burpee – Page 36 – Nick Momrik's Fitness Logs

Forearms on Fire

I was up late setting up my new TV and everything along with it. Michelle was coaching and had me help her out with the programming with some movements she had in mind. Went in for the 11am class.

Warm-up

We did a bunch of dynamic movements going back and forth the length of the gym, including jogging, high knees, butt kicks, carioca, skipping, Samson stretch, hip flexor stretch, Sumo stretch, etc. Something new and fresh.

Then we did time through the Partner MB Pass Complex with 10 reps each of pass, overhead, left side, right side, and straight up.

WOD

30:00 Running Clock
Each part has a 10:00 cut-off. Part B starts at exactly 10:00 and Part C starts at exactly 20:00. If you finish a part early, rest until the next begins.

Part A, 3 Rounds

15 Goblet Squats (53# KB)
15 Ring Push-ups

This one was fast, but we were also the freshest here. I did it in 2:58.

Part B, 3 Rounds

15 Burpees
15 Ring Rows

I tried to pace myself on the burpees out of the gate, which allowed me to push on them a little more in the 3rd round. Ring rows are a big weakness for me. Took me 5:38 to finish.

Part C, 3 Rounds

15 K2E
15 Sandbag Clean & Toss Over Shoulder

I owned this one. Did the K2E in 15, 10-5, and 10-5 and never stopped with the sandbag. Took me 4:26 to get done.

My total working time was 13:02. About 10 minutes after we were done I could feel the burn in my arms and especially in my forearms. I didn’t see that coming when I whipped this up. Michelle had picked the first 4 movements, so I just plugged them in to my format and picked two more. The grip work in that last couplet was a real treat.

Hundreds

Was feeling good until doing jump rope in the warm-up and then I could feel my lower back tightening up from those deadlifts yesterday. Went in for the noon class.

Warm-up

3m Jump Rope
2 Rounds:
- 10 Ring Rows
- 10 Burpees
- 10 PVC Pass-thrus
2×6/6 Turkish Get-ups

I used a 35# KB for my first set of 6 on each side. Then Emily told mo to try them with a barbell. I did 4 on the right side with an 18# bar which was too light. Switched to a 35# bar and did 4 more, then 6 on the left side. Using a bar adds another level of control to the movement and was a nice change.

WOD

100 DU
Split this up any way you want:
- 100 Pull-ups
- 100 Walking Lunges
- 100 Push-ups
100 DU

I got through the first 100 DU is about 1:10, then I did 10 rounds of 10s. All pull-ups were done without coming off the bar and no breaks on the lunges. I had to reset my rhythm a few times on the butterfly, but I think that is the best I’ve ever done pull-ups in my life. I did 3 unbroken sets of push-ups (all chest to deck) and then 6-4 until the last set where I forced myself to go unbroken again. The last 100 DU were a little struggle since I pushed so hard through the middle hundreds. Finished in 15:56, which crushed the best time of the day.

2013 CrossFit Games Open Workout 13.1

The 2013 CrossFit Games Open is upon us. My goal this year is to beat 50% of the men, which might not be a lofty enough of a goal, but considering I only beat about 25% of the guys last year, that would be a huge improvement.

Yesterday I wrote the post Why I Compete in the CrossFit Games Open, which explains a lot of my motivation for competing. You can also check out my Games Profile.

If there were any WODs I didn’t want to see come up again from 2013 it was the snatch ladder and the combination of thrusters and C2B pull-ups. Well, 13.1 brings back the snatch ladder, but pairs it up with burpees. A brutal combination.

Open Workout 13.1

17:00 AMRAP

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

My goal was to get to the 165# snatches and get at least one, which would have been a PR. I had several days to prepare, and obsessively mapped out a strategy based on tips I read online and chatting with friends who had already done the WOD. But it’s impossible to know how your body is going to react, so planning can only do so much for you.

I hit the pace I wanted to for the 40 burpees and felt good going into the 75# snatches. Broke it up into sets of 10-8-6-6 and they crushed me pretty bad. I wasn’t expecting them to get to me. Even so, I was only 15 seconds behind the pace I was hoping for at this point. But I was pretty dead already and the 30 burpees ended up going pretty slow. After changing the weights, I started the 135# snatches at around 9 minutes, now a minute behind the pace I wanted.

