The Wobble

Workout date: 5/19/16

I've had people tell me that they get a chuckle out of how many details I remember from my workouts.  My mind tends to be a vault for useless information, so it is no surprise to me that even though I am not intentionally remembering how many reps I did on my first set of round three of the workout, I do recall it when I sit down to write these posts.  Unfortunately my memory isn't always so sharp when I'm jotting down details from a workout a week ago.  As a result, I forgot an important detail from working out on Monday that I didn't realize until I got ready to write this post.  So I need to provide a quick update before getting into the Thursday WOD.

After completing Jackie and doing some handstand practice, I decided to test out my split jerk again.  You may remember that I had gone to the split jerk clinic and found success in every lift I did up to 225 pounds before time ran out in class.  After doing the handstand work, I felt recovered enough to see if I could move beyond that 225 mark.  My PR for the jerk was 230, but I thought something in the range of 235-245 might be in play.  Here's a recap of my lifts:

• 135 - good
• 165 - good
• 185 - good
• 205 - the obligatory shaky lift that makes me doubt whether I'll be able to make the lift at heavier weights
• 225 - shaky again, but successful
• 235 - failed, Giulz pointed out that I wasn't getting my head through as I went into my split jerk
• 235 - success as I got my head through the second time
• 245 - not even close

I could tell that I had no more juice when I did that lift at 245, so I called it a night at that point.  But I did get a PR at 235 and if I'm not including my PRs in the blog, I'll never counterbalance all of the usual self-deprication.  So there you go, a PR on my split jerk and full details from the Monday night workout.

Why did the Thursday workout remind me about my forgotten split jerk accomplishment?  There were two reasons.  First, the Thursday WOD was finding your 15RM overhead squat, meaning I would be holding heavy weight over my head, just like I had late Monday night.  Second, I experienced a problem during the overhead squats that was similar to a difficulty I was having during the split jerks.  Among the phrases I hear ad nauseam at the gym are "stay in your heels", "push away at the top", and "keep your core tight".  That last one was not going so well this week.  When I talk about getting set up for a heavy squat and making sure my breathing is right, I'm basically explaining how I get my core tight before the lift.  The same principles hold for the split jerk and the overhead squat in regards to getting your core tight during the setup.  Yet I was having a very difficult time with it during both of these sessions.  It was a little more disappointing on Monday since I was only doing 1 rep at a time.  Shouldn't be that hard to keep my core tight for one rep.  But keeping your core tight is probably more essential for overhead squats, so you can imagine how difficult it was to attempt 15 consecutive reps.

I went in for the noon express class on Thursday because I was headed to Atlantic City later in the afternoon to celebrate the 40th birthday of my twin brother, Rodney.  Priorities!

Four-shadowing?  Rodney and me at 4am on the AC boardwalk.  (Rodney is on the left for those of you having difficulty telling us apart.)

If I was going to indulge in some overhead squats, I needed to show up earlier than usual.  So I headed to the noon class along with Queen Pam.  Whenever I take class with Pam, she always asks when I'm going to help her with overhead squats, one of the rare things she struggles with at the gym.  Looked like this would finally be the day!  Aimee put us through some warmups (translation: forced me to sweat before the "workout" even began) and then let us work on our large overhead squat sets.  This was one of our benchmark WODs and when I had done this 3 months ago, I got 15 reps at 135 before failing on rep #15 at 155.  Nothing more aggravating than getting to the very end and failing, so I wanted redemption.  Had to get 15 reps at 155 today.

I didn't wait for Aimee to give us the instruction that we could do less than 15 reps on our warmup sets as I had remembered that from last time.  I did 8 reps at 75 pounds before putting the barbell back on the rack.  I only did 5 reps at 95 pounds, then began feeling guilty about only doing that many.  So when I did my last warmup set at 115 pounds, I did 6 reps.  I'm not sure why doing one more rep put my conscience at ease, but it did.  I looked over and saw that Pam was working together with Denise and both of them seemed to have solid overhead squat form.  They didn't look confident as they did their reps, but their form was good.  I began to suspect that Pam wasn't actually bad at overhead squats, but only needed to have faith that she could do it.  When Pam hit a PR a little while later, that theory was confirmed.

Because the sets are so big during this WOD, you really only want to do two sets, possibly three.  The natural progression would have been to go 135-155 like I had last time, but then I'd be tying my PR if I failed at 155.  I grabbed a couple of 2.5 pound plates and added them for the first set, so that I could at least get a PR of 140 if the second set didn't go well.  Alarmingly, the first set didn't go all that well.  I did two squats, then felt my mid-section sway as I rose from the second rep.  I took a step forward, then steadied myself before continuing on.  I'm not sure if the best way to describe my core during this set would be jiggly or wobbly, but it certainly wasn't solid.  That didn't mean my form wasn't good, only that I was making it more difficult on myself to rise out of the bottom of the squat.  Here's a peek at how I looked during the set at 140:

I do love overhead squat day

The set took a lot more work than I had hoped, but I held on for a new PR.  I would need to do a much better job of keeping my core tight with the set at 155 if I was going to manage 15 reps there.

The cash out involved muscle up practice, but Aimee made it sound optional (the noon express class is 15 minutes shorter than a normal class and these large sets require a lot of time both for the lifts and for recovery).  Since I'm nowhere near a muscle up, I decided to skip the cash out, giving myself some extra recovery time before going after 155.  When it was time to go, I tried to be confident and reminded myself how important keeping my core tight would be.  However, the wobble was back almost immediately as I began the set at 155.  And for some strange reason, I had a stumble again as I tried to rise from rep #2.  I almost dumped the barbell at that point, but I held on and tried to methodically get through the reps.  Over the course of the next 10 reps, I struggled, but I churned through one rep after another.  When I went to do rep #13, I revisited the very poor rep I had done near the beginning of the set.  I barely got out of the bottom and had to work really hard to stand the weight up.  But I only had two more reps to go!  I could suck it up and get through two more reps.  At least that is what I told myself.  As I lowered into my 14th overhead squat, I felt my wrists trembling as they tried to keep the barbell steady over my head.  There was no point in trying to stand up until I had the barbell under control.  My wrists were shaking violently, but the barbell was centered, so I tried to rise.  I didn't get very far before my wrists gave way.  I dumped the barbell in front of me.  Once again, 155 had gotten the best of me at the very end of a 15RM set.

That was a frustrating end to the class, but there was no chance I could make another attempt at 15 more reps.  I'd have to wait three more months before I could get revenge on 155.  I headed home, got cleaned up, and headed to Atlantic City on the party train.  It would be the beginning of my weekend as KOP hosted Prom the next evening and I skipped the Saturday WOD.

Sunday preview: A tabata of tabatas destroys everyone's legs.