Big surprise, thrusters and pull-ups for 22.3! You would think that after 10+ years of the Open they’ve give it a rest and come up with a new combination.
Warm-up
80′ Lateral Monster Walk
80′ Monster Walk
10 Monster Squats
10 Monster Toe Touches
20 Trunk Twists
Dead Hang
7 Thrusters (45#)
Conditioning
21 Pull-ups
42 Double Unders
21 Thrusters (75#)
18 T2B
36 Double Unders
18 Thrusters (75#)
15 C2B Pull-ups
30 Double Unders
15 Thrusters (75#)
I sure as hell wasn’t going to do bar muscle-ups on our low bar like last year and I wasn’t going to the outside rig. So I put in toes-to-bars. Also not going to waste time switching the weight on the bar, so stuck to one weight and went light because we never really do thrusters due to our backs. I went 8-7-6 on the the pull-ups and then realized I haven’t done a double under in months! I missed many times in every round and my heart rate kept spiking. I went 8-7-6 on the first round of thrusters. Then 7-6-5 for both the T2B and second thrusters. Chest-to-bar pull-ups are my nemesis, so I did all kipping triples. Finished with unbroken thrusters at 11:49, taking a lot of too long breaks along the way. Was still wrecked after! Most importantly I made it out of the Open injury free this year without any stress.
Arms
3 Sets
12 In & Out DB Curls (20#)
12 DB French Press (45#)
Those French presses were hard after all of the thrusters.
I’m having problems with grips on the bar on our outdoor rig, specifically for bar muscle-ups. I had to drop after four in my second set because they were riding up way too much and killing my wrists. I noticed an old blister ripped open, so switched to kipping chest-to-bar pull-ups the rest of the sets. The step-ups really got me in this. Felt good on the burpees and was doing shoulder press for my jerks with those light dumbbells.
The side lunge with knee up was something new to try for this superset. Wasn’t sure how it would go, so I didn’t increase weight.
4 Sets
10 RDLs (2×135, 2×155#)
1:00 Rest
Went up 10 pounds on each.
Conditioning
9:00 AMRAP – 2-4-6…
Devil Press (35# DBs)
C2B Pull-ups
B had found this on the ‘gram several weeks ago and we saved it. Two of my least favorite movements. I pulled out an old pair of grips I hadn’t used in years and they weren’t the greatest. I did all double kipping chest-to-bar pull-ups because that movement seems to get me for some reason. Finished the 10s and then picked up the pace to finish the 12 devil presses.
Midline
4 Rounds
10 Hollow Rocks
10 V-ups
10 Tuck-ups
10s Hollow Hold
1:00 Rest
She keeps bringing this workout back out and sucks every time. I decided not to try going unbroken even from the start, so I took a quick break between movements. Finished in 6:42.
Yesterday I walked 18 holes and could feel my back at the top of my backswing. It wasn’t feeling great the rest of the day. It was rough getting out of my chair last night and I could feel it throughout the night. So modifying movements today. Out in the garage at 4pm. I did some monster walks without the band.
Legs
10 DB Lunges (30# DBs)
10 Reverse DB Lunges (30#)
20 Reverse DB Lunges (30#)
30 Reverse DB Lunges (30#)
It was definitely more comfortable doing them reverse, as long as I braced my core properly when I stepped back with my left leg.
Midline
10/10 Bird Dogs
10 McGill Curl-up
5/5 Bird Dogs
5 McGill Curl-up
All with two second pause.
More Legs
3 Sets
40’ Tip Toe Farmer Carry (40# DBs)
12 Calf Raises (40# DBs)
Conditioning
7 Rounds (each, IGYG)
15/10 cal BikeErg
12 Pull-ups / 5 Strict C2B Pull-ups
I did the strict pull-ups so I wouldn’t put that stress on my back. Got faster each round on the bike and stuck to 3-2 every round of the chest to bars. We finished in 14:58.
Took a complete rest day yesterday with the workouts coming up over these three days.
Warm-up
3:00 SkiErg (650m)
80′ Lateral Monster Walk
80′ Monster Walk
10 Monster Squats
20 PVC Passes
10 Kip Swings
10 PVC OHS
10 OHS (45#)
5 Kip Swings
5 OHS (75#)
Conditioning
21-15-9
OHS (95#)
C2B Pull-ups
5:00 Rest
45 OHS (95#)
45 Pull-ups
I literally haven’t done an overhead squat in over a year, except for some warm-ups a couple of weeks ago before squat snatches. This was supposed to be chest-to-bar pull-ups again for the 45, but that would have taken me a long time so I scaled back to pull-ups to keep up my intensity. I went 12-9, 9-6, and 9 on my overhead squats and 8-7-6, 6-5-4, and 4-2-3 for my chest-to-bars. Finished that at 5:47. Then I went 13-12-10-10 and 10-10-10-5-5-5 on my pull-ups to finish at 16:46. Kept my intensity up so that was a good call for the pull-ups. I did wear a belt with so many overhead squats, which actually felt pretty good. Overall this went much better than I expected.
