Ben Plotnicki

tttTD (7 min AMRAP)

6+1 – i think I sold myself a little short on this one. I knew a minute a round would be a bit aggressive for me, so I decided to go a round every 70 seconds. I knew the 9 box jumps would probably give me the biggest heart rate response so my goal was to go steady state on those. Even with steady state I still felt my heart rate elevate, but at the pace I took I feel my transition time was pretty quick to the rings. Could have been a little quicker from ring to the bar, I do remember a round or 2 putting my hand on the bar and taking a breath and then going as opposed to getting that breath with the barbell locked out overhead. My plan being 1 round every 70 is of course easy in the beginning, and I remember looking at the clock at 4:40 and I was finishing my box jumps and I thought well now I’m off pace, but I did keep my composure with positive talk and sped up my next round of box jumps. Muscle ups felt pretty good, would love to try this one again or something similar with box jumps and just trust the fact that I will be ok with it and get out of my comfort zone. 

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Sandbag bear hug hold – 1:30 on, 3 min rest x 4

Cut this short because I wanted to hit the road to go see my dad

A – Mcgill big 3

done

B1 – Clean pull x 1 + Squat clean x 1 + Hang Squat clean x 1 x 2 ‘reps’ of this complex, hang on to bar during complex but drop between ‘reps’ and reset, rest 30 sec after second rep

185 added 10lbs every set ending up at 225. The set at 205 was rough, I didn’t have the best control and let the bar pull me forward a little on the transition from the clean pull to the squat clean. These were a little more heart rate response relative than I expected, the 225 was not as much and I’m sure my overall cycle time wasn’t as fast. I also had better position because I was much more cognizant of the positions and control

B2 – KB sumo hold squat jumps x 1.1.1.1 for height, rest 2-3 sec bt reps, 2 min after all 4 reps x 5 sets

I don’t have much hops any more I feel like. 70 lb kb

C – Paused front squat doubles – 8 sec pause at just below parallel, not complete rock bottom, keep tension, new set E2MOM x 5

175 – um, yuck

+

get a thorough posterior chain/low back warmup for this

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D1 – 40 deadlifts @ 185lbs, rest 3 min 

1:19 – 31/9 – I felt my lats start to fatigue most getting into the 20’s, then I started thinking I don’t think you can make it all the way, but I almost didn’t anticipate being able to do that from jump. 

D2 – 20 deadlifts @ 255lbs

40 – UB – went with my opposite mixed grip to start because I didn’t anticipate being able to go unbroken, so I thought if I break, I can switch back to what my normal comfortable mixed grip is and that will help speed up my cycle rate, so kind of surprised myself and was able to flat out grind through.

E – Edge of bench reverse leg lifts with glute focus x 10-12, rest 2 min x 3 (slight bend in knees)

Did not feel good at this at all

F – Wall assisted glute bridge hold with active PPT x 90 sec, rest 3 min x 2

I forgot how not fun this is and how long it makes 90sec feel

10 rounds, not for time, keep steady effort

6 toes to rings

6 kipping HSPU

24 DU’s

into

10 rounds, not for time, keep steady effort

6 burpees to 6in touch

6 wallballs

24 DU’s

into

3 rounds, not for time, keep steady effort

50ft HSW

5 squat snatches @ 165-185lbs

This is one of those days that I should have just called it, today was the first time back coaching the am shift, so that was good to be back in the environment of fitness. But of course there is some sacrifice of sleep. I did get a short nap in before training though so that is a positive. While warming up everything just hurt and ached, not sure if it was the rain or the sleep. In my barbell warm up I dropped the bar on my foot, not an empty bar, the loaded bar and the plate hit my foot. Luckily it was only 95, I wished I was recording my warm up because I still don’t know how it happened, been trying to replay it. Don’t know if it dropped directly from overhead or if it came off a bounce. I just don’t know smh……then in the first round, the very first round my main go to jump rope broke. After that I kind of settled in and just got in a groove of work. I didn’t push the handstand walk snatch portion, just wanted some quality work in. I did miss a snatch, but overall with the adversity, I enjoyed this day a lot. Even though it wasn’t for time, i tried to keep a relative intensity pace for the triplets. And worked on some burpee cadence.

