Progress with squat cleans

Tuesday June 2, 2009

With my right shoulder still bothering me I trained in basement dungeon earlier today and avoided all OH movements.

Early afternoon basement Olympic assistance lift session:

Z-Health Neural Warmup Level II Dynamic Joint Mobility

Snatch-grip deadlifts (kg):
40 x 1 x 3
50 x 1 x 2
60 x 1 x 2
70 x 1 x 2
80 x 1 x 2

Cleans (kg):
50 x 1 x 3
55 x 1 x 3
60 x 1 x 3
65 x 1 x 3
70 x 1 x 3
75 x 1 x 3
80 x 1 x 2
85 x 1 x 2 1 miss
72 x 1 x 1
77 x 1 x 1
87 x 1 x 1
90 x 1 x 1 miss
90 x 5 x 1
92 x 1 x 1
70 x 1 x 3

Front squats (kg):
70 x 1 x 3
80 x 1 x 3
90 x 5 x 3

I have been watching some dart-fish videos of the men's national championship last year and have been inspired by how these elite lifters stay way over the bar with there snatches as they pull from the floor. Hence my focus on the snatch-grip deadlifts.

For the cleans, the five singles with 90kg were the most solid I've done with that weight. Interestingly, after working up to single with 85kg which resulted with splayed legs, I dropped back down 72 and worked back up to 90kg. I missed my first 90kg attempt as I didn't get under the bar quite fast enough even though the height of my 2nd pull was more than adequate. Following that, I really focused on a slow pull off the floor and staying as vertical as possible, then extending and dropping under the bar as fast as possible and it worked. I probably did not pull the bar to the height of the 1st attempt but it wasn't necessary as I had enought time to still get under the bar. I then repeated this for four more singles before adding two addtional kilos and nailing it as well. I had never done this many cleans with this weight so ended conservatively with a crisp set of triples with 70kg focusing on recovering from the deep squat as quickly as possible.

I was very pleased that I had enough left for five sets of triple front squats with 90kg. This weight is getting more and more comfortable thus increasing the chances of a c&j with it.