM)

I did my first 3 sets of back squats on time, took off the 4th round of back squats to rest for my heaviest set, and finished it on the 5th round. I had to do 8 reps each set, using 185, 205, 220, and 235. Pretty rough. On shoulder presses, 90% calls for 145#, but I don’t think that would be possible for me, so I used 135# for the first 4 sets and 140# for my final set.

Strength WOD

This one comes from some of the CrossFit Level 1 Seminar Staff. They absolutely crushed it. I think Khalipa did it in 4:17.

For time:

10 Shoulder Presses
15 OHS
20 Push Presses
25 Front Squats
30 Push Jerks
35 Back Squats

Rx is 115/75 for this one. My time was 14:03. Great barbell work there.

Conditioning WOD

Just keep moving in this one.

12:00 AMRAP

10 Jingle Jangles
10 V-ups
10 HR Push-ups
10 OH Walking Lunges (45/25)

I completed 7 full rounds, 10 jingle jangles, 10 v-ups, and 1 push-up for 7+21.

Finisher

Tabata Mash-up

Ring L-sit
Ball Slams (15#)

I did knee tuck sits each round.

Took us about an hour and 40 minutes to complete everything today. I have a feeling the legs are going to be wrecked for a couple of days.

Masters Sunday

Feeling a little tired today after a short night of sleep. Went to the 11am.

Warm-up

Teams of 3 with cardio setting the pace. Do a round at each cardio piece.

250m Row / 20 cal Air Dyne / 200m Run
KB Rack Hold
Air Squats

WOD

20:00 Partner AMRAP

Pace: 450m Run
AMRAP:
- 7 C2B Pull-ups
- 14 Wall Balls (20#, 10′)
- 21 One-arm KB C&J (53# KB)

I paired up with Kevin and we finished 6 rounds plus 7 (actually Kevin miscounted at the end and got us to 9 C2B). The C&J were by far the worst part of this. My running shape is terrible.

Finisher

Big class, so we all lined up and did 25m prowler sprints. Then as class ended, a few people stayed to do extra credit down and back (25m each way) prowler sprints. I stayed even later and kept adding weight to the prowler for more down and backs. Got in about an hour and 15 minutes of work today.

Time to enjoy the Masters!

Running in the Snow

This morning I was up early and drove over to Mount Pleasant. It was supposed to be for the Out for Blood Duathlon, but due to rain, slow, and sleet they had to cancel the bike portion of the race. Much of the running and biking courses were flooded and many other parts were covered in snow and slush, making it very dangerous to be racing on bikes.

I’ve competed in this race the last two years (winning my age group for the mountain bike division both years) and the weather has always sucked, but this year was the worst. They had to rush to come up with the alternate course, but thy could have easily had someone shovel off the snowy areas of the 5k course. They also didn’t correctly map out a course because it ended up only being about 2.65 miles instead of 3.1 for a real 5k. Oh well, nobody was setting any time records with the condition of the paths and the slick wooden bridges. I finished in about 21:11 after starting out way too fast. I placed 3rd in the 26-35 year-old group for today’s run. At least I can still be competitive as the old man. 🙂

Went in to the gym at 4pm with Matt, Cora, and Kevin to do some training.

10:00 EMOM

Odds: 4 Power Snatch (115#)
Evens: 12 Pull-ups

Got 12 unbroken butterfly pull-ups each round! I’m really finding the groove with the butterfly.

3 Rounds

15 American KBS (53# KB)
15 Burpees
50 DU

I did the first round of DU unbroken, but started hitting the wall after that. Finished in 7:34.

10:00 EMOM

Odds: 30s Handstand Hold
Evens: 12 T2B

I made a discovery of how to cycle my T2B a little faster. Being able to do 5×12 unbroken is a huge improvement for me.

10 Rounds

15s AirDyne max effort sprint
1:45 Rest

This is the worst thing I’ve done in a year and a half of CrossFit. I thought I was going to puke from the 3rd round on. We even went 20s on the last round just for fun and I could barely move in those extra 5 seconds. I’m not even exaggerating when I say that I pretty much had to crawl off of the AD after each round. Kevin and I used the same AD and we totaled 269 calories.

After that high effort, I figured it would be a good idea to get some easy rowing in. Did 6 minutes at an easy pace for just over 1,200m I think

The 9,251st Fittest Man on Earth

Last year, the Open was my first competition. I loved it and have done several local competitions over the year.

I’ve improved a lot in the last year, but how much? There’s not really a good way to measure up against the rest of the CrossFit community, other than the Open, so I was really looking forward to the 2013 Games.

I learned a lot in my 2nd Open…

CrossFit works. If you’re consistent and dedicated, you’ll see amazing results and do things you didn’t think were possible.
The CrossFit community an a whole, in different regions, and in each box is more amazing than we realize.
There will always new ways to format a WOD.
Expect the unexpected. Be prepared for the “unknown and the unknowable” is what we like to say in CrossFit.
We all have weaknesses and we will always have weaknesses. With hard work, we can turn some of them into strengths and improve others.
Competition can bring out the best in people.

My goal for this year’s Open was to be above average and finish in the top 50% of men. After the first workout I realized that goal was too easy and I bumped it to the top 25% of men. No small task, considering I finished 16,395th out of 22,183 in 2012, which put me beating 26% of the men.