Easy bike/jog/row warmup, spend 10-12 min getting some blood moving

+

Run 200m @ 88-90% effort, new set every 2 min x 5 (high effort but repeatable)

39-41 across – in the rain!!!!!!

+ (rest as needed)

Row 250m @ 88-90%, new set every 2 min x 5 (same, hard but repeatable)

51.1-51.0-50.9-50.9-51.3

+ (rest as needed)

AB 15 cals @ 88-90% effort, new set every 2 min x 5 (same, not full sprint but hit these around 600-800 watts)

34-36-34-34-35

I actually thoroughly enjoyed this day. The running even in the rain felt good, I actually recently had been going over pose running drill videos and this helped in warm up. Rowing felt like a lot of work and bike felt good, wasn’t able to hold (or didn’t want to work that hard) above 700 very long, but was in upper 6’s without a problem. After the work was done I definitely felt like I was working hard but in hindsight there might have been a bit more kick but not sure today if everything would have stayed as sustainable as it was

AB 1.5 miles

20 pullups

40 pushups

60 squats

AB .75 miles

rest walk 6-8 min x 3 sets, add vest if you want

10:04 – 11:03 – 10:42 – did with a vest, my first time using my new vest and I loved it! Through me off a little bit on the first round trying to find the balance, coordination and center of gravity on every rep. Push ups man, push us…..slowed me down the most in the second round. I honestly didn’t push the bike too hard, tried to stay above 300 watts on the first part, and then the back end a little bit more on the first, 2nd and 3rd just tried to get my sea legs under me and then stay above 330. Air squats were more mental than overall physical at that point.

tttTD (HSW/DB/Row)

14:32 – i know this is past the time cap, but lets dive into my struggles. Today was not a good handstand walk day at all. I started the workout and at the 8 min mark I had just completed 150ft and knew there was no way to finish. I was getting extremely frustrated, pissed off, kicking things, just down right pissed so I stopped. Sat and pouted for about 5 min, sat and reflected and breathed deeply for another 10 minutes and decided I was going to restart. This time I just decided I was going to set up markers at 12 ½ feet. There was a certain point I knew I wasn’t going to finish but I didn’t care I was going to finish. I did have to take a 15-20sec break to reset the clock from the time cap. The set up and the problems it creates. I did this in the garage, not sure if some of the slope leading into the driveway, or the cramped quarters in the garage mentally effected me, but what I do know is, if I had to do a comp with a ramp I would fail. There could be some other physical issues that effected me but those would be more excuses than anything, so hs walk just sucked today. I will mess around when I go to the gym this week and see if they are any better in that environment, but it was that reflection that in the old days when we had to do comps in parks, if I didn’t get the right lane I might have been in trouble, and I should be able to have the skill anywhere. 

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Bear hug hold – accumulate 5 min @ 150lbs, try to do this as 5x60sec this week

Because it was such a shitty day from the workout I was mentally determined to do 1:15 each set, I did rock back once each set to by myself some leverage mentally and physically, I also rested 2:45 bt sets but knocking this out in 4 sets was my way of at least trying to finish the day on a good note.

AB 20 miles @ easy effort, off every 4 miles to do

3 skin the cats on rings

6 alternating single leg deck squats

12 alternating shoulder taps from wall supported HS

So I completely underestimated how long this would take. My bike at home (Xebex bike) – I can not figure what the heck the distance it converts is, I have always assumed it was meters but it seems like they add up too big too quick (go figure with Xebex) so I didn’t have the accurate guestimation, I digress……so around the 30-40min mark I started getting really dizzy from the movements so I would cut out one per round and just rotated through 2 at a time. That helped a little and then I took a short break just for everything to ease up a little. I also pulled the bike out in the sun, so not sure if the heat had an effect or what but anyways. It felt great in the beginning, I feel when I used to do skin the cats all the time my shoulder health was great. Deck squats felt pretty good on the hip/adductor and was good to feel that out. I was a little apprehensive at first but was very positive feeling after.

