So here we are, with week 2 of the Open. I was excited when workout 13.2 was announced because it involved 15 box jumps per round. The box jump is my best movement and I can keep rebounding for a long time. I was looking to make up some ground after my disappointing score on 13.1.
After 13.1, I’m in 18,893 (25.7%) out of 73,419 men in the world and 1,292 (28.25%) out of 4,573 men in the South West region. Both are really close to cracking that top 25% so with this probably being my worst workout, I’m revising my goal of being above average (top 50%) to being top 25% in the Open.
Then a day or so later we realized that step-ups were allowed. As the last few days progressed it has been determined that step-ups are the way to go for most people because they save your legs more and really save your lungs. Well, so much for any advantage I had over a lot of people. In the end, step-up with a jump/fall down turned out the way to go for the majority of folks.
I had done a 4 round test of this workout on Friday and finished in 3:52, which I felt was pretty good. Each round was getting a few seconds slower, but not too bad.
I went out flying and kept a sub 1:00 pace through the first 5 rounds. Then I hit the wall hard. It was a struggle to get up on the box for the last 3-4 minutes. I was pushing off my leg for help and resorted to step-downs instead of the jump/fall down. I finished with 8 full rounds plus 5 presses, 10 deadlifts, and 10 step-ups, for a 265 total. I’m happy with that because 20 minutes later I was still dying, so I know I had nothing more to give. This jumps me up nicely in the standings.
I was excited with the announcement of Workout 13.2 for the CrossFit Games Open. Box jumps are probably my best movement so to see them count for half of the reps per round made me happy. I however didn’t realize right away that the standards are allowing a step up this year, where last year they only allowed a step down. The step up is a completely different movement and eliminates most of the advantage rebounding box jumpers have in this workout. It’s confusing why they would allow this for everyone instead of just the oldest Masters division like last year.
So I’ve been hearing conflicting reports on whether or not step ups are the better choice, depending on your level of fitness and ability to rebound. I agree that for the less than average CrossFitter, step ups make perfect sense because they won’t kill your lungs like box jumps will. For the average and slightly above CrossFitter, I’m not sure though. For the elite that won’t have to slow down in a 10 minute workout, rebounding box jumps are clearly the correct choice.
So I had to do some testing of my own in order to feel confident going into the WOD on Sunday. Adam opened up the box for me and I headed in at noon to do a little test of my own. I warmed up a bit, but kept it short so Adam could get out of there since I found out he wasn’t going to do anything. Super nice of him to open up the gym for me so I didn’t want to take up more of his day than I had to. I did 4 rounds of the AMRAP without trying to do any certain pacing or anything. Pretty much going all out.
Pretty shitty camera setup for these videos. I should have done them vertically.
I timed out the splits to see where I was losing ground and it definitely wasn’t the box jumps, which were consistent. I need to get faster on the push presses by not over extending so much and getting on that bar and into the first rep sooner. I took a long time setting my hands and then sat in the rack before the first rep. I should be able to rep out the deadlifts faster too, but have to be careful that I get my shoulders behind the bar. It was getting close on some of those reps, which is good for timing, but at the same time you don’t want any no reps on a workout like this.
I’m glad I did this little test because it gave me a feel for the burn and showed a couple of weak areas where I can knock off valuable seconds. If I clean some of those things up and can keep a steady pace through the middle of the 10 minutes, I should be able to put up a pretty good score.
After a few minutes of rest I tried doing some step ups to see how they felt and how slow they were. With just one round of them (alternating legs) I could feel a burn in my legs before I even got to the 15th rep. I didn’t go crazy fast on them and it took about 32 seconds.
Since this alone took 32 seconds and my transition plus the box jumps were taking 30 seconds, I don’t see this as being a go to for me. I may do one or two rounds of step ups (or maybe 5 or 10 reps of the 15) after the 5 minute mark to catch some air, but it has to be worth it for how much longer it’s going to take. I need to take full advantage of my box jump rebounding in this WOD to have a good score.
