It was Kalsu at the gym today and there is no way my back was attempting that. Did a late workout in the garage. Warmed up with 3 minutes on the AirDyne.
6 Rounds
30s MB Cleans (20#)
30s Rest
30s Ski Erg cals
30s Rest
30s Double Unders
30s Rest
30s Push Press (45#)
30s Rest
30s Lateral Hops
30s Rest
It started getting hard in the middle of the 4th round, but with only 30 seconds of work at a time I knew I could push on. Should have gone faster early on I guess. Hot sweaty mess for this one. It was up to 85° during the day today.
Still sore from the deadlifts on Friday. I still had a headache last night when I went to bed after a late movie; that sun really got to me. The programming at the gym is another 20 minute AMRAP of heavy push presses and same thing with other lifts this week, so I stayed home. Can’t wait until we switch programs next week because that shit is not meant for general gym programming.
Warm-up
3 Sets
1:00 Air Dyne
20 Push-ups (unbroken)
Bottom squat hold
Shoulder stretching
10 Air squats
4 Pistols
Had to make sure I could do some pistols before getting into it. haha
Conditioning
2 Rounds
20 Pistols
30 Pull-ups
400m Ski Erg
Mod of the gym workout which was 100 dubs to start and running instead of the Ski Erg. The damn Ski Erg turned off before I got to it in the first round. Made sure to hit the button during rests in round two to keep it on. I wore gymnastics grips, but hate my Again Faster bar. I really need to see if I can remove the powder coating because I slip all over on it. I really wanted to be able to do all sets of 10. Got through round 1 and 1 set of 10 in round 2, but then did the rest in 6-5-5-4. Total time was 9:08.
Midline
2 Sets
25 GHD Sit-ups (parallel)
Max Superman Hold
I did a 1:02 hold both times.
I thought we were heading back down to bearable temperatures tomorrow but it’s going to be 90 again!
No golf again. 😦 Out in the garage in the evening since there was a ton of barbell work in the gym programming.
Warm-up – 4 Sets
10 DB Snatch (alt)
10 Goblet Squats
5 Scap Pull-ups
5 Scap Push-ups
Used a dumbbell of 20-30-35-40# from set to set for both snatch and squats
Shoulder Press
10×45#
10×75
10×85
10×95
10×105
10×110
10×115
Definitely have a minor impingement going on in my right shoulder. I’ve done 125 before, but not today.
Conditioning
5 Rounds
10 Ball Slams (30#)
5 Strict Chin-ups
40 Lateral Hops
The gym workout was kettlebell swings (70#), chin-ups, and double unders. I’ve done some swings and dubs lately, so changed up the movements and stuck to the same rep scheme. Doing the chin-ups strict was a little twist I decided to do. I did them in sets of 5, 3-2, and then 2-2-1 for the last 3 rounds. Finished in 6:06.
After a few minutes I jumped on the Airdyne at a recovery pace for 10 minutes and went exactly 3 miles.
It’s nice having my garage sensor running again so I could tell it was about 81° in there while I was exercising.
I golfed yesterday, but my back is still not great. I tried to get there early to hit the range, but there was nobody in front of our tee times, so we ended up getting off really early and I had almost no time on the range. I was favoring my back and anticipating jolts of pain, so I kept pulling out of my swing and hitting everything left all round. This morning seems about the same as yesterday, so I pulled out of the club championship this weekend. Bummed! 😦 With a 9am shotgun start both days, my back wouldn’t loosen up that early and it was not fun playing yesterday with the anticipation on every swing.
Today’s workouts for the gym had a bunch of barbell work, which I’m not ready for. So I made some adjustments to yesterday’s programming and hit it out in the garage.
Warm-up
15:00 EMOM (alt)
40s Jump Rope
8 Ring Rows + 8 Push-ups
8/8 Single Arm OH Lunges (35# DB)
I like these longer warm-ups. Really work up a sweat and get in more aerobic work.
