Ben Plotnicki

Mcgill big 3

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Open workout 20.3

25ft handstand walk – couple of things here, Wednesday is the hardest day for me to get deep deep high quality sleep. It is the only day that my alarm Has to wake me up, so all other days are good, just this day is the toughest one. I do normally try to take a nap after I coach the early am classes, I normally do fall asleep for a little bit but it never feels like a deep sleep. Back to the workout, When I started I thought, ok here’s how I’m going to break the deadlifts up, then when I got into it I thought fuck it, see what happens, the only break I made was in the set of 15, and when I picked up the barbell for the set of 9 I thought well that might have been a mistake but I stayed the course. Hspu, same thing, only broke the 15’s, did rest on my head for a couple of quick breaks, just wanted to see what happens. I made a mistake by not setting up a second barbell and had to change the weights myself so this cost me quite a bit of time. 315 was really freaking heavy and a grind but that 25ft handstand walk felt really good. Some highs and lows today, but with the changing my own weights I’m pretty pleased with the effort solely based on just trying to figure things out in the moment and going for it.

Warmup well ahead of time, both for tension required for lifts and movements under demand in other stations

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EMOM x 30

Min 1 – Power clean x 1/Hang Squat clean x 1 (have a goal lift in mind and try to have that on bar for last 2 rounds)

Min 2 – 45 sec row @ 1200-1300 cal/hr

Min 3 – 8 dbl DB thrusters @ 50/hand + 20 DU’s

Min 4 – 45 sec row @ 1200-1300 cal/hr

Min 5 – 8 dbl DB box step overs @ 50/hand + 20 DU’s

Min 6 – 45 sec row @ 1200-1300 cal/hr

245 for clean on the last 2 rounds – row paces were sustainable rounds 1-4, hitting round 4 & 5, rows were hardest after the step overs, was fine, even though it was a fight after the complex and the thrusters. my original plan was 250, but after feeling the load on the second barbell just slightly adjusted my numbers, but what was exciting is that I felt my power clean got better as the rounds went on.

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Back squats – 3 reps every 2 min x 6, you decide loading but try to get under something heavy for last 2 sets

275 and 295 for the last 2 sets

For time

500-400-300-200-100m Ski

30-25-20-15-10 Wallballs

20-16-12-8-4 1-arm alternating DB snatches @ 50lbs

(push transitions, push unbroken sets, preserve a ski pace)

12:53 – wasn’t really sure how to think about preserving a ski pace, except for the first ski, I wanted to move fast but was hard to put the hammer down when I first got on but got in cranked up a little quicker than I thought I would on the 400, the 300 down to 100 was just keep moving trying to stay close to a 2:00/pace – all ub elsewhere technically, on one round of the db snatch I dropped the db changing hands but didn’t stay on the ground but a second, only had one poor transition and that was after first wall ball when the ball hit the ground and started to roll away and I took a second to move it back.

Throwdown – TTB/BXJO/STO/HPC

8+9 – My plan was to break TTB from the beginning with 5/4 – kind of wish I had done a few rounds UB, but did keep rest breaks pretty short. I knew the box jump over was going to be my limiter and this is the main reason in hindsight I should’ve done a few rounds TTB UB because I knew I would lose some time on box jump. I tried to do a combo of at least half bounding and hald step down, I mixed it up but always tried to start the first few reps with bounding. I did on occasion lose my rhythm on a few sets but it never threw me off too much. Towards the end I wanted to stop but I tried to keep consistent movement. Push Press on all just because I knew cycle time would be faster and then went right into the hang power clean normally for 8 reps and did 6 on a few. started getting dizzy from hang power towards the end and started to feel grip ever so slightly. Overall pretty happy with my ability to get after this one, low hanging fruit here would be UB TTB for as many rounds as possible, was surprised since I normally feel my abs not happy with me when I get around 60-70 reps in a workout.

Last night time got away from me and I didn’t even start to wind down until past normal time, so it laid to a lot less sleep than normal on tuesday night. That led to no sense of urgency to put the hammer down and really grind and get after it today. 

A1. DB Power Clean; 30 reps for time x 1 set; rest 1min

A2. TTB; 50 for time x 1 set

Db power clean in 1:30, 3 sets, just wasn’t feeling it here., TTB went for 30 as on the updated DSGN board it had for 30. Had a been closer to a 7 or 8 out of 10 I would’ve gone for the 50 you had written. Sets were 16/7/7 for 1:19

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For Time:

100′ DB FRWL

20 Bar Muscle Ups

2:38 for 15 bmu + 5 more for accumulation – just felt slow on the walking lunge, also didn’t warm it up much at all, muscle up was 7 and 8 and they actually felt really good and circumstantially would’ve rested longer and used being tired as an excuse but just said hey jump up there and lets see if you can finish. 

