Souka-star!

Workout date: 1/7/15

Knowing that I would have to take Thursday off, I made the decision on Monday night to keep going to the gym through Wednesday.  I wasn't missing the Tuesday WOD (sucka!) and taking off two nights in a row was out of the question.  So no matter what, I was in for the workout on Wednesday.  Turns out that I'd be testing out another 1 rep max that I had not attempted in quite a while.

You already know that I prefer the snatch to the clean and jerk, which probably explains why I've tested my 1RM for the snatch over and over again in the last year, while I couldn't tell you the last time I tested my 1RM for the clean and jerk.  Sometime late last summer if I had to guess.  Well my top performance was 205 pounds, and the one time that I did it was certainly not pretty.  It was one of those attempts where I was standing with the weight above my head, frantically looking around the room for someone to confirm that the lift was legit.  And they probably lied to me because I had crazy eyes, shaky arms, and a lot of weight perilously hanging over my head.  Still I felt confident that I could PR tonight because about a month ago we did a workout that included a 2RM hang squat clean and I was able to do 215 once.  Tonight I was not operating from the hang, so the question should have only been the jerk.

As the weight gets really heavy, it's best to go to a split jerk.  And that requires balance.  And that is where I run into problems.  I mean, to be honest, if I was doing the split jerk properly, I would probably be fine.  But instead I turn into Mary Katherine Gallagher, then wobble, and pray that I don't fall over.  Might be a sign that I need to practice that movement a little more.

I started off light at 95 pounds so I could practice my split jerk along the way and got some advice from Coach Keith, who had thrown up 300 pounds earlier this morning.  My main issues were having a stance that was too extended, having a back leg that wasn't bent much at all, and my back toe was pointed the wrong way.  Basically it was all wrong.  But with a light weight to begin and 7 attempts to be made in total, there was some time to iron out the wrinkles.  I went 95-125-155 for my first 3 lifts as I knew the cleans would not be that strenuous, but when I got to 175, I figured I should start squat cleaning.  The problem is that the message from my brain takes a while to be processed by my legs.  There wasn't much squatting involved in my attempt at 175.  The try at 195 was a power clean, followed by a pause where I silently berated myself, and then the split jerk.  Lift #6 was at 215,  the thought process being that if I failed, I could do lift #7 at 210 and still possibly PR.  Once again, as I drove the bar upward, my body did very little in the way of getting under the bar.  Instead of squatting, there was some incredibly awkward starfishing.  However, I got the bar up to the vicinity of my collarbone, and with a little adjustment, I was ready to try the split jerk.

Now maybe it was because I knew this was for a PR, or maybe it was because I was still mad that I continued not to squat when I kept telling myself to, but I managed to get a lot of intensity into that split jerk.  It may have even been the best one I did all night.  215 went over my head and I had a PR. In fact, I felt so good about it, I quickly threw on 10 more pounds for an attempt at 225.  There was no chance of power cleaning that weight, so I audibly said "squat" over and over again before attempting the clean.  I grabbed the bar, tried to clean it, actually squatted a little, but I was way too slow moving under the bar, and 225 fell to the floor.  Oh well, it will have to wait for another day.  Hopefully that day isn't too far away though.

The cash out was a 21-15-9 rep scheme of hang power cleans and burpees with RX weights of 135/95.  I could feel the tightness in my forearms already from the clean and jerks, so I decided not to try and be a hero and scaled down to 115.  Despite the tightness, the cleans ended up not being too bad, although my core started getting loose towards the end of the 15 clean round, which meant some ugly looking cleans or, more likely, some blatant reverse curling.  And burpees?  Well, I'm out of shape, so those were going to suck no matter what.  Finished up in 6:46 and desperately searched for my water bottle.

Thanks to Sue, Steph, Fayth, and Jill for a fun 7:30 class this evening.  Tomorrow is finally a day off! No really it is.  Despite the fact that I see it is a test day.  Good luck to all those testing out Cindy tomorrow!