When I got home, I did a 100 HR Push-up test since it’s been a couple of months and I wanted to test out a new push-up strategy for high reps with resting sooner and never doing more than 10 unbroken. It seems to have worked out because I did them in 5:04, beating my old PR of 5:42 by 38 seconds!
I was originally planning to take a rest day today and do Open WOD 13.1 tomorrow, but things changed. My hamstrings are feeling pretty tight from the squat volume yesterday, but ended up going in for 7:15pm and I’ll make tomorrow a rest day.
Warm-up
3m Jump Rope
50 AbMat Sit-ups
50 Supermans
Strength
4 Sets
7-10 Deadlifts
90s Rest
I did a 5 reps at 135# and 185# to loosen up. Then I hit all 10 reps at 225#, 275#, 305#, and 325#. Moved a lot of weight, but didn’t go overboard and end up with a headache that’ll lasts 3 days
WOD
750m Row
600m Run
75 DU
500m Row
400m Run
50 DU
250m Row
200m Run
25 DU
Nice cardio WOD today. Struggled with me DU on the round of 75 failing about every 10, but was good on the other sets. Finished in 15:26.
It was nice to skip a day from WODs yesterday and taking a longer rest today as well. Went in for the 5:15pm.
Warm-up
3 min Jump Rope
2 Rounds
3/3 World’s Greatest Stretch
5 Pull-ups
10 Am. KBS (35# KB)
Went 3 minutes straight on the jump rope without a single miss.
Strength
5×5 Deadlifts at 2-1-2-1 Tempo
Pushed it to the limit and it was absolutely brutal. Went 225#, 275#, 305#, 335#, and 365#. It was heavy and I started to round the lower back just a little at the end. Fought to get all 5 reps in and that was definitely the max weight for the tempo. Then not much of a rest before starting the WOD. Forgot to take off the shoes for the deadlifts too.
WOD
50 Am. KBS (53# KB)
25 Pull-ups
150 DU
25 Pull-ups
50 Am. KBS (53# KB)
Went 35 reps and then 15 KBS to finish off at the beginning and worked on butterfly pull-ups. DU were a struggle today, but got through them. The last 50 American KBS were really tough. Finished in 12:05 overall. Was done with the warm-up, strength, and the WOD is less than 45 minutes.
Got home and started to go into a tunnel vision and a headache. I think it was from the tempo deadlifts, which really killed the WOD as well. This is only the 3rd time a CrossFit class has hit me like this. Should have probably gone lighter on the deadlifts, but really pushed them to the limit.
Met up with a group to throwdown at CrossFit Full Strength at 12:30. They all did yesterday’s OHS strength portion, but since I was in yesterday, I did something else for strength.
Warm-up
PVC Pass-thrus
500m Row
Strength
5×3 Deadlifts
We didn’t do any heavy deadlifts this week, so I figured it was a good lift to do. I went with 5 at 225 and then 3 at 315#, 365#, 405#, and 425#. My old 1RM was 415#, so I smoked that and did 2 more reps, not just the 1 rep. Feeling strong!
WOD
The gals did yesterday’s WOD and the guys decided to do a benchmark girl.
“Power Elizabeth”
21-15-9
Power Cleans (135#)
Ring Dips
My first time with “Elizabeth” so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. I did the first 11 cleans TnG, then dropped the rest of the reps through 21 and all of the 15, before doing all 9 TnG. The ring dips were a struggle throughout, but I did a lot of sets of 4-6. Finished in 7:09. Next time I do this one, I’ll go TnG for all of the cleans and rest as needed to break up the sets.