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For time

21-15-9:

KBS @ 70lbs

HSPUs (any style)

into:

100′ HSW for Time

8:04 – was super super conservative on the couplet, I feel like I did this a long time ago and remember even then it blowing up my traps so was more afraid what that was going to do for the handstand walk and wanted to have high quality on the walk. I might have sacrificed some time for the conservative approach, so at least the handstand walk went well with a breakdown of  35/15/45/5 ft

For time

30-20-10

Row cals

Empty bar OHS

into

30-20-10

Bike cals

Burpees to 6in touch

15:17 (got off the last overhead squat around 5:2? – was slow to get the bike moving. I will say I did push the front end a little harder, didn’t approach it like it was 2 couplets, just wanted to attack the rower and the ohs. First 30 cals done around 1:15ish, should’ve got my first rep in my ohs done quicker but instead got the bar overhead and then settled my feet. The set of 20 cals was around 1100-1200 peaking higher than that at a few stretches, told myself I was not allowed to take longer than a minute, I need to get in the habit of pulling through the cals because that cost me keeping that under 1 min. On the bike each time, the first ¼ of the bike was just getting my sea legs under me. Somewhere in the set of 30 burpee I said you aren’t going to fail a burpee so just get a little more uncomfortable, the main thing slowing me down was just not dropping to the ground faster.

Assault bike 10 min @progressive pace

done

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Assault bike 20 min time trial

rest 12 min

Assault bike 15 min time trial

rest 8 min

Assault bike 10 min time trial

rest 4 min

Assault bike 5 min time trial

(try to get the best score you can on each individual piece, and try to ensure you are getting a faster avg pace across each piece)

240.6 – 192.1 – 143.3 – 79.8 – i’d say the 15 min and 10 minutes were the hardest. 20 minutes was easiest but that’s mostly not knowing exactly what pace to go with. 15 minutes was hard because I knew I needed to go at a harder pace than the 20 minutes but 15 minutes is still a long time to keep pushing at that pace. 10 minutes effort wise was the hardest, I knew I wanted to stay in the 300’s and with about 4 minutes to go it was sheer will to stay there. Someone asked me a question so I didn’t get on bike after exactly 4 min of rest so that might have helped a little with the effort I was able to hold. My goal was to hold 400+ watts as long as I could, i noticed at about 1:07 that it was going to be hard to keep it there but I fought for another 45seconds or so and then wanted to stay in the mid 300’s the rest of the way.

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cool down/stretching 15-20 min

done

Throwdown (DP/BJO/Clean)

6:20 & 285 – the round of 9 is the only one I feel my speed per rep slowed down on the burpee box jump over, my goal was quick transitions, and keep moving, even if I slowed down on my burpee just keep moving with good footwork. All DP unbroken, just feel I’m a little slower in my speed per rep, I did play with different ways to get to the ground as quickly as possible, the ones that felt the fastest I had the least control of the db and most of the time was ok was too much of a risk though if I lost the db. With the clean I opened at 245, hit 265, missed 285 on my first attempt, it was heavy but I let it pull me forward slightly and I didn’t trust my hang position, the position I had used in my warmup and the other reps, I rushed the hang position and didn’t trust what got me there but on the second attempt I trusted it and had to grind in the bottom for a bounce or 2 and then stood it up.

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Spend some good time decompressing back before leaving

Wall assisted glute bridge

Frog pumps

Empty PVC OHS at slow tempo

Pelvic tilts from quadruped, include some rockbacks

done

EMOM x 30

Min 1 – AB 15 cals

Min 2 – 6 bar facing burpees + 12 air squats

Min 3 – 3 KB high windmills/side

So I kind of went ham on this today. Had a friend who wanted to train with me today. There is no way in the world I could keep up with him one on one on the bike so it was a good match. In the back of my mind I was thinking how could I maximize energy and efficiency on the bike and I on round 1 it was about 45 seconds, after that all bike cals were done around 30 seconds. Tried to keep 1000+ for 8-12 seconds and then tried to keep 700 until 12 cals and throttle down in the 300’s  to finish. And then he was trying to beat me on burpee and I was not going to let that shit happen. Super fun day to just get out of my comfort zone. With going so hard I sat down on the rower and rowed 500m and it was hard as hell to keep it below 2:10 so I decided to rest a few hours and come back and finish row later. 

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Row 3k @ 2min/500m pace

Much better with the rest. 

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5 min box breathing @ 3 sec in, 6 sec out tempo

This was perfect. Did 3363 and wanted to get 20 break cycles in and probably extended some of my holds and went for 6 minutes

A. Hang Squat Clean and Jerk; 1.1.1 x 4 sets; rest 15-20 sec; rest 2min

225-230-235-245 – this was really good today, after feeling like I was getting buried under the load on saturday this was a good way to focus on getting back on the bar, you know you are going to get some rest so get those breaths in bt cluster reps and focus on speed under and good control and good hip drive for the jerk.

B1. Deadlift; 20 Sec AMRAP @ 315lbs x 3 sets; rest 20 seconds

7-6-6 – these didn’t feel terrible today, I’m just slow

B2. K HSPUs; 20 Sec AMRAP x 3 sets; rest 20 seconds

16-16-13

B3. HSW: 75′ AFAP x 3 sets; rest as needed

2:09-1:55-2:16 this combo kind of made me dizzy today and was pretty close to calling it for the day after the last set of hs walk. But powered on and just told myself all you have to do is just move for quality and figure it out as you go. 

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50′ FRWL

10 DB Power Cleans

1min AMRAP Bar Muscle Ups

50′ FRWL

10 DB Power Cleans

1min AMRAP TTB

rest 5min

x2 TOTAL SETS

8&9 and bmu and 19&22 on TTB – I was so dizzy and not feeling good at all and the db power clean in the first round kind of sent me to a feeling like poop state, so I grinded through the first set of muscle ups. On both bmu and ttb my goal was to get my 1 minute clock starting as fast as possible with a quick transition and just chip away. Felt a little better on second round as I was getting closer to normal.