Another Testing Day...or two

Every so often I throw out a snatch test to my students....OK, for me too! It's fun to have to rise to the occasion of an all out challenge that you've never done before, or maybe didn't do your best the time before. I never schedule these "test days" because our training speaks for itself. Our regular workouts build a base that allows us to push it a little harder every once in a while, in fact I thing we thrive on it! But I would say that 3-4 times a year I spring it on them as they arrive for class. It's not that I know more than a few hours beforehand myself!

We do our regular training, going along making progress....and then there's a lull....hmmnn...

Hey, let's see how many snatches we can do with ___ for ___! This week it was 5 seperate timed sets here's the order,

5 min test set/4 min rest
4 min test set/ 3 min work
3 min test set/ 2 min rest
2 min test set/ 1 min work
1 min test set

25 minutes total

I didn't tell them what they could or couldn't do, just that they had to see how many reps they could complete in the allotted timed test sets. No one shared strategies and ironically all three of us had different ones!

Mine was to use the 14kg, in 15 rep increments. I've been training longer snatch sets without hand switches for a while now but not with 14kg. I was not going all out for reps. I was determined to snatch 15 at a time, and let me tell you, I thought about bailing on that a couple of times! Especially near the end in the first three sets when the rep count got to 12-13-14-15. I wrote the results on the whiteboard at Girya, but forgot to bring them home. They were something like this (I will correct them tomorrow...hey, I was right!))

14kg

135
96
76
49
30

total 356?

I love testing myself and having my students/training partners sucking wind alongside is tons of fun too!

So this morning after a crazy hard swing workout (900 swings in 30 min., I did 60 less) I headed over to Equinox to finish the second half of my workout. What should I do? Hmmnn....I know I'll do the same test with the 12kg! Goodness I haven't tested the 12kg in eons! here's how it turned out.

12kg

158
121
92
61
32

total 464 snatches

I had the same strategy. 15 reps at a time. Faster pace, easy and hard in different ways, but just as much fun. So chose your own weight, your own pace, your own strategy and let me now how it goes for you....you have until Sunday!