After 5 workouts, I ended up 9,251st out of 46,227 men (those that submitted scores for all 5 workouts), which is the top 20%! Bottom 26% to top 20% in one year…HELL YEAH! I couldn’t be happier with that progress.

This year’s Open was actually a rough start for me. I placed 18,903rd in 13.1 and was pretty disappointed right after the workout. Here is what I wrote in my recap…

I was disappointed (and still am a bit), but then I realized that last year in 12.1 I got 92 burpees in 7 minutes and in 12.2 I got 36 snatches in 10 minutes. In this combined 17 minute WOD I got 82 burpees and 60 snatches. Hell of an improvement, so I’m going to chalk this up as a win. The snatch is one of my weakest movements, so I ended up pretty well and I’m way ahead of pace to finish above average in the Open.

It was nothing but up from there. In 13.2 I placed 10,012th in the world, jumping me up almost 6,000 spots in the overall ranking, to 12,969th. The workout they decided to reuse from last year was my best 2012 result, so I was thrilled to give it another shot a year later. I had a great improvement for 13.3, doing muscle-ups for the first time in a WOD! I ranked 9,246th on the workout, which would be my highest ranked workout for the 2nd year in a row, moving me up to 10,326th in the overall ranks.

I’m not a fan of redoing workouts in the Open, but due to timing my plan was to tackle the 4th workout twice. I hit 13.4 right after the announcement, because I was starting the road trip from Phoenix back to Saginaw the next morning and wanted to get in a score in case I didn’t make it home in time for a real attempt. Then I gave it another go back at my home box Survival Fitness. The extra time to come up with a strategy allowed me to make a nice improvement on that safety score. I ended up placing 10,568th is the world on the workout, moving me up once again overall, cracking the top 10k at 9,851st in the world.

I was really hoping not to see C2B Pull-ups and Thrusters come back for the final workout, but I should have known better. After throwing down in the workout, I’m glad I had to do them though. In 13.5 I was 11,527th which moved me up to my final spot of 9,251st.

What an amazing journey it’s been in the last 12 months of CrossFit. I’ve improved in so much, but the Open shows us what we need to work on. I’ve created a list of things to focus on for the next few months. Some of them are directly related to the Open workouts and others are things I knew going in.

OLY (snatch, clean, and jerk) technique. Keep improving hip extension.
Get unbroken MU and figure out wrist turnover during the transition.
T2B completely die out over the course of a WOD. Hips stop working, so need better endurance.
Get 1RM back squat closer to deadlift.
Strengthen upper body.
Increase OHS.
Learn C2B butterfly pull-ups.
Handstand without a wall and handstand walk.

How was your Open and what are you going to work on?

Competition Thursday at Survival Fitness

After 3 intense days of doing our own programming, it was time to get back to a group class. Matt has turned Thursday into competition day at Survival Fitness and will be bringing back old Open or Regional WODs for the most part. Should be a lot of fun and keep the competitive atmosphere going. I went to the 9am.

Warm-up

30 Air Squats
20 PVC Pass-thrus
30 PVC OHS

I also did some jump rope to warm up the calves for box jumps.

WOD

2011 CrossFit Games Open Workout 11.2
15:00 AMRAP

9 Deadlifts (155#)
12 HR Push-ups
15 Box Jumps (24″)

My first time trying this WOD. It was a grinder at that 15 minute length. I think I did the first two rounds of push-ups unbroken, but then 7-5 almost every other round to keep from reaching failure. Pushed through 12 slow unbroken in my last round. Had some no-reps on the box jumps, but rebounded almost everything. Finished with 10 rounds plus 6 deadlifts for a total of 366 reps.

Strength

Warmed up with 5 @ 135# on front squats and then went into what was prescribed for my squat program, although I accidentally went an extra 5# in the first set; 5 reps at each of 165#, 175#, and 185#. Not as easy as I thought it was going to be since those are only 60%, 65%, and 70% of my 1RM. But I’m not used to doing strength after a WOD either.

Then I did a Tabata bench with 115#. Started out too fast with 13 reps in the first round and everything was downhill from there. I had 40 reps through 4 rounds and ended up with 60 total, even failing on a rep in round 7. Have to take into account this is after 120 push-ups too.

Headed over to Kevin’s at night for some garage work with all of his toys. Figured I could handle a little extra work since tomorrow is a rest and massage day and then Saturday morning I’m doing a duathlon.

The Backside

3 Rounds (not for time)

10 Reverse Hypers (120#)
7 Glute Ham Raise
20 GHD Sit-ups

Hopefully this stuff helps increase my squats as well as the extra squatting I’m doing.

Split Jerks

I’ve been wanting to try out the jerk blocks Kevin built and tonight was the night. My technique kinda sucked. Ugh! I did a couple of double at 95#, then doubles at 125#, 155#, 185#, and 205#. My last was going to be a double at 225# but after the 2nd rep Kevin wanted to try out a burst-mode camera app, so I did a 3rd rep. I’m happy with the weight I was able to do (my 1RM is 245#) but wish my technique had been better. Still need a lot of work.

I was going to do some light snatch work, but after having trouble landing a 95# snatch, I canceled that idea. My shoulders just weren’t having it. So I went back at my hamstrings and did 10 RDLs at 115#, 205#, and 205#.