After doing 210 KBS yesterday in the WOD, I can feel it in my posterior chain like I haven’t in quite some time. My back still has issues. I made it out to walk 18 holes of golf this morning.
Warm-up
5 rounds
10 Single-leg RDL (62# KB)
45s Rest
5 rounds
8 DB Shoulder Presses
45s Rest
I started off with 45# DBs, moved to 40# during the 3rd set and even had to go down to 35# to finish out. Not sure why I was so weak with these.
3 rounds
20 GHD Sit-ups
1m Rest
The GHD at the gym is whack! Doesn’t even adjust, but we make due I guess. 20 in a row was tough.
WOD
21-15-9
Thrusters (30# DBs)
Ring Rows
I’ve decided it’s time to start scaling weights more so I can increase power output. Again Faster has a great article you should read. I’m just not strong enough to do many WODs Rx that involve heavy weights, so why try, when it means I have to go slower and can’t keep up the intensity. I almost went with the 35# DBs, but switched to 30s at the last-minute. Ring rows were the real struggle of this though. I finished in 6:02.
Finisher
Work on HSPU.
I did 3 sets with a minute or two of rest in between. My arms and shoulders were already fried at this point. I managed to get 5, 6, and 4 reps. Terrible!
Still a little sore today, but I’m finally on the tail end of it. Well, except for my lower back that is. I walked 18 holes of golf this morning and then headed in at 7pm tonight so I could stay after for the 8pm open gym time.
Warm-up
750m Run
WOD
Deck of Cards
Reps
2-10 = Face value
Jack = 11
Queen = 12
King = 13
Ace = 14
Movements
Joker = Run 500m
Hearts = Burpees
Diamonds = 4 Mountain Climbers
Spades = Thrusters (60#)
Clubs = Ring Rows
I haven’t done a deck of cards in a really long time. We were allowed to substitute any movements out for something we are weak at or needed to work on. Originally clubs were one-arm snatches, which I like, but figured they are not a good idea with my back. So I put in the ring rows. I thought I was using 75# for the thrusters but after we got going I realized I had the women’s bar. Oh well, 50# was plenty with that many thrusters.
There was a 40:00 time limit. When time ran out I had just started on my first burpee of the King and then had 5 more cards to go.
Strength
Back Squats
5 HSPU
Rest 2-3m
For the back squats I did:
5x 135#
3x 185#
2x 205#
1x 225#
1x 235#
I was hoping to set a PR today, but when I did that rep at 235# I could really feel it in my back as I came out of the bottom. I had to shut it down after that. I was pretty fatigued from all of the Thrusters in the WOD too I guess. HSPU felt really good and I was able to do each set of 5 unbroken without resorting to using any AbMats.
I wasn’t as sore as I expected this morning, considering the volume of deadlifts and power cleans I did yesterday. We had a kettlebell seminar at Survival Fitness today so I figured it was a great idea to attend the 11am class so I could just stay for the seminar, which was scheduled to be an hour and a half long.
Warm-up
Tabata Mash-up (6 rounds)
Jumping Jacks
Steam Engines
WOD
1 mile run
10 rounds
10 Ring Push-ups
10 One-arm DB Snatches (45#)
1 mile run
I ran the first mile in my best gym time 6:18. Last week I ran a 6:14, but the RunKeeper GPS was kind of funky there, so I’m not sure I should count that time. Total time for the WOD was 3:20 (no way this was correct). I would have used a 60# DB if I hadn’t done all that clean work last night and didn’t just do 100 one-arm snatches with 50# last week. I was really fatigued during this workout.
We had about 20 or 30 minutes before the kettlebell seminar started. In the seminar we did all kinds of stuff, including Russian swings, American swings, cleans, snatches, clean and press, clean and jerk, goblet squats, front squats, hand to hand swings, Turkish get-ups, 1/4 get-ups, windmills, and probably a ton of other stuff I’m forgetting. At the end, we did a WOD.
100 Single KB Thrusters (50 each side)
50 Hand-to-hand Russian Swings
40 1/4 Get-ups (20 each side)
I used a 35# KB for everything and finished in 10:35. Absolutely gassed!
I’m definitely taking the next two days off, will WOD on Tuesday, and then either do a WOD or a run on Thursday. I’m surprised with how well my body has handled working out 9 days in a row, but I need to recover and make sure I’m ready to go for the competition on Saturday.
Today is another hot one, so I got up early and took a drive down the road to a local school. They have all kinds of monkey bars, dip bars, and playground rigs to make WODs out of.
Warm-up
400m Run
2 rounds
10 PVC Pass-thrus
10 PVC OHS
10 PVC Around the World’s (5 each way)
WOD
Fat bar DB “Fran”
21-15-9
Pull-ups
Thrusters (45# DBs)
There weren’t any great bars at a height high enough for me, so I went with the best thing I could find (pictured above). The bars were probably twice the diameter of a normal pull-up bar and I really had to bend my knees in order to get a kip going because I could easily touch the ground. Variety is good though right? My time was 9:32, which is worse than the 9:05 I did at Survival Fitness a couple of weeks ago. I’ll take it though since my intensity probably wasn’t as high as it would be doing the WOD next to other people and the fat bar makes this a lot tougher.
