Ben Plotnicki

A – 2-pos Halting clean grip deadlift x 4, rest 2 min x 4 sets (pause off floor and below knee, thinking about strong positions and appropriate tension through posterior chain and lats)

205 x 2, 225 x 2 – 2sec hold at each position and 3sec negative. Since this is the weight I felt those limitations I thought this was a good place to start. Could’ve maybe gone a bit more but was dialed in with the tempo and tension

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Every 4 min x 3

8 Hang Power snatches @ 95lbs

40 DU’s

90 sec row @ 1150-1250 cal/hr

Each couplet portion took about 28-40sec power snatch got better each round as I felt a little groove there. Sport on in the row, and I would honestly say it was about a 7-8 RPE out of 10 to hit those numbers. I relied on leg drive and good technique and focused on breathing.

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Every 4 min x 3

8 deadlifts @ 225lbs

10 kHSPU

90 sec bike @ 330-350 watts

Couplet took about 28-30sec, hspu felt really good, where the row was about a 7 or 8, this was more around an 8-9 out of 10. It was much harder to hold this effort. And my quads felt a little blown up after. 

also worth noting bt the two cyclical pieces. heart rate read 160’s on the rower and about the same or a few ticks lower, but I felt I could’ve gone another 45-60sec on the rower and the bike would’ve been a bigger fight that would’ve sacrificed some energy expenditure that might have been hard to come back from

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Front rack loaded wall sit 60 sec on, 2 min off x 3 (parallel, feet narrow and toes forward)

Double kb’s at 20/hand, should’ve gone a little heavier but this still stucked

tttTD (12 min AMRAP)

184 – I had a ton of negative self talk getting back in the wall ball. I feel like Maverick in Top Gun after he lost goose. For a brief second o was close to stopping in the set of wall balls. My heart rate according to my watch after my first set of 40 wall balls was in the 160’s, I thought that was way too high way too early. Had a potty party for a little bit after. Right now I know we’re missing some capacity but I also feel that it has hit my mental toughness pretty hard as well. So I need to start working on some pre-training strategies that when things fall apart how will I mentally manage them.

Build to tough triple deadlift

365 – i almost wanted to quit after this….there wasn’t much more in the tank, it was slow off the ground but there was never any question that I could get all 3, but after I hit this one I wasn’t even going to make another jump. I did make a big jump to that so that may be a minor factor.

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For time

10 deadlifts @ 315lbs

15 sHSPU

15 power cleans @ 225lbs

25 kHSPU

25 shoulder to overhead @ 135lbs

40 bar facing burpees

15:36 – I will say this went a little better than expected. I completely planned on having to modify the loading on the power clean mid workout. It without a doubt took the bulk of the time, close second the shoulder to overhead. I just really feel my sto technique, i do not get enough leg drive, so need to work on that isolated and in warm up. 315 unbroken, that at least put me in a better place after wanting to quit. 15 strict hspu went unbroken, I felt I could’ve done about 4-5 more UB. ummmmm……….and I just now realized i fucked up, i did 20 power cleans smh……my eye sight is starting to go bad. Do you know if covid has any effect on vision? Ok, so now I don’t feel as completely shitty. I did my first 2 reps quickly after I changed loads, i just wanted to see what happens. I did try to do a couple of quick doubles and triples, I couldn’t keep that pace but I was happy that I was able to do that. Khspu did 11, changed one side of plates, 9 changed the other. I think I could’ve done it in 2 sets, but wasnt comfortable breathing like that while inverted. STO was just a shit show I feel. Burpee just tried to keep moving and with 15 left I tried to push the pace with what I had left

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Accumulate 50 banded BB OH presses with 1 sec pause overhead

This took me about as long as the metcon did, I used the band that I would say is average size and holy shit this became super hard

A. Squat Snatch: Work to a tough single for the day

200 – my right side felt like it was not punching up against the bar very well at all. Don’t know if I rushed my warm up and not getting things activated appropriately but was just missing some confidence the receiving position.

B. Back Squat: 10,8,6,4; rest 2-3 min – 65,70,75,80% 

235-245-265-285 – definitely not true percentages, and all flet decent except the set of 4. Maybe couldn’ve grinded out 2 more reps at that load

C. Squat Snatch: Build to 90% of A

175, first few reps were not pretty but cleaned it up but definitely the right side and feeling like thoracic, rhomboid struggling to fire aggressively and sequentially. 