Midline
E2M – 5 Rounds
16 alt V-ups
16 Leg Lifts
16/16 Side Plank Bounces
We’ve done this with 14s before at the park and my notes had said we could do 16s. I was getting 42-45 seconds of rest each round.
No invitations yet for the Age-Group Online Qualifiers, but they did release the cutlines. For the Men’s 40-44 it’s 2,025th place and I’m ranked 1,941st. Quads are already getting sore from the squat jumps yesterday. Out in the garage at 4pm.
Warm-up
3:00 Row (757m)
80′ Lateral Monster Walks
80′ Monster Walks
10 Monster Squats
10 Toe Touches (w/ mini band)
5 High Hang Muscle Snatches (45#)
5 OHS (45#)
5 High Hang Squat Snatches (45#)
I think it’s been over two years since I’ve done a squat snatch and probably almost that long for overhead squats. I was falling over with the empty bar in this warm-up!
Weightlifting
High Hang Squat Snatch + Hang Squat Snatch + Squat Snatch
The workout was take 12 minutes to do five complexes @ 65% of 1RM Snatch or a moderate weight. I did it twice with 75, then once at 95 and 115 before loading my working weight of 135 pounds. I wasn’t really thinking about the percentage until after my first set and then calculated 143 pounds off my all-time 220 max, so I was actually heavy for any recent lift I’ve done. Really started to feel better after the first two complexes with 135. Like riding a bike.
Conditioning
15-12-9
Thrusters (115#)
C2B Pull-ups
The actual Mayhem workout was 135# thrusters and strict weighted pull-ups with 50 pounds. Was always going to modify that, especially training for the AGOQ. It would be a good version to try some day, but not this day. I warmed up with 5 thrusters at each of 45 and 95 pounds.
In the workout I went 9-6, 7-5, 5-4 on my thrusters and wore a belt. Just making sure not to push it too hard or take too many risks as my back gets used to some of this stuff again. The lifts themselves actually felt ok, but just gassed me. Looking back at WHOOP, my heart rate wasn’t even that high, so I probably should have pushed more with shorter rests. I went 9-6, 7-5, 7-1-1 on the chest-to-bar pull-ups and was losing my butterfly in some of the later sets since I’m out of practice. Finished in 5:24.
My shoulders and abs are kind of sore. Out in the garage at about 10:30.
Warm-up
5:00 SkiErg (1,039m)
2x30s Dead Hang Partner Push
10 Kip Swings
Midline
4 Sets
120′ Uneven Farmer Carry (70 & 45# KBs)
8 Evil Wheels
10/10 Banded Rotations & Holds (blue)
Conditioning
30:00 AMRAP (Partner)
40 Sumo KB Deadlifts (70#)
20 DB Push-up + 2 Rows (40# DBs)
40 DB Lunges (40# DBs)
30 C2B Pull-ups
Done with Brandi. We each alternated two sets of 10 deadlifts, then two sets of five of the push-up plus two rows complex. I did two times 10 lunges and B did two times 15 Russian swings. For the pull-ups we alternated each doing threes sets of five pull-ups. I wanted to challenge myself with the chest to bar after sucking in that Open workout. I started out with a regular kip in round one and felt comfortable with my head not hitting the ceiling, so I thought I’d try butterfly in round two and it felt good. Certainly easier to get my chest to the bar per rep because I can use my hips and legs more. Probably the best I’ve done butterfly chest-to-bar pull-ups ever and the first time I’ve done any in over a year. I did start losing some of my kip in last two rounds but never came off the bar through a set of five even with some resets. I started first and got through five full rounds, the deadlifts and 4 of the dumbbell complex. Really grippy workout.
My quads have been very sore from Monday’s workout. On the bright side, I got a new bed last Thursday and my back has felt so much better through the night and getting out of bed in the mornings. I’ve hit 100% of my sleep need, according to WHOOP, every night so far too.
Even though I set a PR last week, 21.2 dropped me in the standings, as expected.
Note: for the number of total athletes I only count those who have submitted a score, which is why it differs from the percentiles calculated by CrossFit.
