My back has not been feeling very good in the mornings this week. đŚ Last night I found an Olympic curl bar at Meijer for $50 after I’d just back ordered a rackable one a couple of days earlier. You can feel it’s cheap, but it’ll do the job.
Out in the garage at 3:30 today.
Warm-up
5:00 BikeErg (2,313m)
2×10/10/10/10 Steamboats (each leg)
Midline
3 Sets
10 Strict T2B
30s OH Barbell Hold (135#)
15 Low-Pulley Knee-Ins (26#)
30s OH Barbell Hold (135#)
10/10 Rack Banded Rotations + 10s Hold at end range of rotation (blue)
Was drenched in sweat midway through this. Good combination.
Conditioning
40:00 AMRAP
10 Tuck Jumps
20 alt DB Hang Snatches (35#)
30 Sit-ups
1,000m BikeErg / 500m Row / 500m SkiErg
30 Lateral Hops
20 Single Arm DB S2OH (50#)
10 Single DB Step-ups (24″, 50#)
I scaled back the dumbbell snatch from 50# because my back has been bothering me this week. I rotated through the machines every round in the order listed. Got through 5 rounds plus all the movements up to and including 101 meters on the SkiErg. Humid and sweaty mess!
Bryan came over for a garage session. He did his deadlift program while I did the Push Only, which are both Hybrid programs.
Bench Press
10Ă45#
10Ă95
5Ă135
5Ă175
5Ă195
5x5x210#
3×30 alt DB Bench Press (50#)
Add 5-10# over last week on the 5 working sets. I added 5# since I started higher than 70% due to doing a couple of weeks of pre-program.
Shoulder Press
5×95#
5×115
2x5x130
5×135
Supposed to increase 5-10# here too. Last week I did 115-120-125 to ease in, which was actually low on the 65-70% starting range.
Accessory
15/15 Half Kneeling Single Arm DB Press
1 set @ 30#
2 sets @ 35
3×15/15 Tricep Kickbacks (15#)
Performance Plus – 3 Sets
10 Scap Pull-ups
10 Overhead Shrugs (45#)
Conditioning
200 DB Snatch (50#)
100 T2B
Had an idea to do something high rep before moving on to another movement. We did this as a partner workout, going 4 alternating snatches at a time. Then we did sets of 5 toes-to-bars. Finished the snatches at 9:39 and overall at 12:58 I think. There is a small chance it may have been 12:28. I thought the T2B would get much harder than they did. Snatches weren’t very hard either with that set breakdown.
I skipped out on a stretch from the PP programming that I’ll get in later.
Confident I’d crush my previous score of getting through 215 reps in the 20 minute time cap. Plan was to switch hands in the air on all of the snatches, not stand up on the box, and reduce my steps by turning in the jump and stepping down backwards off the box.
Warm-up
Pass throughs, stretching, and twisting
4:00 Airdyne
Did some of each movement getting the hand of better efficiency.
Finished in 19:15! So much better. It hurt so much worse on the lungs though. It was considerably easier on my back without spending so much time bent over switching the dumbbell hands on the ground. Losing almost 4 pounds in the last couple of days probably helped on the burpees some. Look at the difference in my splits…
Improved round 1 from 2:06 to 1:40, round 2 from 3:27 to 2:47, round 3 from 4:32 to 4:13, and round 4 from 5:43 to 5:24. Then to finish it off I did the round of 50s in 5:09, which was faster than I did the 40s! The snatch hand switch was much faster, but it was also harder on the shoulder and the lungs. I had to do the 30 is 3 sets of 10 today and still did the 40 in 4 sets of 10. I was able to do the 50 in one fewer set by going 14-12 and then 10-14 maybe? It took me forever to catch my breath.
Eventually jumped on the Airdyne for a nice 15:00 flush, going 3.53 miles.
Gymnastics
8 Rounds (Tabata)
20s T2B
10s Rest
Strapped on my grips and tried to match the 7s I’d done last time. Nearly made it. Did 6 sets of 7, then 6-1, and only managed 2-2-1 in the final set. I’ll take it though after all those DB snatches.
The burpees crushed my soul. I’ve tried the stay low technique and it never worked for me, feeling like I’d face plant. I was really trying to limit my steps too but didn’t always work. I think I did the 10 and 20 snatches unbroken, then 15-15, and then sets of 10Â with pretty short rest. Guess I was taking a bit of time to pick up the DB after the burpees though. I left 10 of the burpees on the table when time ran out for a score of 215, with a tiebreak (last completed round of burpees) at 15:48.
I wouldn’t say I’m disappointed, because I didn’t have expectations to finish. I did learn a lot from the attempt though. My splits after each set of burpees were 2:06, 5:33 (3:27), 10:05 (4:32), and 15:48 (5:43). I spent 4:12 in the final round, with 10 burpees to go. Look how much slower each round got with only adding 10 snatches; An extra 1:21 for the set with 20, then an extra 1:05 for the set with 30, and 1:09 more for the set with 40. If I kept pace on my final set of burpees the 50s round would have been faster than the 40s because I was trying to empty the tank.
With 2 exceptions in my first 5 Opens, I’ve always been a one-and-done Open athlete. One of those was when I had to do my first attempt the night of the announcement and then drive back to Michigan from Phoenix and the other was when I paced 15.2 way too much. Last year I was already thinking of giving myself the option to redo each workout for this year…
You just learn a lot the first time you do a workout. Iâm already thinking next year I might just commit to doing every workout twice for a change and an interesting challenge. If they do introduce a 35-39 Masters division it would be fun to see how I rank with full effort and redoing workouts too. Donât get me wrong, I donât think I have to worry about making it into the Masters Qualifier. Iâm far from that level. 16.4
My back is pretty tight and pumped right now, but hopefully I’ll recover well and can make a second attempt on Sunday or Monday. I’m going to finish! It’ll save me a lot of time if I switch hands on the way down instead of resetting every rep on the ground. Maybe a second per rep (150!) and hopefully it’ll save my back from not spending so much time bent over. I’m going to mess around with some different techniques getting over the box too because I wasted so much time there.
Taking advantage of some e-stim on my back to speed up recovery.
Figured I should at least try some squat snatches. First couple felt weird because I’d never done one before. Much easier than I expected them to be. Wouldn’t mind seeing those in the Open considering how many people will have a problem doing them. Doubt Castro would pick them though.
Skipped out on 3×3 deadlifts @ 85% because I don’t want to aggravate my back going into week 1. So I did a little benching until the guys were done.
Bench Press
10×45#
6×95
3×135
3×165
3×195
3×225
I started pausing each rep either with 95 or 135.
Conditioning
20:00 E2M (alt)
50 DU
20 Weighted Step-ups (2×20# DBs, 24″)
Missed after 44 dubs in the first set, but got the other 4 sets unbroken. Weighted step-ups were taking about 55 seconds. I really like this aerobic work each week.
3 Rounds
10 Deadlifts (225#)
20 Toes to Rings
30 cal Row
Scaled back the deadlifts from 275# and made it my goal to go unbroken each round, which I did. Used the rings instead of bar for T2B to save my hands and switch it up. Was able to do 2 sets of 10 every round. Such a difference from the bar. Tried to keep around 1,200 cal/hr on the rower in the first 2 rounds and then picked it up in the 3rd. Finished in 10:45.
Nick Momrik's Fitness Logs 