A challenging snatch session

Thursday February 26, 2009

I caught a nasty head cold earlier in the week but recovered to 85% by Thursday evening. I must have drank two gallons of water and tea during the day and this really helped flush out the toxins. I also ate a huge quantity of healthy food.

Evening Olympic Lifting Session:

Z-Health: Neural Warm-up Level 2 (Dynamic Joint Mobility Drills)

Snatch (kg):
20 x 1 x 5 High-Hang Snatch
20 x 4 x 5 OH Squat
20 x 3 x 5 Snatch Balance
20 x 1 x 4 Low-Hang Snatch
35 x 2 x 4 High-Hang + Low-Hang + 2xSnatch
30 x 1 x 3 Snatch Balance
35 x 1 x 3 Snatch Balance
40 x 2 x 4 High-Hang + Low-Hang + 2xSnatch
45 x 2 x 4 High-Hang + Low-Hang + 2xSnatch
50 x 3 x 4 High-Hang + Low-Hang + 2xSnatch (75% 1RM) 4 misses
50 x 1 x 3 Snatch

Squat Combo (lbs)
135 x 1 x 6 3xFront-squat + 3xBack-squat
155 x 1 x 6 3xFront-squat + 3xBack-squat
175 x 6 x 6 3xFront-squat + 3xBack-squat (80%1RM)

It looks like I'm going to have to back off a few sessions to allow my very sore left thumb to heal. Its a combination of jammed and sprained and now it hurts with the slightest resistance. Its been getting progressively worse over the past two weeks .. I was hoping it was just a minor tweak but now it requires attention. Fortunately I can still do a lot of assistance work while it heals.

There were two themes during my squat snatch session last night that the coaches hammered home to me:

• Keep the bar under your chest for as long as possible during the triple extension
• Drop under the bar as fast as possible .. practice with an air-bar or broomstick.
  

I missed four of the heavier snatches as I really focused on jumping under the bar as fast as possible. Two of the four misses weren't close the other two were nice fast drop-unders but a loss of balance. This was the 1st time with 50kg I tried this and I'm very encouraged even with the misses.

The front and back squat combo was very intense especially after fairly high volume snatches. The called for combo lift consisted of front squatting for three reps, quickly re-racking and then three reps of back squat with 80% of 1RM Front squat. With my recent increase to 100kg front squat this meant 80kg or close enough with 175lbs. It was very, very tough.

The coach also wanted us to do 4 x 5 @ 70% of clean grip push presses but I was too wasted and my left thumb was in no mood to hold a barbell.

Total Volume: 14160 lbs
=============================================================
===================================================================

Diet and Nutrition:

Goal: 182 lbs by April 2009

Friday February 27, 2009

Current: 182 1/4 lbs

I'm up 3/4 lb but considering how much extra I drank and ate to fight off a head cold, I was surprised it wasn't a lot more. Glad to chalk up another day of 100% Precision Nutrition compliance.