Year after year, it seems like there is a report on the news during the summer about how we need more rain. We're experiencing drought-like conditions! Blah, blah, blah. Hopefully that report won't run this summer as we just experienced a week filled with Seattlesque weather. For most of the week it kept on raining. And when it wasn't raining, it looked like it was going to rain. I guess even the sun needs a vacation from time to time. This bleak weather may have contributed to the worst Dudes After Dark class of the year as Chris D pointed out at the end that it was "the most depressing class ever". Agreed Chris!
Even by Dudes After Dark standards, attendance was light for the Tuesday night class. There were only three of us: me, Chris, and Christine (Miss January). The WOD wasn't particularly exciting. We'd spend the majority of the class working on finding a 1RM clean and jerk. Not that going for a PR on your clean and jerk isn't exciting, but the process of getting there can be a bit dull. You do a lift, then you wait around for a few minutes, then you do another lift. It's basically 10 seconds of action followed by three minutes of biding your time. The majority of the action would take place during the cash out, but that part sounded very painful. We were supposed to hop on an assault bike and race to accumulate 50 calories on it as quickly as possible. For those not familiar with the difference between the assault bike and the airdyne bike, the assault bike is more of a Joffrey Baratheon while the airdyne bike is more like Tommen Baratheon. (It's not my fault if you're not watching Game of Thrones.)
Rachel had us do a warmup and then we began going through the different progressions for the clean and jerk. It was the typical step by step process of doing a dip, then moving down to the hang position to do a clean, then moving to mid-shin to replicate the lift from the floor. And somehow I managed to mess up every single one. First Rachel told me that my shoulder blades were not pinched back. Then my chest wasn't upright. Then my feet weren't in the correct position to jump. Imagine how startling it is to find out that after playing basketball for decades that you haven't been using the correct position to jump! Explains why I never made it to the NBA.
The warmups were finally over and I got to load up a barbell. I put my barbell over on one side of the gym while Miss January and Chris shared the magic platform. I did a couple of practice reps using 95 pounds and experienced a little bit of pain from my left elbow, which seems to randomly fluctuate between feeling fine and being sore depending on the day. After these lifts, I had it in the back of my mind that I might not be able to go very heavy this evening, but as it turned out, the discomfort was mild at the heavier weights and it had no effect on my success (or lack thereof) with those lifts.
I moved up to 135 and did a lift there. Rachel came over and let me know I wasn't fully extending as I performed the clean. Sweet! That was one mistake I hadn't made during the progressions. I pretty much had them all covered now. As I moved up to 165, I tried to keep in mind the laundry list of things that I had been messing up all night. The lift felt awkward to me, but Rachel said it was the best one I had done up to that point. I should point out that we were supposed to do a squat clean for all of these lifts, something I had forgotten with my initial lifts at 95, but Miss January had given me a reminder about it. Why is that detail important? Because when I did my next lift at 185, I had a pretty strong clean, but forgot to squat with it. Just power cleaned it then went right into the jerk. That earned me some additional razzing from Miss January.
My next lift was a struggle at 205 because I was still trying to make my way through a mental checklist as I went to lift. I'm often accused of overthinking things at the gym and I'm in general agreement with that idea. Some of my best lifts have come when I just went up to the barbell and got after it. You can't completely ignore the details for a successful lift, but the existence of paralysis by analysis when lifting is legit. Trying to account for 4-5 different flaws as I approached the barbell was not going to result in an optimal lift. But I did get through 205. There wasn't a lot of time remaining so I decided to move up to 225 for my next lift, which would tie my 1RM. I had only done a squat clean of 225 once in my life, so I thought it would be a good challenge to do it again even though it was tying a personal best. (Note: In general, you don't want to tie your personal bests. If you get to the point where you're attempting that weight, you should throw on a little extra and go for a new PR.)
I went to do the squat clean and I successfully caught it in the bottom of the squat. And I wasn't panicked about finding the energy to stand it up. But the barbell wasn't where I would typically have it for a front squat. So as I began to stand up with it, I felt it slide. Once I had stood up fully, the barbell was nowhere near where it needed to be for me to jerk it. So I spent quite a bit of time trying to shimmy the barbell into place so that I could do the jerk. Once I got close enough to where it needed to be, I tried the jerk. That didn't go well. As soon as I attempted it, I knew it was going to end badly. Having the barbell close to where it needed to be was not the same as having it exactly where it needed to be.
Rather than finish off with a second attempt at 225, I added 5 pounds to the barbell for one shot at a new PR. Even if I only cleaned the barbell, it would be a PR. But I really wanted the full clean and jerk with this weight. I went through my routine again and then attempted the clean. I caught it in the bottom of the squat again. But I decided to take a different approach from what I had used in my previous attempt. I tried to shimmy the barbell to where it needed to be while I was still in the bottom of my squat. I thought that if I adjusted it there, it wouldn't slide as I stood up, meaning I wouldn't need to stand with it on my collarbone forever before going for the jerk. The problem is that you don't want to spend a lot of time in the bottom of a squat with 230 pounds on your body. When I was finished adjusting the barbell as much as I could, I tried to stand up. I had spent too much time in the bottom though and there was no getting beyond the sticking point. I had to bail the barbell. No PRs today.
Let's get this depressing class over with already! While Miss January was finishing off her clean and jerks, Chris and I got on an assault bike. I didn't have a good sense of how long it would take to do 50 calories on the assault bike and the scores from earlier in the day were all over the place. I ended up deciding that 3:00 would be a good time for the cash out. I was still messing around with the display on my bike when Chris started so I was a bit behind him. Finally set, I began pushing through my 50 calories. Having watched Regionals athletes on the assault bike the prior weekend, I knew that I should resist the urge to stand while pedaling. They had said it was optimal to keep pedaling with your entire foot on the pedal and to really take advantage of the handlebars. You got through calories faster if you pulled the moving handlebars back and forth as vigorously as you pressed the pedals with your feet. This all seemed to be working. At least until I got to about 25 calories.
Even though the time was just above the calories on the monitor, I didn't look at the time once during the cash out. Perhaps I was trying to will the calorie counter to 50 by staring at it. All I know is that as I got to the midway point, my legs began to hurt and I was breathing rapidly. I didn't think I went out particularly fast, but the second half was going to be a real struggle. I peered to my left and saw Chris on his bike. He looked like he wasn't enjoying life either, but he seemed to be doing a better job of grinding through the pain than I was. Rachel started yelling to him to not let me catch him, which sounded like a positive for me as I had started after him. But when he reached 50 calories, I was only at 43 calories. Guess I wasn't that close to catching him after all. I tried for one last strong push to get to 50, but the best I could do was a sustained effort over the last 7 calories. When I got there, I looked at my time finally. Final time: 2:44. (I had actually beaten Chris by 4 seconds. Yay sustained effort!)
And that's how the most depressing class ever ended. No PRs, very tired legs, and questions about why I had never learned how to jump properly as a child. There is always something else to work on.
Wednesday preview: My left elbow doesn't want to play nice for a second day in a row, but I can't miss out on a WOD with the rarely-programmed wall ascent involved.
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