Saturday night we had a great time at the 2nd annual Survival Fitness Picnic. I didn’t get home until 2am and slept in until 9:30. I spent the entire day watching the finals of the CrossFit Games. Amazing and inspiring! One of my favorite parts is seeing elite athletes cheer each other on, which never happens in any other sport.
After the Games ended, I decided to take a shot at rigging up my gymnastic rings in the garage. I made a quick trip to Home Depot for supplies and started working around 8pm. I quickly found out that both of the batteries for my drill were dead, which made things a lot harder because I had to keep switching batteries on the charger. I also had to make a run to buy some nutdriver attachments for the drill. A little before midnight, I finally had everything up. The project turned out to be much tougher than I expected, especially for one set of hands. I wish I had a taller ceiling in the garage, but these will be just fine for the limited use I’ll give them.
Yesterday was my second rest day in a row and a much-needed one. I did get an hour-long deep tissue massage, which really helped loosen up my back. I’m going to have to get massages more often. It’s supposed to hit 100 degrees today so I went in to the 9am class, which was already in the mid 80s. I was the only guy in a class of 9, which was kind of odd.
Warm-up
4 rounds
15s Jumping Jacks
15s Air Squats
15s Mountain Climbers
15s Jump Squats
Immediately followed by:
4 rounds
15s Plank
15s Superman
15s L Side Plank
15s R Side Plank
I was already sweating bullets at this point it’s so hot and humid.
WOD
“Grace”
30 Clean and Jerks (125#)
This was my first time doing “Grace” and I’m pleased with the results. We had a 6 minute time cap so I was deciding between 115# and 125#, but glad I went heavier. My time was 5:10.
Finisher
10 Prowler Sprints (5 high, 5 low, loaded with 135#)
I’ve done these heavier, so this wasn’t too bad. Being able to go faster does some different work.
Today, the family headed up to the Upper Peninsula for the day. That’s why I had done the run early in the morning. I really didn’t plan on getting in a WOD, but we got back to the cottage before 9, so I figured I might as well take advantage of the daylight.
Warm-up
50 Jumping Jacks
50 Butt Kicks
50 High Knees
50 Mountain Climbers
WOD
10:00 AMRAP
12 Deadlifts
9 Hang Cleans
6 Push Presses
I used a set of 50# DBs, which was much tougher than I expected. The hang cleans were brutal and the only part I couldn’t do unbroken. I finished 3 rounds plus 12 deadlifts and 9 cleans in the 10 minutes, but then did the extra 6 push presses as well.
Finisher
30 Weighted Step-ups (24″ and 50# DBs)
I didn’t do this for time because once in a while it’s nice not be thinking about the clock. Going this heavy and that high is much more about the strength element anyway. I alternated legs each rep and broke it down into 5 sets of 6 reps. I originally was going to go for 50 reps not knowing how hard it would be. I could really feel my back compensating in the last two sets so I pulled the plug at 30 reps before I hurt something. I had done Russian Step-ups quite some time ago, but believe I used 30# or 35# DBs. There was no way I was trying to add in the Russian element today with the 50s.
My lower back has been pretty sore all day from yesterday’s multiple short WODs involving hang power cleans and deadlifts. It’s a good sore though.
Warm-up
5 rounds
15s Jumping Jacks
15s Squats
15s Mountain climbers
15s Squat Jumps
I took it easy during the warm-up because I knew what was in store and there were a lot of squats coming in the WOD.
Skills
Tabata: Ring L-sits
Tabata: Over the box jumps (24″)
For the Ring L-sits I wasn’t able to keep my legs out for long and had to resort to holding my knees up as long as possible. My arms actually started to give out sooner once I switched to the knee tuck version. Over the box jumps were new and a welcome challenge. Since my basketball days I’ve always enjoyed jumping. I managed 6 or 7 over the box jumps during each 20s period.
WOD
Today we each got to choose between “Cindy” or “Mary” for the WOD. I have a little history with “Cindy” so this was an easy choice for me. Without that history I would have chosen “Mary” because I could use the work on HSPUs and lots of pull-ups. So, what’s that history with “Cindy” you ask?
I started CrossFit almost 8 months ago. My first on-ramp session was supposed to be a 1/2 “Cindy”, but I only made it into minute 6 or 7 before I nearly passed out and was literally on the ground for the next 30 minutes. I was doing ring rows instead of pull-ups and only managed 3 rounds. It was one of the most humiliating moments of my life, but I was instantly hooked on CrossFit.
