The Estimated PR

Workout date: 2/24/15

Tonight was clean and jerk night at the gym.  The skill component was to take 20 minutes to work on your clean and jerk, with the cash-out portion being a "Clean and Jerk Ladder" at 135/95, which was really a Death by Clean and Jerk.  (Review of what a "Death by..." is: in the first minute, you do 1 rep, in the second minute, you do 2 reps, in the third minute, you do 3 reps, etc.  Any remaining time during each minute is rest.  Fail to complete the number of reps for the respective minute and you are done.)

Part of me was eager to go after 225 tonight for the clean and jerk.  I did 215 last time and felt that 225 was doable if I wasn't so tired.  Plus 225 is a cool weightlifting number.  Getting to put the 45 pound plates on the bar was a benchmark of sorts for me when I started.  Getting to put two on each side for 225 would definitely be progress.  I got to watch Flounder and Mr. Intensity get up to 225 on their front squats on Saturday morning and that was exciting.

Before we began, though, I noticed that a lot of people had "form" written next to their name on the whiteboard.  (Form means that the athlete worked on their form rather than going after a certain number.)  Coach Keith explained that we could go after a 1 rep max if we wanted, but that the workout didn't say find a 1 rep max for a reason.  Given that, I decided I would work on meeting the bar while I progressed through a series of increasing weights.

I loaded a pair of 35 plates on the bar and started with 115.  After only a couple of reps, Keith came over and suggested that I work on my speed, specifically going from the clean right into the jerk.  I tested my speed with a couple of reps like this, then decided that I would start doing sets of 3 as fast as I could.  I think I did 4 sets this way, with about 2 minutes rest in between each set.  Then I added 20 pounds to practice what I would be using in the cash-out.  Again, I did sets of 3 with no pause between the clean and the jerk.  So instead of chasing 225, I spent the skill portion of the workout focusing on form, but more importantly, speed.

I'd get to put my practice to the test pretty much immediately as we got ready for the Death By.  Death By workouts are tricky because the beginning of them lulls you into a false sense of security.  One rep, and 57 seconds of rest?  Sweet!  Then before you know it the end of one round is blending into the beginning of the next and you're done.  I knew I needed to stay focused and to keep my intensity in the early rounds so that I had as much rest as possible for the longer rounds.  The goal was very easy to figure out: complete 8 rounds.  Why?  For starters, it seemed like the breaking point for a lot of people was round 8 or round 9, so I wanted to fall on the right side of that line.  But the main reason was because I knew that if I completed 8 rounds, I'd be setting a PR.  Sort of...

My inner geek (to be fair, I'm all geek, inside and out) noticed that if you added rounds 4 through 8, you'd be doing Grace (4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 = 30 reps at 135 pounds).  You'd also be doing it in 5 minutes.  My PR for Grace was 5:38, so I'd be setting a PR by at least 38 seconds.  And who doesn't love getting PR's???

We started the workout with nothing exciting going on in the first few rounds.  Rich A., who is a powerhouse, was doing fast singles even in the early rounds.  I decided that I wanted to go quickly as I had during the skill portion, not letting go of the bar.  And I think this was definitely optimal, at least for me.  When we got to minute 4, I did 2 sets of 2 instead of stringing them all.  In minute 5, I did a set of 3, then 2 singles.  Minute 6 was the same, a set of 3, then singles.  I was still making good time, leaving myself 30 seconds or more of rest.  Minute 7 was when it got tough.  Sets of 3 were out the window.  I did a set of 2, then decided that fast singles likely made the most sense from here on out.  When I finished the 7th rep, I had just over 15 seconds remaining.  Minute 8 would be tough, but this was the time to push.

I started minute 8 the way I started minute 7, stringing two reps, but with the weight starting to feel heavy, some yelling was necessary to get the second one up.  The tricky part about getting tired and doing fast singles is that the bar bounces on you.  So after each rep, I had to control the bar from bouncing away before setting up for my next lift.  With 15 seconds left, I had 2 reps to go and I felt certain I was making minute 9.  I also felt certain there was no chance at all of getting to minute 10.  I put up rep #7, controlled the bounce of the bar, and got the 8th rep completed with 5-6 seconds left.  When minute 9 started I was still catching my breath.  About 5 seconds in, I started the next round, trying to steadily get through fast singles.  By the end of the minute, I had finished 6 reps for a score of 42.  If I had gotten on it right away, I might have been able to get as high as 8 reps, but I see no way that I could have finished that round.

But if I had...then I could have claimed a 4:00 Grace, as rounds 6 through 9 also equal 30 reps.  As it was, I got 27 reps in those last 4 minutes.  Could I say my Grace PR was 4:54-4:55?  Probably.  However, I think it is fairest to estimate my Grace PR at 5 minutes even, keeping in mind that my goal will be 4 minutes the next time I test it out.

Injuries: my right arm has certainly been weaker lately.  It struggled during the overhead squat portion of the Samson workout and it was struggling again at the tail end of the Death By.  My right wrist wasn't feeling great either.  I think it may be time for me to break out the wrist wraps.

Tomorrow is a scheduled rest day.  I always feel the brunt of a workout 2 days later, so with the first Open workout on Friday, my plan had been to skip whatever was programmed for Wednesday.  Of course, I checked out what the workout was anyway, but didn't find it compelling enough to break my own rule.

The blog tomorrow will probably cover all things regarding the Open including some predictions.  Thursday will be a special post not related to the Open at all, although I'm sure I'll mention the unveiling of 15.1.  And Thursday's workout may be a little different as well.  (So much mystery!)

That's all for tonight!