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For time:

100′ HSW 

rest 15 Seconds 

20 Ring Muscle Ups AFAP (start with amrap unbroken set)

Some good things happened here that I was pretty happy about. 1:47 on hs walk, had a really good mind set going into this and wanted to attack it, the first 75ft was done in 49 seconds, came down turned around and kicked right back up with confidence, but it was the 70th feet that things got a little sloppy. I started to lose control and was pretty confident I was going to make the 75 but i did start to stumble and started to drift out of my lane and fell across the line. This slowed me down to kick right back up into the last 25ft, so rested, maybe a little long for sure. Then rmu was 4:48, hit 6 for my first set, then 3&3 at that point I decided I was going to do sets of 2’s to finish, and my next set of 2 felt great and thought this is a great rep scheme I feel great and I’m going to take a short rest and hop right into the next set of 2 with a short break, then I jumped back up and after the first rep I had that feeling that my hands were not sliding over the rings well so I only did 1. Then did 2 and 3 to finish.

rest 3min 

Assault 90 Seconds @ 350-375 watts

50′ DB FRWL @ 50/hand

8 Squat Snatch @ 135lbs

2 Squat Snatch @ 185lbs

Were the good things happened from that gymnastics work, this wasn’t as good, just felt like breathing was hard. For all the feelings of being better yesterday, I’m wondering how much breathing with the barbell and the tension and rigidity is still affected when there is not that level of tension on machines. Time – 7:18 (oh yeah missed 2 lifts, 2 at 135 and 1 @ 185, and actually the first rep at 185 felt better than all @ 135 so I think I rushed my second rep more from a technical perspective then recovery

rest 3 min 

Assault 90 Seconds @ 350-375 watts

10 DB Box Step Ups @ 50lbs

8 Hang Squat Clean @ 155lbs

2 Squat Clean and Jerk @ 225lbs

3:41 – felt a little better here, a little higher step up for the step ups more out of convenience because the hardest part about this workout was knowing that I had a shit ton of stuff to clean up, so that was a slight more grind than a 24” would be. 5/3 on the hang and the 225 barbell was tough, didn’t feel strong at all and the first jerk was shaky but 2nd one felt so much better. I’m being patient and putting in the work, but damn I want my strength back.

Every 3 min x 10 sets @ 88-90% effort

Bike 15 cals

Row 15 cals

rest walk remainder of window, start around 2:00-2:05 finish time and try to get a little faster each set

I will do my best to remember each set as exact as I can…..2:05 – 1:52 – 1:48 (started resetting my bike every set after this) – 1:45 – 1:42 – 1:40 – 1:38 – 1:34 – 1:22 – 1:09 – I really felt great and back closer to my normal self today. – I know it was written for 88-90% effort, but I was feeling so close to where I think we need to be I wanted to push the boundaries a little to see how I would feel and recover.

3 min clock

20 1-arm alternating DB snatches @ 50lbs

50 DU’s

AMRAP burpees over DB in remaining time

(rest 2 min)

3 min clock

20 lateral burpees over DB

50 DU’s

AMRAP 1-arm alternating DB snatches in remaining time

(rest 2 min)

3 min clock

15 bar MU

AMRAP DU’s in remaining time

Amrap burpee -> 31 (my goal here was 30 burpee, I was pretty confident I could hold a 3 sec burpee, i felt like I started slowing down with about 30sec to go but was able to keep moving) –

amrap snatch – 26 (this was pretty tough, burpee were done at 59 seconds, quick transition to rope but clipped on rep 1, so I took a deep breath and then got into my rhythm and then clipped on 49, broke twice on db work, felt like I was going to throwup at one point during this rest time. –

amrap dubz ->126 my original place was to do sets of 3’s on bmu to force myself to take small sets and “semi-short rest” I adjusted on the fly but didn’t get too crazy, did sets or 4-4-4-3, plan was to start a new set every 25sec, in hindsight, I wished I had tried starting a new set every 20 just to speed it up and see how it went and try and force myself to go when I didn’t want to. Quick transition to rope and got 25 reps right away and then took a break and starting at the 2:10 mark with goal/hopes and should be able to finish unbroken for the last 50 seconds. For the most part I was pretty happy with this portion as the shorter sets of bmu is a mental weakness because I would rather do the bigger set so I can rest longer. But this was good for me.

Also, was really pleased with this effort/output today as I didn’t feel 100% but I didn’t need any longer rest than was written and was able to find a way to keep moving. The only place I really struggled with the keep moving was the db snatch. 