As you might expect, I wanted my revenge on that bitch!
“Cindy”
20:00 AMRAP
5 Pull-ups
10 Push-ups
15 Air Squats
Today I completed my first Rx “Cindy” doing kipping pull-ups and chest-to-ground push-ups the entire way. Those first 3 rounds were done right around the 3:00 mark. All pull-ups were unbroken and other than a few sips of water, I never took more than a 1 or 2 second break during some of the push-ups and air squat sets. I definitely had to take the most breaks during the push-ups, but would only rest for a second or two at the top of a push-up before doing more. I ended up with 18 rounds plus 5 pull-ups and 6 push-ups, so scored 18+11 on the WOD!
Take that “Cindy”! I hope we can be friends now. 🙂
Not much rest after hitting the 8pm class last night, but I wanted to attend the 9am this morning and give my body all day to rest up for tomorrow. It’s the first round of the Saginaw District Association Invitational Tournament, which I qualified for a couple of weeks ago. My tee time is at 9:20am and then 10:30 on Saturday.
Warm-up
5 rounds
1m Plank
1m V-ups
1m Mountain Climbers
1m K2E
1m Russian Twists (35# KB)
1m Rest
I pushed hard in everything except for the K2E because I didn’t want to mess up my hands for the golf tournament.
WOD
100 DB Squat Clean Thrusters (30# DBs)
Every minute on the minute (except for at the beginning), do 5 burpees.
In the past, we’ve been allowed to take a minute off, but after Matt talked to some people at the CrossFit Level 1 course, that’s not what they usually do. You can skip the clean thrusters for a minute, but you have to do the burpees if you want to perform the worked Rx. I figured I’d give it a try.
In the first minute I was able to get 12 reps for a decent start. During each minute I tried to stop doing the clean thrusters with 10-15 seconds left as a little rest period before starting my burpees. It didn’t take long to realize that 5 reps per minute was going to be a good number for me. I went straight through to 50 reps, did the burpees and took the rest of the minute off. Then I did sets of 6-5-4 to get me to 65, where I did my burpees and rested the rest of the minute. I did that again to get to 80 reps, and did my last burpees with rest minute. Then I think I did 6-6-4-4 to finish off with a time of 23:42.
The 100 squat clean thrusters is no joke, but the sneaky hard part of this WOD was the burpees. If you don’t take any minutes off they really add up. I did 23 rounds of 5 burpees for a total of 115. Hell, 100 burpees for time is a WOD on its own! This was one of the tougher WODs, but I really liked it because thrusters are one of my weaknesses.
Update: Wow, this was my 200th post on this blog. What an incredible journey this has been. I can’t wait to see where the next few months go.
I’m pretty sore from the long run yesterday, most of which is in my calves. I attended the 7pm class today. It was a hot and humid night. I thought I might stick around and do some strength work after class, but decided against it after sweating so much.
Warm-up
3 rounds
1m Box Jumps (Big Tire)
1m Star Jumps
1m Hang Cleans (85#)
1m Russian KBS (62#)
1m Mountain Climbers
1m Rest
If you did the Hope workout or have done Fight Gone Bad, this format should be familiar. I really enjoyed the hang cleans, but it was tougher than I expected to keep going for the entire minute with what was a relatively light weight. I didn’t count reps since this was only a warm-up.
WOD
10 rounds
15 HR Push-ups
100m Run (sprint)
90s Rest
For the 100m sprints we ran 50m down and then back. I finished in 19:12. I tried to jump out of the gates too quickly and as a result, tweaked my left calf. It was pretty tight for the 2nd and 3rd sprints, but then it loosened up. I was able to do all of the push-ups unbroken, but as the rounds went on the 10th through 15th reps got slower and slower.
Finisher
150 Air Squats with 5 burpees after every 25 squats (except the last 25). I didn’t check the clock when I started, so no idea how long this took.
One month ago, we started a team Paleo Challenge at Survival Fitness. I promised myself that I would try to go 100% Paleo for the entire challenge, and with one small exception (shredded cheese and croutons on a salad), I did it. I’ve seen incredible results in my fitness, my body composition, and how I feel.
