Sumo Good Morning – Nick Momrik's Fitness Logs

An Hour

Needed the rest day Thursday and didn’t feel like working out yesterday, so I rested again. Needed it though after going 7/8 days. Out in the garage after 1 today.

Active Life – Single Leg Bias

Warm-up – 2 Rounds

5/5 Lateral Box Step Ups (30″)
10 Squat Press Outs (25#)
10 Groiners

Then I also warmed up with 10/10 Front Rack Box Step-ups (45#, 20″).

Workout – 2 Sets each leg

MAX Front Rack Box Step-ups (95#, 20″)
2:00 Rest

Went right-left-right-left for 25-20-15-25 reps. Bitched out a bit on the 3rd set planning to go for 20 at the end with my left leg to even out the reps. But I wrote down 20 and convinced myself I needed to fight through for those 25 at the end. Glad I got those, but wish I had just done 25 ever set. The shoulders and lungs give out more than the legs here. Probably should be going heavier for max reps.

Active Life – Back Max

3 Rounds

8/8 Turkish Sit-ups (45#)
8/8 Kneeling Torso Row (50#)
8 Evil Wheels
8 Sumo Stance Good Morning (125#)
30s Front Rack Hold (125#)

Sure didn’t need conditioning since this all still took an hour or more.

I’m Sore-y

Yesterday was a rest day. My shoulders were starting to feel pretty wrecked, my abs randomly cramped all day, and my back was a little tight. Today I can’t straighten my elbows, most of my upper body and core is sore, but my legs and back feel fine.

Active Life – Single Leg Bias

Warm-up – 3 Rounds

10 Sumo Inchworms
10 Sumo Stance Good Mornings (45#)

Workout – 4 Rounds

20 Sumo Deadlifts (135#)
10/10 Sciatic Nerve Flossing

Active Life – Back Max

3 Rounds

5 Cat Camel
10 Thoracic Extension Rotation
10 Bird Dog

I paused two seconds at each position.

3 Rounds

10 Double DB Walking Lunge
10 ~~Strict Toes to Bar~~ Strict Hanging Knee Raises
10 Double DB Front Squat

I used 35-40-50 for both movements. Hanging from the bar hurt and there was no chance in hell I could do T2B, so I did knee raises up to hip height.

This was plenty of work so no conditioning today.

Angie & Active

Upper body is a little sore from Friday.

Conditioning

Angie

100 Pull-ups
100 Push-ups
100 Sit-ups
100 Air Squats

Haven’t done this in over 3 years. I was able to butterfly through 52 reps and then switched to a regular kip. Kept sets of 5 through 90. On rep 91 I felt my left hand so I finished with quick singles. Was done with the pull-ups at 8:18. Was able to do all 5s on the push-ups and finished at 14:28. Sit-ups completed at 18:40 and final time was 22:27. A bit over 90 seconds slower than my PR, but my 2nd best time.

Active Life – Back Max

3 Rounds

8/8 Turkish Sit Ups (40#)
8/8 Kneeling Torso Row (44#)
8 Evil Wheels
8 Sumo Stance Good Morning (115#)
30s Front Rack Hold (115#)

Scaled back the weights from what I’ve been using to ease my back in.

A Sumo Kind of Day

My chest is still pretty sore! Out in the garage in the evening. Have I mentioned how nice it is to have the bigger speaker out there? 🙂

Active Life – Single Leg Bias

Warm-up – 3 Rounds

10 Sumo Inchworms
10 Sumo Good Mornings (45#)

Workout – 4 Rounds

15 Sumo Deadlifts
10/10 Sciatic Nerve Flossing

I went 135-165-185-185#.

Conditioning

3 Rounds

500m Ski Erg
2:00 Rest

Times were 1:44.6, 1:44.6, and 1:46.2. Couldn’t hold on. My legs and low back got fatigued from the deadlifts.

Active Life – Back Max

12:00

10 Alternating Push-up Shoulder Tap (2 breath hold)
10 Alternating Thoracic Extension Rotation (2 breath hold)
20s Table Top Hold

Got through 6 rounds plus the 10 shoulder taps.

Bail

Feeling a little sore from yesterday, mostly in the glutes from the single leg deadlifts and calves again from those ankle things.

Active Life – Single Leg Bias

Warm-up – 3 Rounds

5 Sumo Inchworms
20 Kossacks

I really like the stretch of these Kossacks.

Workout – 3 Sets

15 Sumo Stance Good Mornings (115#)
8 Eccentric Knee Flexion (30# DB)

Fifteen reps is a lot!

Conditioning

Planned to do this workout I saw yesterday on Miranda’s Instagram.