I did all singles at 135# and tried to get right back on the bar, but they were taking a lot out of me and I was already dead. I finished them at 15:52, almost 3 minutes slower than I wanted to. Managed to get 12 of the 20 burpees for a final score of 142. There was no way I would have been able to get a 165# snatch (10# PR) after all that work, so 150 was the best score I could have gotten.

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.

I guess I can count that as a 6:52 time for “Isabel” since it was 30 snatches. Shouldn’t be hard to beat whenever I do the benchmark on it’s own.

Bring on 13.2!

Pacing Burpees

Back of my thighs are sore from all those back squats still. The box is closed since it’s Friday and I’m going to rest tomorrow to do Open WOD 13.1 on Sunday. Figured I would get in a little home work.

Did a trial run of 40 burpees to a 6″ target as a slow and steady pace, so I could get used to it for the 13.1. I couple of weeks ago I did 50 of these all out in 2:39 and was dead for like a half hour. I did the trial run in about 2:50, which I think turned out to be pretty solid. I was breathing heavy, but not dying. Started out at about 4 seconds per burpee, but slowed down in the half. Good overall rhythm.

5 Rounds

15 HR Push-ups
20s L-Sit
20 Air Squats

I didn’t time it since my goal was quality movements and trying to do everything unbroken. I probably rested 2-3 minutes after each round, except for a quick turnover into round 5. Everything was done unbroken. For the l-sits I put two chairs together and help myself up, with knees bent and above parallel for all 20 seconds.

Working on Muscle-Ups

Feeling good today. Pecs are still sore from the competition. Was up early so headed in to work on muscle-ups before the 9am class.

I started out with rings hanging low from a pull-up bar so I could get in some reps working the transition with my feet bent under me and on my toes. Then I moved over to a set of rings I could grab on to while standing flat-footed and worked the strict transition. I kept missing because I’d let the rings get too wide and I was too slow in the turn-over. I nailed a few of them though. Just from that bit of work, my wrists started to rub raw. Need to try to do this once or twice a week.

Warm-up

4/4 World’s Greatest Stretch
15 No Push-up Burpees
200m Run
100m Run Backwards
200m Carioca (100m each direction)
300m Run
3 Rounds:
- 10 Evil Wheels
- 5/5 Glute Bridge March
- 10s Glute Bridge Hold

I worked up quite a sweat with the evil wheels.

WOD

30 Box Jumps (30″)
20 Full Cleans (155#)
30 K2E
20 Single-arm Push Press (53# KB)
30 Sit-ups
20 Alt Pistols
30 Burpee Box Jumps (30″)

Damn those cleans sucked ass and then the burpee box jumps at the end were pretty killer as well. Everything else was smooth sailing for the most part. I did the box jumps unbroken, the K2E in 12-10-8, push presses in sets of 5 per arm, sit-ups unbroken, and pistols with 2 short breaks mainly to get back to balanced. Really had to concentrate on the box jumps at the end. Finished in 16:36.

Clean Work

Not feeling too bad this morning, but legs are feeling those tempo back squats from Tuesday. Went in for the 9am so that I have 2 full days of rest before the competition on Saturday.

Warm-up

500m Row
10/10 Scorpions
10/10 Flamingos
50′ Frog Hop
2×5 Extremely slow Clean Deadlift up to shrug and triple extension (95#)

Strength

Clean Complex

Power Clean from high hang
Power Clean from above knee
Power Clean from ground
90s Rest

I really tried to work on my hip extension, which is probably my weakest point in the Olympic lifts. I did 6 sets of the complex, going 115#, 125#, 135#, 145#, 155#, and 165#. We had plenty of time in class, so we moved on to doing some heavy singles.

Heavy Power Clean Singles

185#
205# (matching PR)
215# (new PR, easy!)
230# (fail)
230# (Plenty high enough, little slow getting the elbows under, but fought for it.

That was a 25# PR on my power clean over the 205# set back in October and now it’s higher than my 225# squat clean max. I’m still not even getting full hip extension though, so plenty more in the tank if I can keep improving my technique.

