Give Me 10 Minutes. Last weeks training highlights

I didn't plan to have any "highlights" to my training, it just happened that way!  The highlights also all happened in 10 minute increments!

50 reps 16kg press

Thursday after I did my usual swing training for about 50 minutes I had to go on to some non ballistic training.  I decided to do some 1 minute clean and press work sets, alternating R and L for a total of 10 reps per interval (5 R, 5 L).  I did 5 sets with the 14kg (10 min).  I'm not going to say that the 14kg felt "light", it just didn't feel all that challenging.  I decided to go up in weight, the 16kg, and if I had to resort to some push presses or jerks then fine, no problem.  Well, to my surprise I was able to strict press all reps, 5 sets of 10.

This may not seem like a big deal, and if I trained a heavy press regularly it wouldn't be!  But what I found so amazing is that I haven't pressed the 16kg, much less trained it, for probably over 1 year!  At the most I've done maybe 10 reps total!  Sure I snatch it regularly, but strict press?  Nope.  Considering that I did my very first 16kg press less than 3 years ago, that's not bad!  What the heck, right?

304 12kg snatch reps

After I did 10 sets of presses (5 w/14kg, 5 w/16kg) I ended my workout with a 10 minute, snatch set.  It was not my intention to snatch as fast as I could, in fact the only intention I did have was to snatch continuous for 10 min.  I set up the video camera to count reps afterwards because I had no idea how it was going to turn out.

I started with a downhill ladder at a fairly quick pace.  15/15, 14/14, 13/13, 12/12, 11/11, 10.10, and settled into 10/10 for the remainder of the set.  Was I snatching as fast as I possibly could?  No because I didn't go into it as a "test", and it was the end of my workout that morning, I just wanted to get some light and fast reps done.  I was aware of a 15 reps per 30 sec pace though.

But when you are snatching very quickly (and you know you have video to count reps afterwards!) the brain cells just don't work as well!  I lost count, it wasn't that important anyway.  At 5 minutes I questioned whether or not I wanted to go to 10....10 is hard!  10 is not 5!  Seriously 10 minutes seems so much more than just twice as long as 5!

It wasn't really until later that evening when I counted up the reps, via video, that it occurred to me that 304 reps was a pretty decent showing!  Especially considering I wasn't really trying to get as many reps as possible, and it was at the end of a 1 1/2 hour training session.  Add in the fact that I haven't tested this in forever, and the very first time I did it, about 5 years ago, I was 44 and my total the first time out was 297 reps.  I've gotten stronger and more fit approaching 50, not less!  I think that's pretty freakin' good!

270 swing reps w/24kg

Saturday I swung the 24kg at the end of my workout with the intention of trying to do 20 reps per 30 sec, with only a 15 sec rest.  This is 2 to 1 work to rest ratio.  I've done plenty of 1 to 1 w/24kg,  but never 2 to 1.  10 minutes equals out to thirteen ".75" intervals with 15 sec left, so I did the thirteen 20 rep sets with a 10 rep set at the end.  Another PR

What a week!  Fun stuff!

PS I counted 154 snatch reps at the 5 minute mark, and finished with another 150 in the next 5 minutes.  I'll post the video in You tube later if anybody wants to see it...kinda boring...but then isn't most of this?  lol)

here's the video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84GG72q3SPc&feature=youtu.be