I started the challenge at 12.3% body fat and 181 pounds. In less than 2 weeks, I had dropped to 172 pounds (home scale)! I was losing too much weight, so I increased my protein sources (eggs, meat, fish, etc.) by 50% at each meal. As an example, I went from eating 4 eggs at breakfast to 6. This brought my weight back up into the 175 pound range where I’ve been able to stabilize. This morning at my final weigh-in at the gym I was 178 pounds (not sure how I got back up that high) and 9.8% body fat. That’s a drop of more than 20% of my starting body fat %. I have a visible 6-pack, which has always been a goal of mine. I can’t believe the changes in my body is one short month. A key point is that I had already been eating 80-90% Paleo since I started doing CrossFit, but going 100% made a huge difference!
After taking the rest day yesterday I was feeling great this morning. I attended the 9am class so I could get the benchmark WOD done early. Can you say pizza and Mountain Dew for lunch and dinner? Seriously!
Warm-up
4 rounds
15s Zombie Kicks
15s Jumping Jacks
15s Butt Kicks
15s Mountain Climbers
12:00 AMRAP
150m Run
Rest as long as the run took
I started out pretty fast, but realized 12:00 is a long time to do sprints, so I slowed down to a 30s pace in order to save myself for the WOD. It is a warm-up after all. I think I completed 13 runs.
WOD
We partnered up again so that we could count each other and get a bit of rest.
5:00 AMRAP
Burpees
4:00 AMRAP
Wall Balls
3:00 AMRAP
Air Squats
2:00 AMRAP
KBS (Russian)
1:00 AMRAP
AbMat Sit-ups
I improved in each of the tests:
Burpees went from 82 to 91, an increase of 10.9%.
Wall balls went from 77 to 95, an increase of 23.4%.
Air squats went from 101 to 112, an increase of 10.9%
KBS went from 76 to 82, an increase of 7.9%.
AbMat (“cheater”) sit-ups went from 67 to 81, an increase of 20.9%
Total reps went from 403 to 461, an overall increase of 14.4%.
I had one of the top 5 scores for the first assessment, so I figured improving wasn’t going to be easy. I’m thrilled with a 14.4% improvement. Hard work pays off! I’m really happy with my burpee and wall ball improvements because burpees are such a great overall cardio and full body exercise and I knew wall balls were one of my weaknesses. My air squats are still pretty weak compared to the best in the gym, but getting better. It’s hard to improve on the Russian KBS, except by increasing weight, because you can only do them so fast. In the first test I took one short break, but went unbroken for the entire 2 minutes today. I’m not concerned about the sit-up number because it was doing the cheater standard, which I’m no longer doing.
With all of the rest time, I don’t feel like I had to work very hard overall, even though I pushed as hard as I could go. I may try attend 8pm open gym and do a strength WOD since I’ll be out of town for the weekend.
The Paleo Challenge ends this week and I can’t wait to order a pizza on Thursday! I love eating Paleo, but I need some cheat meals. With that said, I’m glad I’ve stuck to the program for the entire month, with a very minor cheat. I’ve seen incredible results, but I’ll post more about that in a couple of days.
I think I did this in about 5:26, without pushing too hard. I wanted to save myself for the WOD because I knew I was going to need everything I had to survive.
3 rounds
1m Plank
1m Leg Raises
1m Bicycles
1m Side Plank (30s each side)
1m Boats
1m Rest
These long core circuits are great and they are always much tougher than they look. Does core work every get any easier?
WOD
DB “Fran”
21-15-9
Thrusters (45# DBs)
Pull-ups
Here’s one of those heavy upper body workouts where I struggle. We had a 10:00 time limit and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to finish. I’ve never attempted “Fran” before, so I didn’t know what to expect. I wish my intro was with the barbell instead of DBs, but you don’t always get what you want. 🙂 I really struggled to string together pull-ups, which took a lot of extra time. I knew I’d have to break the thrusters down quite a bit, especially in the 2nd and 3rd rounds. My time was 9:05. I’ll take it. It gives me something to shoot for next time.
Finisher
50 Burpees
This was great practice for Thursday when we have to perform the Paleo Challenge benchmark again, which starts out with 5 minutes of burpees. I pushed myself pretty good here and finished in 2:48. In the original benchmark a month ago I did 82 burpees in 5 minutes, so if I can keep up the pace I used today I can beat, especially since I won’t have such a long warm-up and “Fran” to do before.
I’ve only worked out 2 days in a row, but I’m going to take a rest day tomorrow to make sure I’m not too tired or sore for the benchmark test on Thursday. I’ll be walking 18 holes of golf tomorrow morning anyway, so that will get me some exercise.