Power clean/Push jerk x 6 unbroken reps, rest 3 min x 2

165 – just felt a little off today, mostly on the eccentric control

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Power clean/push jerk x 3 unbroken reps, rest 3 min x 2

205, same here, drive and load felt a little better but wasn’t super confident in my ability to control the eccentrics today. 

+

24 min AMRAP from DSGN

6 S2O 115/85#

4 bar facing burpees

3 hang power snatch 115#

24 double unders

13 + 12 – I should have put a little more strategy thought into this one, but had a rough idea of what I wanted to do. For the first 4 rounds I started a new round every 90sec, and then I pushed it to 1:45 and then I fell into 1 round every 2 minutes. At that point I tried to re-plan or calculate how I could treat it as 2 different workouts. My limiter was without a doubt the hang power snatch. So the 2 different workouts I wished i had done, was treat the double under/s2o/bfb like a triplet and then get a solid break for the snatch. Instead I treated it as 2 different couplets when I got really tired. My main goal was to keep my burpee pace around 3sec/rep and I did a great job at that until I hit the double digits of rounds. It was also somewhere around there that I felt like I really had to poop. I thought about going before I started but I thought that was just a persoanl stalling tactic to delay starting this fun shin dig of a workout. 

+

3 times through, not for time

Empty bar kang squats x 6

Empty bar back rack alternating lateral lunges x 4/direction

Empty bar suitcase deadlifts x 6 + Empty bar side leans x 6 (do all on one side, then switch)

Lunges were a little achy, but all else was pretty good.

Snatch ladder for time

10 reps @ 135lbs

5 reps @ 165lbs

2 reps @ 195lbs

rest walk 5 min x 2 attempts

3:41 – 3:38 – on the first set – 10 snatch, went 4 tng, 3 tng, 3 singles, all singles at 165 and 1 miss @ 195. The miss was tecnical(i think), I had those stupid terrible clips that are hard to change so if it matters for the future I will get some new clips for the house that are quick and easy to change. On the second set all singles all the way, and a little more focused at 195 and no misses. Now do i think the singles helped on set number 2, its debatable, or do I think I was more warmed up, possibly or did i have my shit together a little more with the 195. I definitely moved slower with the singles, but I do feel I finished the 165 a bit quicker off of instinct but not real sure because I forgot to write down all the splits. 

+

EMOM x 16

Min 1 – 16 1-arm alternating DB snatches @ 50lbs

Min 2 – 8 dbl DB hang squat cleans @ 50/hand

Min 3 – 12 chest to bar pullups

Min 4 – Rest

Really really good feel for these today, much better than last week and felt more crisp and smooth on everything.

+ (rest as needed between EMOM’s)

EMOM x 16

Min 1 – 16 1-arm DB hang clean and jerks (8/side then switch)

Min 2 – 10 dbl DB front rack squats @ 50/hand

Min 3 – 12 chest to bar pullups

Min 4 – Rest

Played with a couple of positional things with the clean and jerk that made the left side feel quicker than it did last week. And as you saw in the video, i’m so pleased and happy with the progress of c2b, i mean, thats a good chunk of volume today with some interference of grip and shoudlers. Oh and I guess last week I was supposed to have a minute rest, lol.

EMOM for 5-7 min

6 burpees + 3 bar MU

7 sets – muscle ups felt a little better this week but still not where they need to be with compression and positions

+

EMOM for 5-7 min

6 dbl DB devil press @ 50/hand

7 sets – i could feel a little tricep fatigue on sets 4/5ish and think speed/rep started to slow down around set 6

+

EMOM for 5-7 min

10 dbl DB box step over @ 50/hand

5 sets today, just felt my quality slip a little towards that 5th set….also I’m still only stepping with my right foot, not sure if it’s purely a rhythm thing or just trusting the right leg more because of that left leg adductor inflammation. 

+

4 rounds not for time (same)

12-15 banded spanish squats with DB goblet hold

12-15 banded hamstring curls from prone

12-15/side single leg calf raises with extended ROM

4-5/side eccentric only single leg hamstring curl from supine, foot on slider/towel

done