WOD

12:00 AMRAP

7 Clean & Jerk (135#)
7 C2B Pull-ups
7 Burpees

This one was a fight and I ended up ripping both of my thumbs. I guess I need to start taping them again, especially for high rep clean work. I finished 5 full rounds and an extra clean and jerk.

Call Me Julie

I don’t think the leg burning workout from Tuesday night had hit me yet, so I went in for the 9am figuring I could then go in at night on Thursday and enjoy the longer rest.

Warm-up

500m Row
2 Rounds
- 20/20 Band walks
- 15 Band Presses
- 10/10 Hitchhikers
- 10/10 T-stabilizations

Strength

5×5 Push Presses with 2-1-X-2 Tempo

The tempo work on for pressing doesn’t seem quite as taxing as it does for squats. I did a set with the bar to get the feel for it, then went 95#, 115#, 135#, 150#, and 165#. Couldn’t have gone any higher. Got really unstable at the top in the last two reps, but got it done.

WOD

7 Rounds

7 HSPU
7 K2E
21 DU (unbroken)

I knew the limiter would be the HSPU, but didn’t think they would get as hard as they did. I guess I didn’t realize how little rest there really was between sets. I was solid for the first 3 rounds going unbroken and right around 1 minute per round. Even the 4th and 5th rounds weren’t too bad, but 6 and 7 were brutal for HSPU. And then I get all the way to my last rep and I failed half way up. Felt a little like Julie Foucher trying to do her deficit HSPU last year at the Games. All of my K2E were unbroken and I didn’t miss a single DU. Finished in 10:48.

Home WOD

Needed to do something at night sitting at home. I’ve been meaning to do a little burpee testing to see where I’m at, so game on.

50 Burpees (Touch 6″ target above reach)

I can touch the ceiling with my fingertips standing up, so I slapped the ceiling with both hands making it 6-8 inches. Might have started out a little too fast because the last 20 reps were brutal. Took me 2:39 to finish, which nearly beats my normal PR for 50 burpees in 2:33. Jumping up to the target is a lot tougher and I could really feel the burn in my quads right around 25-30 reps. Yesterday’s big leg workout is probably starting to hit me as well.

In last years Open WOD 12.1 I did 92 of these in 7 minutes. I’d say I’ve improved some since then. I’m kind of curious to know if by starting out slower I would have been able to keep a steadier pace and get done quicker. Might have to play around with pacing once or twice in the next couple of weeks before the Open. I’ll bet they are going to have a burpee WOD again since it was a pretty good way to kick of the Games season in 2012.

Double Trouble

I was itching for a WOD all day yesterday since I’d taken Wednesday off and won’t be doing a WOD tomorrow since we are doing a 4.7 mile Spartan Race. The hike helped, but it’s not the same as being in the box. In at 8am this morning for the competitors WOD and stayed for the regular class as well.

Warm-up

PVC Pass-thrus
500m Row
Thrusters

Strength

Find 1 RM Thruster with 1 attempt EMOM. No rack, so must do a power clean and a thruster or a squat clean thruster. Keep increasing weight each minute until failure.

I started at 115# and added 10# every minute. Got 195# and then failed at 205# because I was too slow coming out of the squat clean and couldn’t get any momentum on the bar. That’s a 30# PR for my thruster when I last did it back in April. Having to go every minute is pretty tough once the weight gets heavy. I did power cleans up through 175# and then switched to squat cleans. So that ended up being 10 attempts in total.

Competitors WOD

This was WOD #6 of the 2011 Regionals.

20 cal Row
30 Burpees
40 Two-arm DB ground-to-overhead (45/35# DBs)
50 T2B
100′ Overhead walking lunge (45/25# plate)
150′ Sprint

I used 40# DBs for the ground-to-overhead and I’m glad I did. I still had to split them up into sets of 5 (pretty much doing a clean and jerk) and it took the most time by far. I should have worn some wrist sweat bands because I could barely hold the bar for the T2B making those take a lot longer than they should have since I had to do 2 or 3 at a time most of the way. Everything else was kind of easy. Took me 15:52 to finish.

Stuck around and let my heart rate come down while the 9am class did a warm-up.