Yesterday morning I walked 18 holes of golf and qualified for the Saginaw District Golf Association Invitational Tournament. It got up into the mid or high 90 and was a long day. Perfect timing for a CrossFit rest day! Feeling good and back at it today. When I woke up I knocked out one set of max rep push-ups and decided the Armstrong Pull-up Program just isn’t worth the time. It’s so boring compared to WODs, so I’m done with it.
Matt, the owner of the gym, attended a CrossFit Level 1 Certification over the weekend and will next be working on getting Survival Fitness affiliated as an official CrossFit box next. Pretty exciting stuff. He learned a lot and you could already see it in the way he ran today’s class. I don’t mean anything bad about previous classes by saying that, I just felt like he had more confidence in his teaching of certain movements and pointing out some of our technique issues. It’ll make us all better.
Warm-up
1m Bottom Squat Hold
1m Mountain Climbers
1m Bottom Squat Hold
1m PVC Pass-thrus
1m Bottom Squat Hold
1m Lateral hops (30s each leg)
1m Bottom Squat Hold
1m Bicycles
1m Bottom Squat Hold
1m Jumping Jacks
We’ve been doing a lot of these bottom squat holds and I think it’s helping to open up my hips more. Matt pointed out that I had too much of a round in my back though, so I have to fight for a better position.
WOD
Teams of 2 (45:00 limit)
200 Air Squats
100 T2B
150 Burpees
500m Run holding a 20# MB (both people run at the same time and at the pace of the slowest)
150 Box Jumps (24″)
100 Pull-ups
200 Walking Lunge Steps
200 SDLHP (barbell loaded to 95#)
Only 1 person is working at a time except during the run. The goal is to keep a high intensity and hand off to your partner when you start to slow down. The hand off is hard to do, even when you know you are starting to slow, because you want to keep knocking out reps. I attended the 8pm class, which is the last class of the day and no team had completed the WOD all day. The closest anyone got was 49 reps left by a team of 2 of the fittest women at Survival Fitness. I was paired up with Brent, which was a good pairing because we are both near the top of the men at SF. We flew along pretty good, but the pull-ups slowed us down and then the SDLHP were absolutely brutal. I’m sure I’ll be feeling those tomorrow. We pushed it hard through the entire 45 minutes and fell 33 reps shy of completing the WOD, but set the record for the day. With a little better strategy I think we could have finished. Next time!
My body is pretty freaking sore all over. I haven’t felt like this in a couple of months, so I can tell the WODs have been great and the extra work I’m putting in is paying off . Yesterday I mentioned my tailbone was really sore. Well, it’s more than that. I have two quarter-sized floor burn marks on the sides of my tailbone. No wonder in hurts to sit down! Sorry, no pictures. 😉
Do you ever get bruises in CrossFit and have no idea where they came from? I have one under my right arm and a matching one under my armpit almost all the way to my back. Weird.
I did the push-ups of Armstrong Pull-up Program when I got out of bed this morning. It’s a nice way to start the day. I went in to the noon class today and it was packed with 20 people. Since class was so big we had to skip around during the movements, but it all worked out.
Warm-up
5 rounds
1m Deep Squat Hold
1m Mountain Climbers
I was stiffer than usual from the squat holds and 1 minute is a long time to do mountain climbers in a row, so I had to take 2-3 short breaks for them each round.
WOD
50 of each
DUs
Burpees
MB Snatches (20#)
Push Presses (30# DBs)
Wall Balls (20#)
K2E
Walking Lunges
KBS (53#)
Jumping Pull-ups
Box Jumps (24″)
It was ordered different on the board, but this is the order I ended up doing. I finished in 32:01. Most people did tuck jumps, but I was able to string together a few DUs before we started, so I went with DUs and completed them in 4 sets. I think I need to start practicing them again.
Later tonight I’ll do the nightly pull-ups and then it’s 2 days off from Armstrong Pull-ups. Tomorrow will also be a day off from CrossFit, which I’m really looking forward to. I will get out and walk 18 holes of golf.
Update: I just couldn’t stand sitting around later in the evening even though I went out and walked 9 holes of golf after lunch. I had to lace up the shoes and go out for a run, so I did a 5 minute warm-up, Tabata sprints, and a 5 minute cool down. In 14:14 I covered a total of 1.73 miles.
No golf today due to rain, so I woke up early. I wanted to eat a small breakfast and hit the 9am class. First things first though, I knocked out my 3 maximum effort sets of push-ups for the Armstrong Pull-up Program. While doing these, I’m concentrating on keeping my elbows in close because I have the tendency to let my elbows fly out during push-ups. My sets today were 35, 32, and 30 with sufficient rest in between each set.
