When I was leaving the noon express class last Friday, Pam and Denise told me that I should definitely schedule more happy hours if that was going to make me a regular at that class. No happy hour necessary. I'm a big fan of the Friday express. I plan on making it my typical Friday class to cap off the week. And if there happens to be a happy hour later on in the afternoon, then we'll just chalk that up to coincidence. (Full disclosure: there was no happy hour that I needed to get to on this Friday. I swear. Why don't you believe me?)
Maybe everyone else had a happy hour to go to, because the nooner was 15 strong on Friday. We even had some Masters participants join in the fun, as Aimee's dad and Jodilee took part in the express class. The WOD was about as basic as it gets. The main part was Olympic lifting, as we would be trying to find a 1RM clean and jerk. The cash out was a tag team where two partners would go back and forth on the rower, trying to accumulate as many calories as they could in 5 minutes. I'm always grateful when there is very basic programming like that for a class that has a huge turnout. If this was some crazy chipper, we would have all been running into one another.
We were supposed to be making 7 lifts (at least) to find our 1RM, so I decided to go with a progression of 115-135-155-175-195-215-230. 230 would be a new PR for me, but I didn't have a ton of faith that I'd be able to even make it to that lift. As is the case with a lot of the programmed movements/lifts, it's been almost a month and a half since I last did them. You typically don't stop practicing something and then magically become better than ever at it once you pick it back up again. It was going to take some time to get back there. That being said, the front squat WOD earlier in the week had given me some extra confidence. My conditioning may have gotten worse due to my break from the gym, but my strength hadn't dipped as much, if at all. I expected the lifts at 195 and 215 (if I got there) to be tough, but not impossible.
Coach Aimee guided us through a warmup and then explained the finer points of the clean and jerk. We started off with a PVC pipe and then made our way to an empty barbell. When Aimee was satisfied with how we all looked, we went and grabbed plates to do our first real lift of the day. I added a pair of 35 pound plates to my 45 pound barbell and proceeded to clean 115 pounds. Not much of a problem. Neither was the jerk. One down and...oh, wait a minute. Aimee was standing right next to me. She had a look on her face that seemed to be saying "what the hell was that?" I asked what I did wrong and she told me that I didn't squat even a little bit when I did the clean. It was going to be important to squat as the weights got heavier (at a certain point I would need to do a full squat clean), so she advised that I incorporate at least a partial squat into all of my lifts going forward. Noted.
Performing a full squat clean at 135 and 155 seemed a little excessive to me as those were weights that I knew I could easily power clean, so I threw in a partial squat at those weights like Aimee requested. I didn't have any problem with the jerk at those weights either. It wasn't until I got to 175 that I felt like I should take some additional time. While I was waiting to lift, I watched Tim H lift over to my left. I also watched Mr. Banis (Aimee's dad) as he was directly behind me. With 15 people in class, we had to squeeze in together a bit and there wasn't a lot of space between me and Mr. Banis. I felt like it was best to alternate lifts so that I could see if he needed to bail his barbell at any point and likewise he'd be able to see if I needed to ditch mine.
After Mr. Banis completed one of his lifts, I got ready to take on 175. Knowing I would almost certainly need a full squat clean at 215 and 230 (and possibly 195), I thought it would be wise to begin practicing my squat clean at this weight. I've never been great at squat cleans, mainly because I struggle to meet the barbell properly. As a result, I tend not to catch the barbell up on my collarbone like I should (the rest of the clean becomes a front squat if you get to this position). I will often have the barbell too far away from my body when I go to catch it, meaning I am catching it with mostly arms. And these arms can't handle a whole lotta weight.
175 was a weight that I could power clean regularly, which indicated that it was a weight I could still control. That was evident when I actually squat cleaned the barbell properly. (On a related note, Halley's Comet makes an appearance once every 75 years.) I stood up with the weight and then had another stress-free jerk. Confidence meter: slowly rising.
I watched Mr. Banis again and he was having no issues with his barbell either. In fact, he was basically push pressing the weight rather than push jerking. He could definitely handle quite a bit more weight than what he was using on this most recent lift. I switched out the plates on my barbell so that I had 195 sitting in front of me. As I began to psyche myself up for the lift, Mr. Banis said something that I didn't quite hear. When I asked him to repeat what he said, he pointed to my barbell and said "I didn't know we were deadlifting today". How can you not love Aimee's dad? The dude is handy enough that he built almost everything found inside KOP, but he still has the people skills to make a nervous guy laugh before he attempts a big lift. I went up to my barbell and did another squat clean, although this one was not nearly as good as the one at 175. I was able to control it though and got ready for the jerk. I was very consistent on the jerks and I popped this one overhead about as efficiently as I had on my prior lifts. Time to bump the weight up to 215.
