Having gotten into the routine of working out Monday through Thursday and then taking 2 (sometimes 3) days off to finish off the week, I considered not heading into the gym on Friday. And honestly, after seeing what the WOD would be, the urge to skip class became even stronger. The WOD had two parts: finding a 1RM hang power snatch, followed by muscle-up practice of either the ring or bar variety. The hang power snatch isn't a movement that gets used in metcons very much, which helps explain why it wasn't that alluring to me. However, it is an important element of a regular snatch as it is essentially 80% of the regular lift (just eliminate that first part of the snatch where you go from the floor to above your knee). That makes it very useful practice for those who struggle with that first part of the lift (people like me). In some cases, people can snatch more from the hang because they don't have to worry about messing up that first piece. At the moment, I would say that I snatch slightly less from the hang, but the two numbers are close. As for muscle-up practice...well, that might be an exercise in futility, but it's never gonna happen unless I keep trying. So I talked myself into going to the Friday 5:30 class.
There were 12 of us in class at 5:30, exactly 11 more people than had shown up for the preceding class. The only attendee for the 4:30 was Ben, who was still working on getting a bar muscle-up as we began our warmups. His attitude could be described as a mix of confidence and frustration. He had come close several times to getting his first bar muscle-up, but each time he chicken-winged one arm over the bar, he would fail to get his other arm over. Since his class was over, I knew he had been at it for a while. You never want to leave when you feel like you're right on the verge of accomplishing something big, so here he was, continuing to make attempts at getting that second arm over the bar. I had my back turned as he made one of his final attempts, but I did hear Giulz give him some advice that I had heard from Coach Jason previously. "Look at your dick!", she yelled to Ben as he tried to make that quick transition from pulling your body up to launching it forward over the bar. Alas, Ben did not look at his dick. Or maybe he didn't look at it quickly enough. It's all very confusing. Unlocking the secrets behind the bar muscle-up remains a mystery to me.
The secret to the hang power snatch? Just good form and some strength, I suppose. I knew coming into this workout that my best snatch from the hang was 165, although I couldn't remember whether I needed to go into a squat in order to get it. My guess would be yes. In fact, I try to squat whenever I snatch these days, so I needed to remind myself not to do that in this workout. Coach Jill put us through a fairly short warmup, then let us get to work on finding a 1RM. The way the workout was written, we were supposed to do 7 lifts (at least). I didn't plan things out like I normally do, but I ended up getting to a 7th lift before we moved on to the muscle-up practice.
I started out with 95 pounds on my barbell and didn't have any trouble with my first hang power snatch. Same thing with my next lifts at 115 and 125. I had brought over smaller weights to add on to my barbell, so I completed my first three lifts quickly. There was still about 35 minutes left in class, so I asked Jill how much longer we were going to lift. I figured I'd be topping out in the 155-165 range, which meant only 3-4 more lifts for me. If there was 20-25 minutes of lifting left, then I was going to slow my pace considerably. Jill said we had gotten started early, so there was a lot of time left. Good to know. I put 135 pounds on my barbell and took a few minutes of rest.
You will almost never hear me say that my form was great, but my form was better than usual as I continued on with my lifts. I tend to think of 135 as the weight where I might want to squat snatch as my power snatches at this weight start to get shaky. In lieu of a squat, I go into full starfish mode because I don't have total control of the weight. By getting a wider base, I'm getting under the barbell without squatting. That isn't how you are supposed to do it, that's just the reality of the situation. There wasn't any starfishing at 135 this time around though. Not really any at 145 either. Things were going well enough that I briefly began to think that 170-175 could be a possibility.
Then two things happened. The first was my lift at 155. Very starfishy, not very pretty. I managed to successfully execute the lift, but I knew I wasn't going to be able to go much higher. If you had asked me prior to the workout what a strong number would be for me, I would have said 165 as it was a pseudo-PR for my hang power snatch. All those solid lifts early on got my head in the clouds, but now I was back to thinking that 165 would be as much as I could hope for. The second thing that happened was that Jill changed her mind with regards to how she wanted to allocate the remaining time in class. She let the class know that she wanted to spend a little more time on the muscle-up practice, so we needed to start working on our last few attempts.
