Saturday, May 16, 2009 by Daniel

Strength Cycle Week 9, part 2 and Oly Seminar

Deadlift x 5: 225 - 255 - 295 (pr)
Deadlift x 21: 230 (unbroken)
Press x 5: 75 - 85 - 102 (pr)
Press x 21: 67 (unbroken)

Wow, a good day! Especially considering how fucking wrecked I'm feeling these days. We got a good long sleep last night, and I woke up stiff but fairly energetic. Took my first contrast shower, which may be a bunch of hoo-hah, but is harmless and seemed to to a fairly good job of alleviating the soreness. By the time we got to Ironworks, I was feeling pretty close to 100%.

This did not last. While I did make good weights on my lifts, it came at a pretty steep cost, pretty quickly. My arms, particularly my upper biceps and deltoids, started acting up again, and my overall energy plummeted. The lifts went well, though Rebecca yelled at me throughout my heavy set of deads for not using my legs enough (ie, too much back). I was pleasantly surprised to get the 21 consecutive at 67...though that just means I have to do 70 next time!

After the strength routine came a three-hour Oly lifting seminar with Jim Schmitz. He spent about half the time on the snatch, and the rest on the clean and jerk - typically going around the circle and having each person do whatever the drill was. To be honest, I was rather disappointed with this. Perhaps it was my mood, which was somewhere between grumpy and downright cranky, or my general sense of exhaustion. There were some good takeaways, though:
  • He likes to do developing sets of three, and they do work well: so a power snatch and two squat snatches, or a power snatch -> hang squat snatch -> squat snatch. By the time you get to the third rep, form is generally improved.
  • I like the exercise of going tno the bottom of a OHS or Front Squat and taking some time to move your head all around down there in order to establish a comfort zone at the bottom of the lift.
  • Also good is the slow deadlift -> shrug drill, with a weight heavier than you can clean
  • For coaching, holding a dowel in front of you to help track the lifter's bar path is a "why didn't I think of that?" idea.

No comments:

Post a Comment