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15 min bike ride @ 200 watts, controlled breathing throughout, decompression focus

Was hard to get into the 200’s without feeling like I was working too hard, but stayed mostly around 196 watts

tttTD (row/pistols/MU)

17:26 – 7:21 on row – finished pistols @ 9:49

I still don’t feel 100% but this is the closest I have felt in 3 weeks. The biggest indicator was that I just couldn’t maintain the effort on the rower of the pace where I wanted to be. I did find find in warm up that jefferson curls really helped me get loose in my spine, before I felt really stiff and struggled to get a good position there. I also did’t feel as enduing as I would like to on pistols but I did find a good rhythm and pushed well at certain parts. I did mostly 3’s and 2’s on rmu. I did miss one around rep 24 I believe. I also did rest way too much.

Bike 100 cals, steady

Around 7

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10 min flowing through

10 banded X walk/direction

10 banded psoas march/leg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_Z9ncB69eI 

10 calf raise w/ 4s eccentric

10 donnie thompson banded ankle drill https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GSI4R2rc6s&t=39s

This was good stuff

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A1 – Banded psoas march from standing with hands on wall x 20 alternating steps, rest 45 sec

A2 – Single leg deck squats x 6-8 alternating reps, rest 90 sec x 3

B1 – Single leg DB RDL to muscle snatch x 6/side, rest 30 sec

@ 35

B2 – Sandbag bear hug good mornings @ 100lbs x 6-8 tempo reps, rest 90 sec x 3 sets

Couldn’t find the 100 pound bag in the gym today so I had to use the 150 yuck – so I stayed on the low end @ 6

C1 – Banded TKE x 30/side with VMO squeeze at top of each, rest 30 sec

C2 – Loaded wall sit at parallel with narrow stance x 45 sec, rest 90 sec x 3 sets

26lb kb

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Bike erg 100 cals, steady, slightly faster than warmup

Around 5:30

How much could a day like yesterday effect today. Yesterday was all machine based with around 24 minutes of work on the machines. Today just felt like I had a hard time from creating a high amount of tension in the hole of my cleans and front squats. I would receive the bar or lower to the bottom of the squat and felt like I couldn’t explode out of the hole. We know strength is down a little but just noticed that creating effective tension was harder and curious of the role of yesterday’s session.

Squat clean tech;

– 10 reps @60%

– 10 reps @70%

– 10 reps @75-85%

* rest as needed bw reps, focus on technique and speed

175 – 205 – 225 – 225 felt a little easier than the 205. Something else that this was really good for, at times I felt my chest staying forward and lifting with more of a hinge, I thought about the ankle/calves classroom and thought if that’s my strategy that’s fine but I shouldn’t be doing it at such a light load, but not having a time clock and having some good awareness allowed me to focus and fix/correct be dialed in with these issues

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3-4 Rounds for times:

5 Front Squat @ 65-70% 1RM from the ground

20 Bar Facing Burpees

Rest as needed

1:10 – 1:10 – 1:07 @ 185 – I also tried on set 2 and 3 to start from a “starting mat” which make it a little more unique and fun. Finished the front squats around 13/14 and started the burpee at 15 so was happy with my burpee speed. On the 3rd set, my thought wasn’t pushing fater per se but how could I improve my speed and i tried to get down and up off the ground quicker. 

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Cossack Squat: 5 reps/side x 5 sets; rest 1 min – barefoot, working deep end range

done

Not sure if you have any progressions off of this. Was thinking this might be a good barometer for when my cardiac output gets back to normal. High end intervals were much easier than the low end. Mentally wanted to try and find closer to sustainable efforts in order to keep the rest intervals the same and be able to come out of them and still attack the high end. 

Ski 10 cals @ 1300+ cal/hr

Ski 20 cals @ 1000+ cal/hr

rest 2 min

Bike erg 12 cals @ 1600+ cal/hr

Bike erg 24 cals @ 1200+ cal/hr

rest 2 min

Row 14 cals @ 1800+ cal/hr

Row 28 cals @ 1300+ cal/hr

rest 2 min x 4 sets

Most high numbers were attainable or close to attainable. Ski was in mid to upper 1200’s, and lows were 900’s. Bike high effort was on low interval was in the 1100’s with frequent dips into the 12’s. Row was “easy” to hit 1800but was struggling to stay in 1100’s on longer cal interval.