100 Dumbbell Thrusters (35# DBs)
EMOM: Ascending burpees
“You do not have to do BURPEES on the first minute.”

I hate that shit where you get a free minute, but that is how it’s stated in the workout description, so I was going to follow it. After starting with 25 right off the bat, I wasn’t feeling it, especially when I bitched out and only did 5 in the next minute. So then I did 10 in each of the next 2 minutes to get to 50 at 3:42 and stopped, with only doing the 1-2-3 burpees. Oh well.

Active Life – Back Max

10:00 (3-5 breath holds)

Ring Plank
1 Arm Overhead Hold (70#, each arm)
8 Romanian Deadlift (135#)
RDL Hold

Hell, I worked up a nice sweat doing these movements!

Focused Effort

Out in the garage after lunch. I’m really enjoying these afternoon workouts.

Active Life – Single Leg Bias

Warmup – 3 Rounds

5 Sumo Inchworms
10/10 Kossacks

Got deeper in the Kossacks each round.

Workout – 3 Sets

12 Sumo Stance Good Morning (115#)
8 Eccentric Knee Flexion (25#)

Conditioning

ski-erg-10x-30s-3min 10 Rounds

30s Ski Erg
3:00 Rest

My plan was to do something like the Airdyne workout I’ve done where you go 5 rounds of 30 seconds at 100% with a long rest (I think it’s 5:00), then you take a double rest and do 5 more rounds. I knew the Ski Erg wouldn’t be as taxing just because the AD is mostly quads so I was going to do 4 minute rests. After the first one I knew that would be too much so I went with the 3 minute rest. After 3 or 4 rounds I decided I didn’t need the double rest in the middle either. As you can see from the increasing numbers that was probably even too easy. I haven’t done a lot of this stuff on the Skier so it’s hard to know what I’m capable of. In the middle I really thought that was all I had, but nope, there was more in the tank.

Active Life – Back Max

3 Rounds

8/8 Turkish Sit-ups (45#)
8/8 Kroc Rows (53#)
8 Evil Wheels
30s Barbell Overhead Hold (115#)

I skipped the 8 sumo good mornings since I did a bunch in the earlier section. My focus on this was to clean up my movements. On the sit-ups I realized I was cutting things short at the top, so I took another second to push my head and upper body through at the top and reach back for more of a shoulder stretch. For the rows I took the reps one at a time and concentrated on pulling with the appropriate muscles. When doing evil wheels, usually I roll all the way out and my stomach gets a very short rest on the ground. Today I stopped just short of that so I had to keep tension and pull myself back. Small change but made a huge difference in difficulty. Not much to say about the holds. I tried to keep the weight back and locked in with a tight posterior chain and my chest down.

Light Left

Wow what a difference that heat makes!

Active Life – Single-leg Bias

Warm-up

1:00 Foam Roll each quad
20 Lateral Step Overs

Workout – 6 Sets

8 One Arm KB Front Squat (50#)
10 Groiners
1:00 Rest

Do 3 sets per arm, alternating each set.

Conditioning

5 Rounds

150m Ski Erg
10 DB Push Jerks (40# DBs)

Not sure I’ve ever done jerks with the dumbbells, usually it’s a push press. Took 5:39. I should have put the DBs by the erg, but I left them on the rack and put them back after each set. Would have been under 5 minutes. I didn’t realize until after the workout, but the back head of the left dumbbell was set to 35# so I was 2.5# light on my left arm. Whoops! I don’t know how I didn’t feel that during the reps.

Active Life – Back Max

3 Rounds

8/8 Turkish Sit Up (40#)
8/8 1 Arm Russian KBS (53#)
8 Evil Wheel
8 Sumo Stance Good Morning (95#)
30s Barbell Overhead Hold (95#)

Some of the same movements as yesterday since I got out of order a bit when I didn’t workout as planned on Saturday. I thought about skipping around again, but then it just might make things worse. With a rest day tomorrow it was a good day for the back-to-back work. This back work was less than 20 minutes today and I was resting a bit between rounds. Yesterday I was moving right from movement to movement in order to even break 30 minutes.

Like Cindy

Yesterday ended up being a “rest” day because I worked on a bathroom and then replaced lights and ceiling tiles in the laundry room. I was exhausted by the end of the day.

Active Life – Single-leg Bias

Warmup – 3 Sets

5 Sumo Inchworms
20 Kossacks

Won’t be wearing the Nano 7 for Kossacks ever again. They have a harder ankle structure to the shoe, which was not comfortable with those positions.

Workout – 3 Sets

10 Sumo Stance Good Mornings (95#)
8 Eccentric Knee Flexion (20#)

Those knee flexions really open up the ankles.

Conditioning

20:00 AMRAP

3 Strict Pull-ups
6 HR Push-ups
9 Wall Balls

I saved this one from CrossFit Linchpin and finally got around to trying it out. Neat variaton on “Cindy.” I dropped from the top on every pull-up and got right back on the bar for the next rep. Wasn’t confident I’d last if I did them together and sometimes it bothers my shoulder, which has felt a bit weird after the jerks on Friday. I got through 19 rounds plus 2 pull-ups. As expected, the hand relase push-ups start to get slower and slower.

