Ya Mon

Workout date: 4/10/15

It is always exciting taking on something you haven't done at the gym.  Due to random scheduling conflicts, I had never attempted to figure out what my 1RM overhead squat was.  Which is strange, since it is my favorite lift in the gym.  There have been times where I thought about doing it during an Open Gym or during a strength session, but I ended up working on something else instead.  If someone asked me what my 1RM overhead squat was, I would always say 175, because that was my 1RM squat snatch and you have to do a overhead squat to complete that lift.  From what I had been told, taking the weight from the rack should do wonders for my 1RM overhead squat number.  Time to see if that would be the case.

Now earlier in the day, Regi took the top spot on the gym board for the ladies with an overhead squat of 180.  Since I am about double her size, it made me realize that 175 was not a very impressive number.  My goal would be to get 215, since that is my 1RM for the jerk (haven't tested that from the rack in a while either) and if you can't jerk the bar over your head, you really can't overhead squat it.  We were supposed to make 7 attempts, so I planned on doing 115-135-155-175-195-205-215.  It was a little strange for me to make my current PR only the 4th attempt out of 7, but I had to have a little faith that I was going to jump up in weight going from the rack.

There were two more important things to consider.  The first was that we would be taking the bar off the racks and then holding them on our back before jerking them.  I had little experience jerking the bar from off of my back and zero experience doing a split jerk that way.  When I took the olympic lifting course, we would do push jerks this way, but it was always light weight and set of 8-10 reps.  This was going to be a heavy weight for only 1 rep.  The second important item was something Keith mentioned to us before we started, and that was to start practicing the split jerk with light weight in earlier reps, because if you wait too long, you won't be ready to split jerk the heavier weights.  He was speaking to the entire class, but waiting too long and then trying to split jerk a very heavy weight is definitely something I would have done.

I got started with successful reps at 115 and 135 without much trouble.  At 155, I tested the split jerk since there was still the very real chance I would need it at 175.  I don't know that my split jerk is all that pretty at the moment, but it felt relatively easy during the course of this workout.  Moving to 175, I did another split jerk, regained my overhead squat position, and finished the rep.  I was feeling confident, which is dangerous for me, because it usually means failure is imminent.  Sure enough, after getting 195 over my head, I lost my balance on the squat down and had to bail on the rep.  No PR quite yet.  The frustrating thing about that lift was that the weight didn't feel super heavy, I just started to lean forward a bit and couldn't save it.

After getting the bar back on the rack, I tried 195 again.  I focused on staying tight and balanced once the bar was over my head.  From there, I was able to successfully overhead squat the weight.  New PR!  Yaaaay!  But I could do more.  I added 10 more pounds and experienced my 195 lifts all over again.  On the first attempt, I started leaning forward on the way down and couldn't save it.  On the second attempt, I took more time (which probably isn't ideal when you're holding 205 pounds over your head), but managed to squat with it.

I had made 8 attempts already and our time on this part of the workout was running out, but I needed to give 215 a try.  After loading up the bar and holding it on my back, I managed to split jerk the weight, tying my PR.  As I got in position for the overhead squat, I kept telling myself to stay balanced.  And as I made my way down to the bottom of the squat, I did not lean forward at all.  It was perfect.  Except for the fact that I could not stand up.  I mean, I was pushing up, but my body wasn't going anywhere.  I struggled for a few more seconds, then bailed the weight.  Kind of a bummer since I had fixed my balance problem, but it left me encouraged that I could do this weight (and possibly a bit more) the next time this is programmed.

For our cash out, we were doing WOD #1 from the upcoming Festivus Games.  Pretty simple workout: 1,000 meter row followed by 50 wall balls.  I had done this once before with Jill C. in mid-February, completing it in 6:51.  I still feel that a quality time will be around 6:15, so there was some time I needed to shave off.  What did I learn from that first attempt?  I learned that there wasn't much to be gained from going slow on the rower.  I finished the 1,000M in 4:02 last time, but after a decent-sized set of wall balls to begin, I could only manage smaller sets (less than 10) after that.  So for attempt #2, I would row a little faster.

Next to me on the rower was Ryan A., who is a very strong dude.  I knew he was going to blow me away on the row, but I thought I might be able to catch up on wall balls.  We got started on the row and sure enough, Ryan was pulling much harder than I was.  To my credit, I executed my plan perfectly.  In fact, I stayed at nearly the exact same pace the entire 1,000M.  Ryan, on the other hand, would blow through big sections of the row, then stop, then go again.  But being as strong as he is, he could take breaks and still beat me off the rower by a few seconds.  I finished my row at around 3:40 this time.

Over at the wall, I made it through 17 shots in my first set (only 15 last time), but after that, it was time for more little sets.  The final 5 sets went 8, 7, 6, 6, 6 and I finished with a time of 6:38.  The plan of catching Ryan on the wall balls did not work out as he finished before I did.  I am still 23 seconds from where I need to be, but I think I can still slash some additional time off.  I just need to be mentally stronger.  If I went 9, 8, 8, 8 over 4 sets, I'd be done without one last break and another small set, which is probably a good 10-15 seconds of savings.  So that target time is attainable, I simply need to find a little more resolve.

My apologies for not blogging for a week, but wifi in Jamaica is close to non-existent and I have been playing catch up on a lot of fronts since I got home.  But two more blog posts will be coming soon, along with a very big post on the Festivus Games this Saturday, involving 13 members of KOP!