Still working through a shoulder issue

It turns out that all the high hang power snatch work I did back on Sunday, June 14th was too much too soon .. all the OH work was too much and the following Monday morning my shoulder was extremely sore; I knew I had to back off. Since then, I have only been doing cleans, pulls and front squats. This still makes for a very challenging session but one that does not let me train the complete lifts. I tested my shoulder last night with a single bar only snatch and it was still too painful to consider any more OH work. I did speak with one of the very seasoned National Level lifters at the club with a history of shoulder issues and he advised me to proceed with caution .. some shoulder injuries can take months to recover from.


I've had three sessions since eliminating OH work which are summarized below.

Saturday June 20, 2009

Z-Health Neural Warmup Level II Dynamic Joint Mobility

Cleans (kg):
20 x 2 x 5 High-hand Power Clean (HHPC)
40 x 2 x 5 HHPC
50 x 1 x 5 HHPC
60 x 1 x 4 PC
70 x 4 x 3 PC

With almost a complete week off, this was all I could handle.

Sunday June 21, 2009

Z-Health Neural Warmup Level II Dynamic Joint Mobility

Cleans (kg):
20 x 3 x 5 HHPC
50 x 1 x 6 HHPC + HHC
55 x 1 x 3 HHC
60 x 1 x 3 HHC
70 x 1 x 3 2xPC + C
75 x 1 x 3 C + 2xPC
80 x 1 x 3 PC
85 x 1 x 3 PC
90 x 2 x 1 both no lifts

Front Squat (kg)
70 x 1 x 5
75 x 1 x 3
80 x 6 x 3

I was unable to do 90kg today whereas 10 days ago I was doing multiple sets of doubles with it. This is the nature of down time .. not to worry, I will be back doing it again.

Tuesday June 23, 2009

Z-Health Neural Warmup Level II Dynamic Joint Mobility

Snatch pulls (kg)
20 x 4 x 5
50 x 1 x 4
50 x 1 x 6
50 x 1 x 4
60 x 2 x 3
70 x 2 x 3
80 x 2 x 3
70 x 1 x 3
90 x 1 x 3 1st pull only

Power Cleans (kg)
50 x 1 x 5
50 x 2 x 5
60 x 4 x 3
70 x 1 x 3

Front Squats (kg)
70 x 1 x 3
80 x 1 x 3
85 x 5 x 3

The snatch pulls went surprisingly well. Pulls up to 70kg were sternum level. The 80kg were a bit lower but still held form. With 90kg I only did the first pull, focusing on letting arm just hang.

Coach Matt Delaney worked with my on a new stance with my power cleans that indeed gave me a much more powerful pull but did throw off other parts of the lift. Here is what he had me do:

• Start with my feet much closer together almost frog like.
• Start with my hips much lower.
• Start with the bar out a further out from my shins.
• Keep my chest over the bar until I was ready to explode through pushing through my heels.

Even with all the difficulty, I really liked this approach. I never went higher than 70 kgs but am willing to drop even lower to hone this new stance and integrate into the complete lift.

My front squats with 85kg were very challenging and I had to really focus on not bringing my knees inward when recovering. Its hard to believe that only a week ago I did six sets of triples with 90kg. Again, time off to heal shows up in a temporary loss of some strength.