My legs are feeling a little sore from yesterday, but that’s good. I need to do more heavy squatting. I’m sure the wall balls have something to do with it as well. I really enjoyed this video, which looks back at Regionals. Check it out.
This morning I realized I’m starting my 8th month of CrossFit. Incredible! I’ve never stuck to a fitness program for more than 3 months, but now I can’t imagine my life without CrossFit. It has changed my life in so many great ways. I’m inspired by the people sweating next to me during each WOD. This community is something special. We’re all in the box to improve our lives and push our limits.
Warm-up
50-40-30-20-10 Air Squats
50 Mountain Climbers
I could really feel the air squats today.
WOD #1
100 Alternating 1-Arm DB Snatches
100 K2E
* Every minute there is a burpee buy-in (3-beginner, 4-intermediate, 5-advanced) before you can work on the reps. I went with 5 burpees for my buy-in. You can take a minute off from burpees and reps, but then you must work the next minute. All snatches must be completed before moving on to K2E. Time limit of 30 minutes.
Matt told me to grab the 60# DB, so I obeyed. 🙂 I never would have grabbed that one on my own, but I’m glad I did. The last time we did one-arm snatches I used a 40# DB! The 60 was tough, but rewarding and will make me stronger, which is exactly what I need. I started off going 2 minutes in a row to hit 20 reps, but quickly realized that wouldn’t last. I started taking every other minute off and was getting 10 reps during a working minute. Towards the end I pushed for 12 in one set, took the last minute off, and then worked 2 minutes in a row for the last 18 reps.
I hurried to put on one of the tape grips I had ready, but ran out of tape so couldn’t secure the second one to my left hard. Nothing ripped open, but I’ll have to keep an eye on it closer now. I was able to knock out 10 K2E in a row right off the bat, but it was all downhill from there. I worked a couple of minutes in a row here and there, but otherwise took minutes off. Near the end it was really a struggle to get my legs up. I was 10 reps shy of 100 before time ran out. Total score: 190 reps in 30:00, not even counting around 100 burpees.
I headed back to the box in the evening for open gym so I could do some deadlifts. While I was there I figured I’d do a quick WOD that wasn’t too stressful on the body.
Strength
5×5 Deadlifts
Warmed up with 10 reps at 135# and then 5 at 225#. Used 275# for all 5 working sets of 5 reps. Wasn’t planning to try to set any records today, especially with the state of my hands from hanging bar work. More than anything I just wanted to move some weight, so goal accomplished.
WOD #2
50-40-30-20-10
Sit-ups
Tuck Jumps
I ordered a Revolution Rope from Again Faster and was excited to use it today, but they sent the wrong jump rope; it’s a speed rope, which I already have. I was so bummed when I opened the package. Again Faster was quick to reply, telling me to keep the speed rope as a spare and the correct rope is on its way.
My plan was to do “Annie” even with my current speed rope, but I could not string together DUs while warming up, so I did tuck jumps instead. Finished in 8:28.
When I got home, it was time for the pull-up portion of the Armstrong Pull-up Program. Now I’m spent! I may be going crazy for working out so much, one day a week like this shouldn’t kill me should it? 🙂
Did you see the Reebok CrossFit Nano 2.0 launched today? I ordered a pair already because I had to send in my broken Inov-8s. I was just looking earlier this week for a pair of the Nano 1.0s, but couldn’t find them in my size, which is a 14. I had a feeling the new model would be coming soon since there was no restocking going on and the Games are right around the corner. I’m glad I didn’t have to wait too long. My first choice in color, the blue, doesn’t come in my size so I went with this grey pair. Good thing I acted fast because size 14 is no longer listed!
Reebok CrossFit Nano 2.0
I’m so excited! I can’t wait for these to come in.
After the Games ended, I decided to take a shot at rigging up my gymnastic rings in the garage. I made a quick trip to Home Depot for supplies and started working around 8pm. I quickly found out that both of the batteries for my drill were dead, which made things a lot harder because I had to keep switching batteries on the charger. I also had to make a run to buy some nutdriver attachments for the drill. A little before midnight, I finally had everything up. The project turned out to be much tougher than I expected, especially for one set of hands. I wish I had a taller ceiling in the garage, but these will be just fine for the limited use I’ll give them.
Nick Momrik's Fitness Logs 