Last night while watching TV I knocked out 5 sets of 60 air squats. I didn’t time them or the rest periods. Tried to go as fast as I could for each set and still use good form. I could start to feel fatigue setting in at the end of the 3rd set. I had plans to improve my speed and endurance for air squats and wall balls starting at the beginning of the year. I figured it couldn’t hurt my thrusters either. Then I never put time into it other than workouts in Hawaii, where I had limited equipment anyway. No better time than now with the Open just two and a half weeks away. I’m going to do my best to can get in some fast squat work 2-3 times a week for at least the next few weeks. I could do Tabata squats, minute on/off, throw on the 20# weight vest, and come up with other interesting twists to vary the work. I’m looking forward to see what kind of improvement I can make.
My shoulder area is pretty sore from yesterday and I’m feeling all those air squats in my knees since I did them barefoot on hard tile flooring. I got up and went to the 9am. Another day of 3 WODs with a 10 minute cap on each one and a running 30:00 clock. I’ve really liked this style each time we did it.
Right arm after yesterday’s 100 ring push-ups
Warm-up
3m Jump Rope
100 Mountain Climbers
80 Bicycles
30 Supine Knees to Elbows
40 Russian Twists (no weight)
1m Plank
Long warm-up. I made it all 3 minutes on the jump rope without a single miss.
30:00 running clock with a 10:00 limit on each WOD. Finish early and rest until the next 10 minutes start.
WODs
21-15-9 Deadlifts (185#)
75 DUs
Not much of a problem here, although deadlift reps did slow down in the last two sets. My double unders were pretty good. Finished in 5:26.
21-15-9
American KBS (70#)
Row (calories)
Worked on better form for my American swings, especially with the heavy weight. Tried to keep a steady pace during the first two rows so I wouldn’t burn out and then went hard in the last one. Time was 5:02.
21 Pull-ups
400m Run
15 Pull-ups
400m Run
9 Pull-ups
Emily told me to go with butterfly pull-ups for this WOD. I wasn’t convinced I should, but you gotta go for it at some point. I made it through the entire WOD with them and got into a rhythm here and there. Definitely could feel less effort getting up over the bar. Need to keep working on them now and they’ll improve. Took me 7:14 to finish this one.
Went in this afternoon with Adam to do the hero WOD “DT”, which we missed out on last Sunday because of the Spartan Race.
Warm-up
PVC Pass-thrus
DU
Did a bunch of stretching too and then did some hang cleans and push jerks at 95# and 135#.
WOD
“DT”
5 Rounds
12 Deadlifts (155#)
9 Hang Power Cleans (155#)
6 SH to OH (155#)
I was dreading the shoulder to overhead the most, but it was the hang power cleans that did the most damage. Don’t get me wrong, the push jerks were still pretty terrible for me though.
I broke my rounds down into:
11 deadlifts
1 deadlift + 4 cleans
4 cleans
1 clean + 3 push jerks
3 push jerks
The only round I didn’t do this was the 2nd round when I managed to do all 6 push jerks unbroken. This worked well for me and allowed me to catch my breath a bit in between each phase. It ended up being an extra 3 deadlifts and 1 clean each round, but the deadlifts didn’t bother me at all. My time was 14:40. I told myself I’d be happy if I could stick to 3:00 rounds and I beat that. It really beat me up though. My entire body hasn’t felt this crushed by a WOD in a long time.
I have only done “DT” one other time and it was using 115# back in October for a time of 7:31. Nearly twice as long today with 155#, so power output was much higher at the lower weight, but I wanted something heavy today and clearly hit that goal.
I won’t be able to make it in for a WOD tomorrow morning because of golf, but maybe I’ll get out for an early hike. It’s been a pretty brutal 7 days so a day without a WOD will be welcomed by my body and should be ready to WOD and do OLY on Sunday.
Feeling pretty damn good today considering it’s day 2 after the Spartan Race and the heavy squatting we did yesterday. Went in for the 5:15pm again so my legs could rest.
Warm-up
400m Run
4 World’s Greatest Stretch (each side)
4 Inch Worms
10 Scorpions (each side)
10 Flamingos (each side)
Scorpions were a new move for me. You lay on your stomach with arms straight out to the sides like you are forming a T. Take your leg behind you and over the other leg to tap the ground on the other side with your toes. Nice stretch.
