What a Difference a Day (or two) Makes....short story long

After a full day and a half rest I had some unfinished business to take care of....that 16kg jerk.  I'm going to try and not get into a big story because this blog is partly my own personal training journal so this post will be a simple accounting of my last two workouts.  As much as I would love to lead off this post with my best event, my snatch set, instead I'll just keep things in order....



First....Tuesday's disaster.  I just now looked over the first video, the second isn't even worth remembering much less posting, so let me just recap this one.  I thought I had rested and recovered enough after training and teaching in the morning, by having a nice big lunch (probably too big), and taking a fairly long nap, longer than usual, over an hour.  I got out into the garage gym around 4:15 and took about 15-20 minutes to warm up.  The 12kg felt fine, the 14kg not bad, but the 16kg felt heavy.  I never like to say out loud that the weights feel heavy; it's a superstition of mine.

I always start with my "good" side, my R, and things were going along okay...oh, probably what kind of set me off in the wrong direction is that up until the minutes before my workout I thought my sets were with the 14kg.  I checked my program before I went out to the gym to find out my coach had changed the workout the day before....totally unexpected, and since I hadn't looked at it for days I was kind of blindsided.  I probably should have just stuck with what was in my head, but that's where the mental breakdown started.  Anyway, just reviewing the video minutes ago it all came rushing back to me....I'm so glad it's over now.  It was just a not good day.

The Swing Quest event on Sunday took more out of me than I realized. It wasn't the 2014 swing reps, it was the "event".  The responsibility the adrenaline, etc.   Then without enough recovery Tuesday's teaching and training in the morning, eating too much at lunch, not enough rest, last minute program change = recipe for a challenging workout.  

28 R/ 17 L, with multiple, multiple re-cleans.  This was supposed to be a 5 minute set at 12rpm (30/30).  I was also having some forearm pain from the pressure and the weight of the bell and tried removing my wrist pads because they weren't seeming to help.  Well, removing them didn't help much either.   Man, that was a long story for such a short video! Goodness.

Fast forward to yesterday morning (Thursday).  Much fresher, and my forearms were feeling much better.  First set I got lost in focusing on going the distance and had it in my mind a 3/3 min set, even though I knew it was only a 5 min total set.  I completed 3 minutes R, switched to my L only to realize after about 1 min that I had screwed up.  It was kind of a relief to figure out I only had to finish another minute to technically complete the 5 min set.  So that's what I did.  Yep, I chickened out on my L side.  3 min R/ 2 min L, 34 R/20 L.

This was good and bad, both.  Good because I did indeed finish 5 full minutes without re-cleaning.  Whew, I can in fact complete 5 min w/16kg.  Bad because I probably could have kept going on my L, but I would never know because I quit.

Second set.  Decisions....I know I can do 3 min/2 min, should I just accept the fact I'll probably have to jerk longer on my R and focus on making that better?  Well, I decided to fall back on the theory of progressions and jerk 2.75 min R, compromise between 3 and 2.5, leaving 2.25 min L, again compromising between 2 and 2.5.  Really my motivation was success.  I needed to feel successful.

I switched at 2.75.  I got lost and as I approached the end of my 6 min set....wait a minute (literally), did I say 6 minute set?  This was only a 5 minute set!  So have I been jerking for almost 3.25 min L?  Apparently I had!  Crazy.  6 minute total.  Okay, now I know I can technically jerk for 6 minutes.  29 R/29 L isn't a PR by any means, but I can, in fact, complete 6 minutes.

I left plenty of time to go on to my 6 minute 16kg snatch set (22rpm) but after looking at the clock I thought I might be able to get that done with enough time left over to video tape a 10 x 10 workout before my next appointment.  So with only about 10 minutes rest after that last jerk set I just went for it.  I only briefly warmed up my snatch with the 12kg and 14kg.

132 total reps, right in the money, I think.  66 R/66 L.  Maybe an extra rep, but not one less.  I'm pretty sure I hit 11 reps every 30 sec but to be honest I haven't sat through this entire video to confirm.  I'm not going to day it was an easy set, but I'm not going to say it was hard either, but it was only 6 minutes, not 10. That kind of pace is crazy fast for much longer, in fact I'm sure it would have dropped off substantially if the set was any longer.

I never did get to my 10 x 10 video.

5:30am-6:10am
after a quick 12kg, 5 minute 100 swing warm up:

Double and moderately heavy two hand swings
230 dbl 16kg's
100 24kg
250 16kg
30 min, 580 swings

Well I guess not turning this into a big long story didn't quite workout!