Poorly fitting dentures?!

Until this photo was taken of me at the Conn Open I would have never guessed I looked so completely ridiculous just prior to making this 70kg snatch attempt. As a result, I will never ever make a wisecrack about anyone else's pre-liftoff setup ever again. I would like to change this but there are so many more important areas to work on .. eliminating gaping mouth grimaces will have to wait.

Tuesday Sep 15, 2009

Evening Olympic Lifting Session at Excel Fitness and Sports

Z-Health Neural Warmup Level II Dynamic Joint Mobility

Clean and Jerk (kg): [Goal 6 x 2 @ 90%1RM = 84kg]
40 x 1 x 2
50 x 1 x 2
60 x 1 x 2
70 x 1 x 2
80 x 1 x 2
85 x 2 x 2
90 x 1 x 1
95 x 1 x 1 PR
100 x 3 x 1 3xclean-NoLift

Front Squat (kg):
60 x 1 x 6
70 x 1 x 2
80 x 1 x 2
85 x 4 x 2
90 x 1 x 2
100 x 1 x 2
90 x 1 x 2

The last thing I expected this evening was c&j PR. The heavy back squats on Saturday had a delayed effect on my right knee and this morning it was still a little stiff and sore. My right shoulder was a little better than usual but still painful in some extended range of motion. At least I was a good boy and only did some light Bear and Tiger Frolic QiGong on Sunday and Monday to get as much rest in as possible. Since the Conn Open, I had been avoiding heavy jerks as they seemed to irritate my shoulder. Perhaps switching to power-jerks for a few sessions might have had some carry over or maybe the PR can be partially attribute to the those very heavy back squats on Saturday.

Yet another theory is my shoulder is usually fatigued after a heavy snatch session of which I have been doing at the start of every session prior to today. Instead when I saw that Coach Ben Fuller wanted six sets of double c&j with 90%, I let the snatches slide for a day and starting with doubles with 40kg and I added 10kg each set up to 80kg. I surprised myself when I followed that with two sets of doubles with 85kg (92%). Coach asked me to switch to heavier singles, first with 90kg and then the PR with 95kg. Happily, my shoulder never bothered me and even now its the best its been in several weeks. Part of this I attribute to all the extra Z-Health dynamic joint mobility and some band work I recently added as suggested by top lifter Yasha Kahn. doing.

One thing that helped me psychologically was on Saturday when I asked my training partner Jason Edmonds, who is an extremely strong jerker, if the weight felt heavy prior to jerking it. He replied

"Yeah it feels heavy but I just jerk it and it goes up somehow".

That's exactly what happened with 95kg .. I had a nice clean, it felt very heavy in the rack but somehow I just jerked it an up it went although the catch was wobbly but I was still able to save it after taking a few additional steps. Amusingly, I had really thought I had dropped into a deep full squat with the clean but coach said it was only to parallel and that I did the right thing by not riding it down to the bottom.

While I was on a roll, I tried three attempts with 100kg and missed all three. For the first two the pull was very high but I pulled too long and just stood there holding the bar. The 3rd time I jumped backwards in a poor attempt to get under it. I am not discouraged at all .. it really felt light off the floor .. I'm just trying to pull it too long. The same thing happened with 80, 85, 90 and 95 .. I know I'll nail it in the near future having been through this several times before with lighter weights.

Following the clean & jerks, coach had me go right to front squats to complete the workout. I was very pleased the doubles with 85kg felt very light and the double with 100kg felt the easiest it has ever been.

Needless to say I'm really excited at all the improvements lately and I think Coach Fuller deserves a lot of the credit for the program he has designed for us.