Strength
5 Sets
3-5 Deadlifts
5-7 GHR
2m Rest
More supersetting today! My first time doing GHRs too. I was excited when I saw deadlifts were on the menu. I hit 375# for 5 reps a couple of weeks ago, so I wanted to demolish that today. Set out with a plan and nailed it. I warmed up with 5 reps at 135# and then for my working sets went 225#, 275#, 315#, 365#, and 405#, hitting each one for 5 reps. Didn’t have too much trouble with the 405# either. At the end of December I hit that weight for 2 reps and then lost my grip. No issues today. Sets me up for a big PR next time we go for a 1RM since my old one is only 415#. I did 5 reps of GHRs each set on the GHD.
WOD
5 Rounds
3:00 AMRAP
3 C2B Pull-ups
6 American KBS (70# KB)
9 Box Jumps (24″)
1m Rest
There were a lot of people in class so we had to stagger and spread out all of the equipment, which slowed us down some. I started with box jumps and got exactly 3 rounds during each 3 minute round, pretty much sticking just under 1 minute per round. I had 5-10 seconds left on the clock at the end of each 3 minutes, but the KB was too far away from the box to make a run for it just to get one rep. I did all of the C2B pull-ups unbroken and this was the first time doing a bunch of American swings with the 70# KB. 15 total rounds in one hell of a good WOD.
I walked 18 holes of golf last night and afterwards my legs and low back were shot. Exhausted! Went in for the 9am class. I felt like I made good progress with my snatch yesterday so might as well keep it going with the clean & jerk today.
Warm-up
200m Run
200m Run Backwards
400m Run
200m Run Backwards
200m Run
5 Deadlifts (135#)
5 Deadlifts (185#)
The backwards runs are fun!
WOD
4 Rounds
200m Run
24 Lunges (12 each side)
12 Deadlifts (185#)
6 Lateral Burpees Over Bar
1m Rest
One of the easier ones to be honest. I’m sure my legs will feel it later, but the entire thing only took 12:01, with 3 minutes of that being rest time. My rounds were 2:13, 2:12, 2:14, and 2:18. I screwed up counting the over the bar burpees a couple of times so the overall time is messed up a little. Not sure what happened in that last round because I thought it was my fastest run of the bunch. I guess the deadlifts and burpees must have been a lot slower. Other than that, very consistent though.
Finisher
150 AbMat Sit-ups
I decided to do the first 100 as fast as possible to try to break my PR and I smashed it, with a time of 3:02, beating my previous best of 3:34. Took a minute rest and then busted out the last 50 unbroken in 1:41, which was a lot more of a struggle.
Headed home for some food and then back to Full Strength for OLY at noon. Warmed up with a 500m row, PVC pass-thrus and around-the-worlds. Then we also did some progressions with the PVC pipe to loosen up and get some feel.
Snatch Work
We did the following, working up in weight by doing doubles or singles.
Snatch Deadlift to the knee
Snatch Deadlift to the knee, pause, Snatch
Did some doubles at 45#, 75#, and 95#. Went up to 115# and 125# for singles. Since I had just worked up to heavy singles yesterday morning, I didn’t want to do that again, especially working from the knee. I tried to concentrate on technique, which is slowly getting better.
Snatch Balance
These felt solid today. Started off with doubles at 125# and then 145#. Didn’t feel comfortable dropping the weight back on my back after that so I switched to singles and dropped the weight to the floor after my rep. I went 155#, 165#, and 175#. That’s 20# heavier than I’ve done before and even 10# heavier than I’ve ever done for an OHS. Makes me feel good that if I can get the bar up there on a snatch, I can finish it off. I had the first attempt at 175#, but lost a little stability in the bottom and the weight came forward so I bailed. Nailed it without much trouble for a couple of singles after that and called it a day.
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.
Nick Momrik's Fitness Logs 