Finisher
Tabata Mash-up
Hanging Leg Raises (strict)
L-sit
I used the same fat bar for the hanging leg raises. For the L-sits there were some perfect dip type bars about 1.5-2 feet off the ground.
Kayaking
Went out for a 2 mile trip in the kayak again and it was easier than the first day. I had to keep switching up my grip on the paddle though because I started to get blisters on my thumbs the other day. I’ve really been feeling the kayaking in my abs over the last day or so as well. It really is a great workout. Not too long after, I went out and walked 9 holes of golf with by brother.
About 12 hours after the morning workout I did another one with Dad.
Warm-up #2
3 rounds
1m Plank
1m Lateral Hops (30s each leg)
1m Side Plank (30s each side)
1m Rest
I knew Dad could use the core work so I threw in the planks. Lateral hops were just something to get the blood flowing.
WOD #2
4 rounds
5 HSPU
25 Air Squats
40 Tuck Jumps
The plan was to do 10 HSPUs, but I quickly realized that wasn’t going to be possible. My shoulders were pretty fatigued from pull-ups, thrusters, and kayaking. I had to scale back to 5 reps each round. For the first two rounds I did strict and kipping, then in the last two rounds I added one AbMat. Dad did piked push-ups and did 10 reps. He also scaled back to 3 rounds instead of 4. I finished in 9:57 and he wasn’t too far behind me for his 3 rounds.
Finisher #2
Death by Burpees
I made it through the round of 15 with less than 5 seconds left in the minute, so I shut it down there. That’s enough for one day. I walked a mile to cool-down.
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.
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 joined a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) called Saginaw Meadows with a couple that I’m good friends with. Yesterday was our first pick-up. It’s going to be pretty neat to get fresh, local, organic stuff each week, some of which I’ve never eaten. The first week was pretty small because not much has grown in yet, but each week we’ll be getting more and more food. I used a green onion in a breakfast scramble this morning and made a sauté with some greens and tomatoes I had picked up on Friday from the local Farmer’s Market. Good food!
Warm-up
100 Jumping Jacks
100 Butt Kicks
100 Lateral Hops
100 Mountain Climbers
10 Slow Air Squats
10 Burpees
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.
I was feeling pretty rough as I got out of bed this morning, due to last night’s epic workout. I loosed up after I started moving around the house though. I didn’t do the push-ups for the Armstrong Pull-up Program first thing in the morning because I wanted to save everything I had for the WOD. Went in to the 10am class instead of 11 because it’s supposed to get really hot and humid today.
If you want to donate (everything goes to St. Jude Children’s Hospital), head over to my sponsorship page. Every extra $ helps out the kids and furthers cancer research.
Warm-up
1m Deep Squat Hold
1m PVC Deadlift
1m Deep Squat Hold
1m PVC Clean
1m Deep Squat Hold
1m PVC Shoulder Pass-thrus
1m Deep Squat Hold
1m PVC Snatch
This was a nice warm-up to loosen up for the movements and I’m glad it wasn’t a high cardio one, which saved energy for the actual WOD.
WOD
“Hope”
3 rounds
Burpees
Power snatch (75#)
Box jump (24″) *Rebounding off the top is allowed
Thruster (75#)
Chest to bar Pull-ups
“Hope” has the same format as Fight Gone Bad. In this workout you move from each of five stations after a minute. This is a five-minute round from which a one-minute break is allowed before repeating. The clock does not reset or stop between exercises. On call of “rotate,” the athlete/s must move to next station immediately for good score. One point is given for each rep.
WOW! This is the toughest WOD I’ve ever done and I didn’t hold anything back. My goal was to get 150 reps, which I had before the 2nd round was over! I managed a total of 235 reps with rounds of 82, 74, and 78, doing everything Rx. Pace and consistency were a key in this WOD. If you started out too fast, you’d wipe yourself out for the movements late in your round or even worse for the 2nd and 3rd rounds. I couldn’t be happier with my performance. During the next class Casey, the stud of Survival Fitness, got 255 reps, so I’m even happier with my rep total. Another Casey, who I paired up with, started out way too fast, but held in there for 211 reps. As far as I know, no other guys did it Rx. I don’t know if any of the women did it Rx, but I would assume Michelle did for 176 reps.
Here I am at the end of the snatch station in round 3.
Since we paired up and did 2 heats, after I was done I counted for my partner, Casey (CA). During the 3rd round my hands started to tingle and it progressively spread up my arms and eventually through most of my body down into my feet. As soon as their heat was over, I refilled my water bottle and started slamming water. I didn’t think I could be too dehydrated at this point, but after watching someone go into shock on Deadliest Catch from dehydration I didn’t want to take any chances. I was getting a little dizzy, so I sat down for a while. I’m glad there was another class right after, because it would not have been smart for me to go home, where I’d be alone if something happened to me. I think I was feeling the effects of pushing my body beyond its limits, which hasn’t happened in a long time. As I rested, I recovered and was able to help clean up the equipment when the 2nd class finished. I was fine to go home on my own at that point. A little scary though, to be honest.