Looks like I’ll need to place about 830 for this workout to make the top 10% in my Masters division. If there are two scored parts this week, I would need to average a placement of about 1,645.
With the earlier 3pm announcement of 21.3 today and some plans for tomorrow night, I was out in the garage at 5pm to warm-up and finish my Open.
I thought there was a good chance we’d get two parts! This is actually a pretty cool workout, but they had to unnecessarily complicate things with a starting line and this eight foot area.
It’s also pretty shitty that the original equipment list mentioned a place to do pull-ups, but didn’t mention chest to bars or bar muscle-ups, which much different in requirements. Not sure how many people doing the workouts at home have a high enough garage for those two movements. Also, having to move forward eight feet runs in to issues with garage doors being in the way. Not sure what they’re thinking with dumb requirements like these. I turned my bar the other way and stood well past the 8 foot line so I wouldn’t have to worry about hitting parts of the garage door.
Going in I wasn’t sure I could do butterfly or even kipping C2B because of the height needed for my head. I knew I’d have to do single whacky muscle-ups on my low pull-up bar too. Not a ton of strategy for me here since I’m restricted by my setup. How about… not toast my back with all of the front squats and thrusters?!
I work grips and a belt. I did the front squats unbroken, 5×6 T2B, 9-6 thrusters, unbroken front squats, 5-5-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-1-1-1-1 for C2B (all kipping style), 9-6 thrusters, unbroken squats, and then single bar muscle-ups. Not ideal conditions for several things, but I made it work(ish). I got through 14 bar muscle-ups. I didn’t have any expectations going in because of the pull-up bar situation and I had no idea how I’d handle that many squats/thrusters.
CrossFit Games Open Workout 21.4
For Max Weight – 7:00 Time Cap (immediately after 21.3)
Deadlift +
Clean +
Hang Clean +
Jerk
I took 2 minutes loading the bar and resting before my first attempt. Went 165-185-205-220 and made sure not to start that final rep until a few seconds before the clock hit 22:00 to use all my rest. Nice that they changed the rule and the complex only had to be started before the time was up. The hang clean was the worrying movement for me, due to my back. Happy with what I got.
After tweaking my back each of the last four years during the Open I’m happy to have survived without any new injuries this year. Now I can start thinking about golf season. 🙂
My body feels good. Still not sleeping great from the time change. I did some PT exercises at lunch and then went to the gym around 4.
Warm-up
Monster Walks (Hip Circle)
Steamboats
PVC Passes
Conditioning
8:00 EMOM (alt)
10 cal Ski
2 Legless Rope Climbs (11′, no jump)
2:00 Rest
8:00 EMOM (alt)
40 DU
10 C2B
2:00 Rest
8:00 EMOM (alt)
10 cal Ski
12 HSPU
2:00 Rest
8:00 EMOM (alt)
30 Zeus DU
8/8 Box Step Downs (16″)
I really concentrated on my back during the ski and limited my range of motion. Because of that I didn’t scale up from women’s calories. Our ceiling is much lower at the new location. I started on my knees, which also meant no jump and no momentum going into the first pull. Much harder. Probably made it close to a 15′ rope climb. I never missed a regular double under and did all of the chest-to-bars unbroken with a regular kip, not wearing any grips. Was pretty stoked about that. I did the handstand push-ups 7-5 each round and felt good. Great idea to get out the Zeus rope. LOL!! Definitely got my heart rate spiked so I scaled to 30 reps. I stopped on purpose during the first round doing 20-10. Then missed at 9 and 10 in the second round. The final two rounds were unbroken. Jumping up to a higher box for the step down (heel taps) was much harder on that left leg.
I went back to the Doctor today for the results of the MRI. I have mild disk bulges at L3-4, L4-5, and L5-S1. I also have a small piece of a disc fractured off on the left side under L5, which is where my pain always is.
Went to the gym at 4:30 and did some walking up and down the hallway to warm up. I also did a few air squats for the first time in two weeks. That was actually really scary.
Conditioning
10 Rounds
6 cal Echo Bike
3 Strict C2B Pull-ups
12 Push-ups
6 Knee Raises
1:00 Rest
I was actually going to do 6 ring rows for the second movement, but I must have been caving my midline, because they first set didn’t feel very good. Quickly switched to the pull-ups for the remaining rounds. Finished in 19:45.
Accessory
3x 105/105’ Suitcase Carry (25#)
3x 105/105’ Suitcase Carry (30#)
I was walking up and down the hall, which is 105 feet long and switching arms at each end. So I walked six lengths before taking a little rest and then going heavier.
Nick Momrik's Fitness Logs 