Accessory

4 Rounds

15s L-hang
15s Dead Hang
15s Rest
30s Wall Sit
15s Rest

B wanted to do some hanging, so I came up with this. Couldn’t tell you the last time I did a wall sit. I worked up quite a sweat again from this.

Active Life – Back Max

10:00 for Quality

3-5 breaths Ring Plank Hold (Front Leaning Rest)
3-5 breaths 1 Arm Overhead Hold (53#, each arm)
8 Romanian Deadlifts (115#) + a 3-5 breath hold at bottom position

Got light-headed from the RDL hold a couple of times.

Fancy Toe Touch

Woke up exhausted on Monday. Had spent all day Sunday (and most of Saturday) working on a shop project and doing yard work. My upper back was probably sore from the muscle-ups and my low back felt a little “off” all day. Needed the rest day. Out in the garage in the afternoon.

Active Life – Single-leg Bias

Assessment: Standing Lumbo Pelvic Flexion Test

Fancy name for a standing toe touch. I got about 3″ from toes with straight legs and not trying to push it.

Workout: 3×6 Sumo Deadlifts

45#
95
135
165
185
3 Sets 205

I’ve only done sumo deadlifts a handful of times (maybe). I really enjoyed them. Much safer for the back in the more upright starting position.

Cooldown: Standing Lumbo Pelvic Flexion Test

Forgot to do this until after the ski. Was able to get down to 1-1.5″ from my toes, again not trying to push it.

Conditioning

20:00 Ski Erg

Back is still a little off, so wanted to stay away from anything with weights at high speed or high reps. Have never done the erg for this length of time so wasn’t sure how to pace. I got faster with each 4 minute split for a total of 4,731 meters.

Active Life – Back Max

3 Rounds

8/8 Turkish Sit-up (40#)
8/8 Kroc Row (53#)
8 Evil Wheels
8 Sumo Stance Good Morning (95#)
30s Barbell Overhead Hold (95#)

All of the accessories! In and out of the gym in less than 65 minutes, including setup and cleanup time.

Going to try to get back to drinking protein shakes, which I haven’t been doing over the last year. I still have several tubs in the closet from over a year ago.

Active Life Membership

I forgot my sister was coming to town for the night so I decided to take a rest day yesterday. I saw that Active Life had memberships at 50% off for the year (making it $100), so I sent in some info about my back issues.

We see this a lot when athletes have a left-to-right imbalance (we call it a single leg bias) combined with poor midline stabilization and postural stamina.

To correct it we recommend our Bulletproof Single Leg Bias and Bulletproof Back Max programs.

Both are included in an Athlete Membership.

Link: https://performancecarerx.com/specials/

Do BP Single Leg Bias before you workout and BP Back Max after.

Try to get 3-4 BP Single Leg Bias and 4-5 BP Back Max sessions in per week.

When you finish BP Single Leg Bias contact us and we’ll help decide where to go next.

So now I have some homework! It’ll be easy to incorporate in my home workouts and I’ll get there early or replace the programmed warm-up when I attend class at the gym.

Active Life Warmup

30s/30s Sciatic Nerve Flossing
5/5 Stagger Stance Good Mornings (75#)
30s/30s Sciatic Nerve Flossing
5 Sumo Inchworms

Active Life Single Leg Bias

3 Sets

6 Sumo Stance Good Mornings (75#)
5 Box Hamstring Curls (24″)

Active Life Cooldown

Kneeling Heel to Butt Test
Prone Heel to Butt Test (Right Leg)
Prone Heel to Butt Test (Left Leg)

I wasn’t able to touch my heel to my butt, though I did have my shoes on if that makes a difference. Love those tight hamstrings. Was really quick to work through that stuff.

Warm-up

4 Sets

30 Jump Rope + 10 DU
3 Tall Cleans
3 Power Cleans

I used 20-30-40-50kg.

Weightlifting – Power Clean

2x60kg
80
90
100
105
2 sets 110

I dropped every rep. Didn’t wear a belt at all and felt good. Super happy getting up to 242 pounds. I haven’t lifted that in a long time!

Conditioning

20:00 AMRAP – Team of 3

Buy-in: 100 Dubs
One person completes an entire round while the others rest
- 7 American KBS (62#)
- 7 Row cals
- 7 Burpees

I teamed up with Jason and Grant and I was first. Made it to 82 dubs and then missed 3 times! We were 1 rep shy off all completing the 6th round.

Active Life Back Max

3 Sets

2x 10s/10s Standing Straight Leg Hold
10 Lemon Squeeze
10s L Hang
10 GHD Hip Extension (2 second hold at top)
20s/20s Samson Stretch

Brandi stayed and did this with me. Took about 18 minutes I think.