Regular WOD

25:00 AMRAP with a partner

Partner 1 – 400m Run
Partner 2 – AMRAP:
- 5 HSPU
- 10 KBS (53/35)
- 15 Goblet Squats (53/35)

* Both partners work the entire time, but keep switching off and continuing where the last guy left off in the AMRAP so total rounds can be counted.

Brian was the only other person in at 8am and stuck around too, so we paired up for this WOD. We finished 14 rounds of the AMRAP doing everything Rx. I picked up a nice little tip from the CrossFit Journal to make the HSPU easier and didn’t really have any issues until my last 5 when they started to get a little tough. My arms were shaky after the first WOD today so I’m thrilled I was able to hold on that long. The goblet squats were by far the roughest part of the circuit, but I pushed myself to always do 15 unbroken because squat stamina is one of my weaknesses.

Great 2 hours of work! Think I’ll try to get out for some golf this afternoon.

A Balanced Day

Upper body is kind of sore from the last couple of days. Went in at noon.

Warm-up

3 Rounds

10 PVC Pass-thrus
10 PVC OHS
10s Triceps stretch (each arm)
10s Rack stretch (each arm)

Conditioning/Endurance

1 Mile Run

Each gym is different because of their mile loop, so I’m trying not to compare today to my 6:18 from the summer at Survival Fitness. I also weigh about 15 pounds more now, which doesn’t help! I mapped out the Full Strength route on Google Maps and it’s pretty damn close to a mile, other than the fact we have to go down a big flight of stairs to start and then back up to finish. My time was 6:45. I probably started out way too fast and it caught up to me, but I’m terrible at setting a running pace. It’ll be interesting to go run a mile at the track one of these days.

Strength

5×3 Jerk

5 @ 45#
3 @ 95#
3 @ 135#
3 @ 145#
3 @ 165#
3 @ 185#

I started off doing split jerks and it wasn’t feeling that great in the set with 135# because of the extra time holding the bar overhead. Emily told me to do push jerks if I could handle the weights, so I did and it felt better. Makes sense to work on strength here instead of the split jerk technique. The last set was actually pretty easy, but I have no idea what I can do for push jerks now, so I had to shoot for something as a goal before I started.

WOD

3 Rounds

5 Curtis P (95# – Power Clean, Lunge, Lunge, Push Press)
10 Burpees

Usually it’s a squat clean in a Curtiss P, but I guess everyone had been doing power cleans in the day, so we did the same. First set of 5 was unbroken and I set the bar down once in each of the next two sets for 1-2 seconds to regrip. Short WOD so just tried to keep going. Did all of the burpees unbroken and really picked up the pace for the last 7 reps to finish out. Final time was 4:24.

Double Strength

After being in Hawaii for a week I was excited to hit the box and throw around some barbells. I think the break from heavy weights was good though. Slept for 11 hours last night after not getting more than a couple of short naps on the flight the night before, so went in for the noon class.

Warm-up

50 Jumping Jacks
40 Mountain Climbers
30 Bicycles (each side)
20 Body Blasters
10 Burpees

First time doing body blasters I think. You get down on your back on the ground, roll up to your upper back and then use the momentum rolling up to your feet and standing up. Get really tough for the last 10 reps.

Strength

5 Sets

5 Deadlifts
2m Rest

With the first set as a warm-up, I did 5 reps at each of 135#, 225#, 275#, 315#, 345#, and 375#. Felt really good and is a big jump for a set of 5 for me.

5 Sets

5 Back Squats
2m Rest

Don’t think I’ve ever done two big strength movements on the same day like this, so was unsure how these would go. Just did sets of 5-7 a couple of weeks ago, so was looking to get higher. I went with 135#, 165#, 195#, 225#, and 255# for 5 reps each. That’s 5# heavier on the last set (compared to 2 weeks ago) and it was a fight on the last few reps. Probably should have gone up a little higher early on and taken smaller jumps in weight, but this felt good.

WOD

800m Run
50 Back Squats (135#)
800m Run

Did the first run at around 3:30 and broke the back squats into sets of 30 and 20. It wasn’t really the squatting that got to me, it was the cardio aspect of it. Probably had close to a minute in the middle of those squat sets. The last run was absolutely brutal, but will keep the legs from getting too sore after the 50 back squats. Finished in a time of 11:18.