I will admit that the difference in my squat cleans at 175 and 195 made me seriously doubt that I could get 215. I should know better than to think this way. If you approach the barbell thinking that you can't lift it, you won't lift it. You have to have some smidgen of belief within you that you're going to be successful on the lift. When I walked up for my first attempt at 215, I had already mentally raised the white flag. There was no part of that attempt which resembled anything I had done on my earlier lifts. I walked away from the barbell and decided to watch Tim lift.
It's funny how much you can learn simply by watching someone else. I watched Tim as he approached his barbell and immediately could tell that he was overthinking the lift. Maybe it was the way he was staring at the barbell. Maybe it was the extra second or two he spent on his setup. I can't pinpoint exactly what it was, but as I watched him, I could relate to that experience. I knew there was no way he was going to be able to lift his barbell. He was doing exactly what I had just done. He gave it a couple tries, but he couldn't get the clean. He turned and looked at me, and when I said "thought about it too much", he nodded and agreed.
My second attempt at 215 would not be anything like my initial attempt. My mindset was totally different. Watching Tim made me realize what I needed to do. Don't overthink it. Don't be negative. You have squat cleaned 225. You can squat clean 215. I walked up to the barbell much more confident than I had the first time around. The worst that could happen was what happened on attempt #1. I was freerolling. Might as well make the best of it. I went for the squat clean and barely caught it. This wasn't the 175 squat clean. This was the 195 squat clean. The barbell wasn't where it ought to be, but I had enough strength in my legs to stand it up. I smiled a little bit as I stood up, but I knew I needed to try and compose myself quickly for the jerk. I got my breathing right and went for it. All my jerks until now were very good. This one was not. I knew I didn't want to hold on to the barbell too long, so I think I rushed it. I didn't dip very low, so I wasn't able to generate enough power to lock it out over my head. The barbell cleared my head by a few inches before I knew it was not gonna happen. I took a quick step forward and bailed the barbell behind me.
My third attempt fell somewhere in the spectrum between attempts one and two. I wasn't as pessimistic as I was for the first attempt, but having failed that second attempt, it was hard to get super excited about my prospects for attempt #3. I kinda knew that I was telling myself that I could get 215, but my heart didn't fully believe it. I didn't catch the squat clean as well as I did on the second try and had to dump it before I could stand all the way up with it. That was gonna be it for the day. Final score: 195.
It was time to find a partner for the rowing cash out and I joined up with Rob C. I've bumped into Rob at a few of the noon express classes. He's been on a tear recently, improving by leaps and bounds from what I can tell. Need proof? He was able to PR his clean and jerk at 225 in the first part of this WOD. I had never seen him row before, but I assumed he was better than I was and told him to go first. Since we were going for calories, I thought we'd want the damper setting higher. I usually don't go beyond an 8 or a 9, but I asked Rob if he was a 10 guy. I could survive about two and a half minutes at that setting. To my surprise, Rob said he preferred the damper much lower, closer to a 3. We ended up compromising and putting it close to 6 for our five minute sprint.
We didn't have a specific plan with regard to when we were switching. It was more of a feel thing. When the person on the rower was starting to tire out, he would tag in his teammate. It worked out really well as we each made it about 45 seconds at a time before switching out. Add in about 5 seconds transition time and that worked out perfectly to 3 turns on the rower each. During each segment we got about 20 calories each, finishing with a score of 121 calories. It was one of the more fun cash outs we have done at the gym, although I'm not sure I'd want to do a whole lot more than 5 minutes at the speed we were rowing.
Row like the wind!
I was in a good mood heading into the weekend. I was happy with my 195 pound clean and jerk. I was happy with my 215 pound squat clean. And I was happy with the cash out. Wish I took a little more time on that jerk at 215, but I knew immediately what I had done wrong. Next time I won't make that mistake.
Monday preview: My first week back was simply about getting into the gym again. My second week was about getting closer to the level I was at before I left. Week three is all about finding my competitive fire again. Also, my scale informs me that I am still overweight.
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