Conditioning
7:00 AMRAP
50 Double Unders
15 MB Cleans (20#)
I don’t know if I was favoring my back or what, but missed a lot on my dubs. Had a nice burn on the medicine ball cleans. Finished 4+9.
5:00 Airdyne
3 Rounds
1,000m Ski (@ 5k pace)
2:00 Airdyne
It was an easy recovery pace on the Airdyne, which was 55-60 RPM for me. I decided on a 2:00/500m pace for the ski erg and kept to it, finishing each 1k in a split second under 4:00. Not an impossible pace for those intervals, but not completely comfortable either. Total time with transitions was 24:25.
Last night I think I was already starting to feel some effects of spending an hour on the Airdyne. The front of my ankles were getting tight again and my right knee was feeling a bit weird. My back is starting to feel better today, but had to skip out on golf.
Gymnastics
8 Rounds (Tabata)
20s Push-up
10s Rest
I did 6 sets of 11, then 9, and finished with 8. For the sets of 11 I should have been doing 6-5 instead of 11 unbroken because I had a lot of rest time each set. It was all I had to squeeze out 9 and 8 on the final 2 rounds.
Accessory
4×15 DB Curls (20#)
100 Bench Press (45#)
I did the bench presses in 1:39 with short pauses at the top after 67 and 93 reps. Never set the bar down, which I was not expecting to be able to do.
The Banded March
I’ve been wanting to try this for a long time. Since I can’t handle loading my spine, I thought it would be a good way to work my lower body. I put a green band around pegs at the bottom of my rig and hooked up my dip belt. Held a 20# medicine ball at my chest and went for 5:00. Would be fun to try with my new 100# sandbag when my back recovers.
Conditioning
5:00 Airdyne
5:00 Rest
5:00 Airdyne
I started out at 85 RPM. My legs were dying 2 minutes in so my pace slowly kept fading. Maybe I should have rested more after the march, because it felt like the lactic acid built up really fast. Managed to get 170 calories. On the second round I started at 78 RPM for 2+ minutes, picked up to 82 for a minute or two, then kicked it up with a minute left, and brought it home in the least 30 seconds. Got exactly 170 calories again. Not great on either interval considering I can do 340+ in 10 minutes.
My back started feeling worse last night and is definitely worse today. Didn’t loosen up as much as I did yesterday, but tomorrow should be on the recovery side from this tweak. Will have to miss golfing though.
Decided to jump on the Airdyne while watching the finals of the CrossFit Games and ended up going for 60 minutes! Totalled 1,046 calories and 17.64 miles.
I had to skip out on the golf outing. Could barely walk in the morning and sitting in the car for over an hour wouldn’t help. It’s the afternoon and I still can’t stand in a golf stance, but my back has loosened up a lot compared to this morning, so it’s nowhere near as bad as the tweak I did during the Open. I’ve started using an aide for helping to realign the spine. Hopefully it helps.
Figured I might as well get back to some bench pressing today. Was going to make it the first day of a cycle of the No B.S. Bench Press program I’ve had great success with before. It’s a nice program because it’s only 1 workout per week. It starts off with a base number and then week through the program adds to that base number with different rep and set schemes. I picked 225# for my base number.
Bench Press
10×45#
10×95
5×135
5×185
5×205
5×225
4x5x205
After the first set of 225 was rough (I could also feel some stress on my back) I made the executive decision to back off for the 4 other sets and also skip the max rep set. So maybe I won’t count today as the first week of the program.
Conditioning
30 Rounds
30s Airdyne (Fast)
30s Airdyne (Slow)
Put on my headphones and watched the CrossFit Games Clean Ladder live while doing this. Ended up going 10.49 miles (785 cal).
My legs and ass all still pretty sore from Tuesday. Walked 18 holes yesterday and it took awhile to loosen up. I might even be more sore today actually. My shins and ankles are pretty tight, probably from the box jumps, jump rope, broad jumps, or a combination of those. Out in the garage this afternoon since Alex’s wedding is tonight.