I already had 165 loaded on to my barbell when she made this announcement, but I knew that I couldn't hang out and take a long rest before trying that weight, nor could I spend a lot of time resting if I needed additional attempts. Which was a little bit of a bummer because I was spending part of my break cheering on Alejandra, who was working behind me. She had made several attempts at a weight that she could handle. She was getting the barbell plenty high enough, but it looked like she was backing away from it as it got near her face. If she didn't back away from it and could even partial squat under it a little, she'd get the weight no problem. Before I took my shot at 165, she tried her lift again and just barely missed it. I felt pretty certain it was gonna happen by the end of class.
As for me, all of that proper form I had displayed in the lifts leading up to 165 suddenly disappeared. Classic case of a number getting in my head and messing with me mentally. I had made sure in my earlier lifts to keep the barbell close to my body, allowing my hips to make contact with it and give it that extra boost to soar over my head. That didn't happen with 165. I might have been trying to move the barbell as quick as I could because I knew it was heavy, but the end result was no contact with my body and not enough elevation for a power snatch.
It seemed like the class was starting to put away their weights, so I watched Alejandra one last time (and of course she got it on her last lift). I was not so lucky as I didn't learn from my first attempt at 165. I did the same exact thing and got the same exact result. Then I watched Ashley M attempt her final lift. She also forgot to make contact with her body, but she had enough strength to pull the barbell over her head anyway. I need to learn how to do that!
It was time to move on to muscle-up practice and we started over by the rings. Jill asked if any of us had ring muscle-ups, but only got an affirmative response from Giulz. Jill recommended practicing transitions on the rings if we weren't close to a bar muscle-up and I thought that was what I'd be working on, only Jill has much more faith in how close I am to a bar muscle-up than I do. I had plenty of company over at the rig as I suspect most of my classmates preferred attempting bar muscle-ups over transitions. As Jill explained the technique behind the bar muscle-up, Tia took up the spot next to me. We got into a conversation about how she disliked jumping bar muscle-ups, something I couldn't believe because I find them fun. Tia is not into them because she worries about the box moving as she comes down from the jumping bar muscle-up. Fair point. I can see how that can be disconcerting. She wouldn't have to worry about that today though as we were either attempting regular bar muscle-ups or using a band.
Over the next 10 minutes or so, I did my best Ben impression and talked myself into thinking that I was only an adjustment away from getting my first bar muscle-up. I generated a lot of power from my kip. I tried not to pull too early. Tried to push my body away from the bar and get into an almost horizontal position. Then at the last possible second, I tried to swing my body up and over the bar. Without fail, I kept hitting my rib cage against the bar, my body not quite as high as it needed to be. Giulz informed me that I, like Ben, was also not giving my dick the visual attention that it required in order to make a bar muscle-up happen. I made one more silly attempt in which I tried to fix that problem (while ignoring all the other facets of a bar muscle-up) before calling it a day and moving on to something else.
That something else was double under practice. Raj, Ashley, and Kris started doing an extra cash out involving double unders and abmat sit-ups. As I watched them work on double unders, I felt the need to do the same. There was a WOD on Thursday that I skipped in favor of Endurance that was heavy on double unders. Maybe I was feeling a little guilty about neglecting my double unders, so I grabbed my rope and joined the group. I wasn't interested in doing the sit-ups, but I worked on my double unders for almost 45 minutes. Most of my sets ended up being about 8-10 reps early on. I had one big set of 48 reps. After that, I had some sets in the 10-15 rep range, but couldn't string 20 in a row. That was a little disappointing, but I had very few sets of less than 5 reps, so it balanced out.
There were two more items of note before I left:
- Danielle replicated what Alejandra did in the 5:30 class during her hang power snatches in the 6:30 class. Kept failing, but definitely had the barbell high enough. Never had a doubt she was going to eventually get it and on her last attempt she did.
- Rachel came over and asked if I'd come to Competitors Class the next morning. She promised we would go to a new breakfast place afterwards if I showed up. Since food is the drug that I cannot kick, I reluctantly agreed to a weekend visit at 7am.
Saturday preview: Competitors Class breaks me, to the point where I almost skip the aforementioned breakfast outing.
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