I think I’m going to skip the push-ups for the Armstrong program today, but will try to get the pull-ups done tonight.
Went to class for the 5th day in a row. Probably not the smartest idea, but tomorrow and Saturday are both probably off days since my Dad will be in town.
Warm-up
3 rounds:
20 MB Snatches
30 MB V-ups
20 MB Push-ups
I used a 20# MB and think I finished somewhere around the 6:30 mark.
WOD
5 rounds:
15 Thrusters
15 Burpees
Absolutely fucking brutal. I used 95# on a barbell for the thrusters. My total time was 23:39. After doing clean and jerk yesterday and a whole bunch of shoulder related stuff today, my shoulders are on fire. The humidity was really high today due to the rain we’ve been getting. My clothes were completely soaked through and the sweat kept dripping down my arms on to my hands, making it hard to keep a hold on the bar. I think I might start wearing wrist sweat bands or at least give them a try.
Oh, almost forgot, I smacked myself on the chin with the bar during the 3rd round doing one of the thrusters. Seems like I do that once every couple of months in some movement or another.
Finisher
Death by K2E, by 2s. So that’s 2 the first minute, 4 the second minute, and so on. I made it through the round of 14 and then got 14 in the round of 16. I probably could have gotten it, but I felt my hands getting close to the ripping stage and it just isn’t worth it.
Went to a night class since the only morning class is 5:45am on Tuesday. It was kind of nice, even though I really like how I feel throughout the day when I workout in the morning.
Warm-up
5 rounds
1m Russian Twists
1m Plank
I used a 20# KB for the twists and got a total of 292 (counting each side) through the 5 minutes.
WODs
4 different 3:00 AMRAPs
At each station perform the buy-in exercise and reps. Then do max reps of another movement for the remaining time of the 3 minutes. Keep track of max reps for each station. Rest 2 minutes between stations.
20 Box Jumps
-MAX DB power cleans
20 Burpees
-MAX Push-ups
300m Run
-MAX Ring Rows
20 KBS
-MAX Wallballs
I used a 24 inch box for box jumps, 35# DBs for power cleans, a 53# KB for Russian swings, and a 20# MB for wallballs. I think my reps for the MAXs were 31, 41, 37, 35, but I might be off by a few on some of those.
Strength
Find 1 rep MAX for clean + thruster. We broke into groups by strength and formed lines to each take a shot at a weight before moving up. I think we went 65#, 85#, 105#, 125#, 145#, 165#. Those all went up pretty well for me. I was the only one left, so Matt pushed me to go for my body weight of 180#. I got the weight up with a power clean without too much trouble. I normally would do a full clean as it gets this heavy, but I knew I needed to squat for the thruster. The clean was a 15# PR. I went for the thruster and got it about half way over my head. I think if we had done this before the WOD I could have gotten it, but I was pretty fried. I’m thrilled about the clean PR especially since it was a power clean. 165# is a lot more than I’ve ever attempted with a thruster as well.
Got another solid night of sleep last night. It’s great to be home sleeping in my own bed again.
Warm-up
600m Run
Power Skipping
Walking Zombie Kicks
But Kicks
WOD
A religious CrossFit box somewhere came up with this partner WOD. It’s supposed to be based on the 14 stations of the cross. I’ll hold off on any comments about the religious nature.
400m Run (both partners)
50 Pull-ups
40 Burpees (both partners)
80 KBS (Russian)
60 MB Thrusters
100 1-arm Push Presses
100 Lunges (both partners)
60 MB Cleans
200 Sit-ups/Plank
60 K2E
50 Pull-ups
100 Lateral Hops
100 HR Push-ups
800m Run (both partners)
One partner holds a medicine ball at all times except when doing burpees, lunges, and sit-ups/plank. I partnered up with Matt, the owner, since we had an odd number of people in class. We used a 20# MB for the workout. When performing burpees and lunges each partner completes the prescribed number of reps. During the runs, we handed off the MB at the half-way point. As an example, we split up the pull-ups into several sets, each doing a total of 25 pull-ups. Then we each performed 40 burpees on our own. For the push presses, each partner should end up doing 25 with each arm. When you get to 200 sit-ups/plank, one partner is doing sit-ups while the other is holding a plank.
It took us 42 or 44 minutes to finish, I don’t remember the time. The last half of the 800m run was straight into a strong wind. Absolutely brutal holding the MB. I highlight for me was getting kipping K2E for the first time. I wish I had figured this out a couple of weeks ago for all of the T2B.
Partner WODs are always fun on weekends. Now it’s time to enjoy Masters Sunday.
Nick Momrik's Fitness Logs 