Warm-up – 4 Sets
5 Tall Cleans
5 Front Squats
5 Hang Squat Cleans (above knee)
5 Hang Squat Cleans (below knee)
I did 45-75-95-115#. Holy cardio!
Lifting – 5 Sets
Complex of Clean Pull + Clean + Hang Clean (below knee) + Hang Clean (above knee)
My plan was 135-155-175-195-215# On the clean with 175, my back buckled. It was the worst a back tweak has felt at the time of the incident. Hopefully the after effects are minor, especially with a golf outing in the morning.
So frustrating. I was looking forward to the WOD with HSPU, pull-ups, and lunges too. So instead I had to jump on the AD.
Went on a little golfing trip to Forest Dunes on Friday and Saturday. Then on Sunday I spend the day down in Dearborn for Maker Faire Detroit. Didn’t stress about missing workout and even took another day out of the gym yesterday to golf. So today was my first day working out since Thursday. I went to the 4:30 class.
My buddy Kevin and his business partner sold CrossFit Intuition to another member, who is renaming it to Mid Michigan Muscle with the tagline:
New Owner | New Workouts | New You
Everyone seems excited for the change.
Warm-up
3×10 Reverse Hyper (140#)
8:00 EMOM (alt)
45s Run / Row
45s Single Leg Glute Bridges (Switch legs every 5)
Strength
10×45#
10×95
5×135
5×185
5×195
5×200
5×205
5×210
5×220
Paired up with another guy, knowing I’d stay light. Could feel I haven’t squatted much in 4 months.
Conditioning
E2M – 12 Rounds
30s Row / Airdyne / Run
I did each for 4 rounds and switched. Calories on the rower were 20-19-17-16. No idea on the AD. The run was about 140-150m, so short of 30 seconds of work. Got a nice headache from going hard.
Was going to sit out the extra credit, but at the last second I jumped in and made Gavin share his bar.
21 Thrusters (115#)
15 Thrusters (155#)
9 Thrusters (185#)
We just kept alternating sets. I did 12-9 on 115. When I picked up 155 it was heavy as fuck! Did two sets of 2, then 2 sets of 4, and a final set of 3. I did one rep with 185 and stopped there. My back was already tight from the back squats and I wasn’t going to push it too much. The clock was at about 7:00 when I stopped.
Feeling pretty good this morning. Out in the garage at 10:30 to finish up the Hybrid Performance Method Push Only program. Warmed up with 5 minutes on the Airdyne, which was about 1.26 miles. I prepared a bit this morning and referenced How to Warm Up for a One-Rep Max on T Nation. The example for 185# was pretty much exactly what I needed since my previous best was a 180# shoulder press.
Shoulder Press
10×45#
8×95
5×115
3×135
1×155
1×170
1×182.5 (PR)
1×187.5 (Fail)
1×185 (PR)
1×187.5 (Fail)
Crazy how much of a difference two and a half pounds can make. So I ended up with a 5# PR. I was really hoping for 187.5 or more, but from previous programs I know how hard it is to increase the shoulder press.
I skipped the pull-up and accessory work so I could test a couple of other things and destroy my shoulders! Done with Push Only!! I’ll do a full recap/review post, probably on my main blog to share with a wider audience.
After the big surprise when I tested my strict set about a week ago, I also wanted to get in a kipping test. I was able to get 23 for a 9 rep PR, which is almost a 65% improvement!
According to BTWB, my rankings on the HSPU max sets are an 82 for this one and a 76 for the strict set of 17. I would have expected those to be the opposite.
Strength Endurance / Conditioning
100 Bench Press (135#)
I’d done this once, back in December of 2015 in a time of 9:37. I did it by hitting 5 reps every 30 seconds and then switching to sets of 3s after 85. I set an interval timer on my phone for 25 second rounds. Made it through 13 sets (65 reps) on pace at 5:10 on the clock. Then I changed to sets of 3 at shorter intervals and a final set of 2. Took me 8:43 today for a 54 second PR.
Here’s a compilation video from the day I made to share on Facebook with the bench press at 8x speed instead of 2x.
Nick Momrik's Fitness Logs 