Max PR x 2

Saturday is the Max Party @ Girya. Right now it's a party of 4, me, Mark, Meg, and Nick. Meg and I continue to have PR's with the 16kg, (after our crash and burn a couple of weeks ago, lol), here's yesterdays breakdown:

Tracy
5/5 x 4
6/6 x 6
7/7 x 10 (20 sets, 126 snatches up to this point)
8/8 x 42
7/7 x 8

70 sets total
518 16kg snatches in 35 minutes
last week total # of snatches was 440, that'a 78 more snatches this week!

Meg
5/5 x 6
6/6 x 6
7/7 x 8 (20 sets 122 snatches, total up to this point)
8/8 x 38.....tore open callus on left hand
8 sn R, 10 sw L x 12 (6 each)

70 sets total (44 sets of 8)
474 snatches, 60 swings
last week the total # of snatches was 436, that's 38 more total snatches this week.

Not only did Meg and I have PR's with sets of 8, we had total snatch # PR's, so I guess we had PR's x 2!

Mark had a great Max day too, 20 sets of 7's and 30 sets of 8. Nick actually lasted a whole 60 sets, but scaled down his reps to 6's and 5's (I think he made it to about set 20 last week....just kidding....yikes!)

Anyway, I knew Meg and I had to up our Max workouts from 60 sets to 70 sets on our way to 80 sets of 8, so this week we added 10 additional Max sets. We'll stay @ 70 sets until we get our sets of 8 to 50-60, maybe 3 more weeks and then add on an additional 10 sets.

I would be lying if I pretended there wasn't some sort of competitive component to training with Meg. I thought I was competitive, but she has me beat! (pun intended....get it Meg? You win, you are more competitive, LOL...you know I'm having fun, right?) That doesn't mean I don't play along! I know she would have done all 50 of her remaining sets with 8's.....but just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

As Mark is quoted in Pavel's book "Power to the People Professional", "The next step off of a peak is always down. You can either step back, or fall off"

Once you've peaked you should voluntarily reduce intensity and volume, instead of being greedy in thinking you can continue to set PR after PR after PR, without suffering some type of breakdown. I voluntarily reduced my sets of 8, after my designated 42 sets, back down to 7's. I could do my whole workout with 8's if I wanted to, but that's not the point, and it doesn't give me much to work for....why train at all, or do anything different at all?

Morale of the story.....have a training plan to progessively improve, volume and strength over time. There's no rush....again, as Mark always says about our yoga practice....."You still have to come back tomorrow!" Max isn't going anywhere, it'll still be there next week!

PS Having Meg as a client, now training partner, for the last, almost, year has made me a better athlete, as well as teacher and coach.....so thank you Meg!