Tuesday, December 8th, 2009
Oh man, it is snowing here in Omaha and the midwest. We are getting smashed with this weather at the moment. Sources say anywhere from 8 to 11 inches of snow. That’s crazy right? I mean, we aren’t the northeast but we do get our fair share of snow but this hit us all of a sudden. Speaking of the northeast, my blog, specifically my last post, was linked on CrossFit NYC: The Black Box’s website. Because of that link, I have had quite a bit of visitors over the last two days. I don’t get a lot of people to this website but I do have my followers and I pick up a few here and there but it got a little crazy, relatively speaking of course. Thanks to Allison Bojarski for the love.
I also got linked for that post on CrossFit Austin’s website as well so thanks to Wes Kimball. Good stuff.
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In other news, the other day I was maxing out on Snatch trying for a new PR. I thought it would be a good day and proceeded to warm-up. I have a rather weird approach to snatching that I don’t use for cleaning. I get into position by starting on one knee, my right one. I place both hands on the bar with my left foot in place and the right foot behind me. I lift the right knee and begin the attempt as if I am going to take off in a sprint. I kind of rev up and then quickly place the right foot in place and pull the bar off the floor. It’s kind of weird but it works for me. I can make contact with the bar much cleaner and get a powerful second pull. It also helps get my mind wrapped around speed and power. I focus on a violent extension against the ground in so much as that I have a pretty big lean back at extension when I get into maximal weights. Anyways, it turned out to be not as good a day as I had hoped.
I missed once around 185 or so and decided to skip it (my current pr at the time was 201) and move to 198. I got it and then went for 206. I probably ended up doing about 10 or 12 attempts at this weight before calling it a day. I was close once and the rest were not as close. I was getting it high enough but just couldn’t catch it. The next day I attempted a new 1RM clean and did achieve one by 5 pounds at 277. This is clean only. My clean & jerk pr is 252, I believe. I want more though. My current goals are a 225 snatch and a 300 clean & jerk.
I got a little closer to those goals today. A couple of days ago I worked on some snatch and clean & jerks from blocks which placed the bar really high. This was to focus my attention even more so to getting extension but also so that I could practice pulling myself underneath the bar. Sometimes I tend to get the bar higher than needed which affects my ability to place the bar right where I need it. It even causes me to attempt to catch it higher in the squat which feels awkward. Pulling from blocks helped me a lot. Today I took a workout from Catalyst Athletics which had me doing a heavy single in both lifts and then taking a percentage of those heavy singles for 5 sets of 1 with one minute rest between. I went into the workout planning on hitting only about 90 percent or so for the heavy single but all of a sudden shit was going up easy. I decided to see what I could do. 176, check. 186, check. 198, check. 208, CHECK! I tried once at 218 and was about a cinch from locking it out. I got 225. It’s within reach. I will get it soon. I did my 5 sets of 1 at 75% and moved on to clean and jerk.
I started to move up in weight, maintaining focus on the jerk as that is my weakness. Not a weakness in its own right but when preempted by a clean. I have been watching video of the clean and jerk and breaking down how different athletes jerk. I have been toying around with my technique as of late and today it paid off. I was able to PR by 10 pounds at 262. I felt I could have gotten to 270+ but didn’t want to push my luck. I finished clean & jerking at 75% and finished off my workout with some heavy front squats.
Now for tomorrow, it’s all about the MET-CON………………
Tuesday’s WOD (091208)
Snatch – Heavy Single (208, new pr)
75% x 1 x 5 rest 1 min b/w sets
Clean & Jerk – Heavy Single (262, new pr)
75% x 1 x 5 rest 1 min b/w sets
Front Squat – Heavy Single (301)
80% x 2 x 2
Monday’s WOD (091207)
Rest Day
Sunday’s WOD (091206)
3 rounds for time of:
5 Floor to Overhead Anyhow (185 pounds)
21 Handstand Pushups
Time: 15:18 (wasn’t really going hard. Sometimes I time a workout but I don’t really time a workout. Know what I mean? I workout just to workout)
Saturday’s WOD (091205)
Lumberjack Memorial Workout
For time of:
20 Dead-lifts @ 275
400 meter run
20 Kettle Bell Swings @ 2 pood
400 meter run
20 Overhead Squats @ 115
400 meter run
20 Burpees
400 meter run
20 CTB Pull-ups
400 meter run
20 Box Jumps, 24 inch box
400 meter run
20 DB Squat Cleans @ 45 db’s
Time: 22:07 (didn’t break up anything but the pull-ups once and the db squat cleans twice)
