With A Purr

Workout date: 5/12/17

After showing some better judgment and taking Thursday off, I showed up to the noon express on Friday feeling recovered and ready to go.  I was eager because Thursday was a day I hadn't planned on taking off.  I was eager because my performance in my most recent workout was lousy.  And I was eager because the WOD on Friday gave me the chance to take care of some unfinished business.

The first part of Friday's workout involved finding a 1RM snatch.  About two and a half weeks earlier, I had stayed for Open Strength and worked on my snatch.  My intention during that session was to work on my form, but once I started hitting one lift after another, it ended up being a quest for a new PR.  I took 5 shots at a new PR of 180 pounds.  Two of them were good not great.  I was very close to standing up with 180 pounds on each of the last three lifts, but I couldn't maintain control of the barbell.  I left that night knowing I could hit that weight.  It was just a matter of when I'd have time to try it again.

As background, my 1RM snatch has been at 175 pounds since 2014.  I took the 8 week Olympic lifting course with the Bridgeport Barbell Club and it did wonders for my clean and jerk and my snatch.  My focus wasn't on WODs at the time, rather it was on all the details that go into a successful Olympic lift.  After the program was over, there was a WOD programmed that was similar to what I was doing on Friday.  I couldn't tell you what the second part of it was, but the first part involved finding a 1RM snatch.  I remember being very happy when I stood up with 165 pounds that day.  That lift either tied or set a new PR for me.  There was a couple minutes left before we had to proceed to the second part of the WOD, so I threw on a pair of 5 pound plates and decided to give 175 a shot.  I only had time for one attempt.  I didn't truly believe I would get it, but I wanted a sense of how close I was to hitting a lift that heavy.  Before I knew it, I had it overhead as I sat down in the bottom of my squat.  It was difficult to stand up with, but somehow I held on to that barbell as I rose up out of the squat.  It was a very pleasant surprise.

Three years have passed and I'm still stuck at 175.  My deadlift 1RM has been stuck at 385 for a similar amount of time, but that feels like a much more desperate situation.  Heavy deadlifts are programmed frequently, yet I continue to spin my wheels in pursuit of a 400 pound deadlift.  The 1RM snatch doesn't come up all that often and I certainly don't practice it as religiously as I did back when I was enrolled in the Olympic lifting course.  I also have the impression that I was lucky to get 175 the day that I hit it.  I probably should have forgotten that it happened and acted like my 1RM was 165.  My progression since that time would make a lot more sense then.  I've had a couple good lifting sessions where I've managed to hit 170.  And since I've become pretty devoted to the "don't tie your PR" rule, I've been skipping over 175 when I probably should have taken a few cracks at it, if only to make myself believe I really could handle that weight.

There was no turning back to 175 now though.  All those close calls at 180 had me believing that I was going to surpass 175 the next time I tried to snatch.  That time was Friday afternoon.  Coach Aimee had 7 people in her class.  I was used to seeing Tim H, Justin D, Karen, and Jessie at the nooner, but this was the first time I had seen Holly and Jeremy there.  They usually take afternoon classes.  I assumed they were at the nooner because the KOP prom later that night was forcing the cancellation of some of the regularly scheduled classes.

Aimee got us warmed up on the snatch.  She told us that we were not obligated to squat snatch while finding our 1RM, although we would be required to go into a squat for the cash-out later on.  While the squat snatch was not mandatory for our 1RM, we would probably need it if we were truly going heavy.  I planned on squat snatching all of my lifts, partly because it's a become a habit of mine and partly because doing it at the lighter weights would help ensure that I was using good form as I approached my goal of 180.

During that Open Strength session a few weeks ago, I messed up 2 of my 5 lifts at 115 pounds.  I was going to start once again at that weight, but I was hoping not to take nearly that many attempts at 115.  If I was failing, then I would make some additional attempts until I felt like my form was good.  Ideally though, I'd just nail my initial tries and move on to 135.  That is exactly what happened.  I performed two squat snatches at 115 and each of them felt good.  I bounced right out of the bottom and stood up with them.

I didn't begin to think of that lifting session a couple weeks ago as a PR quest until I performed the lifts at 135.  All of that tinkering I did at 115 paid off when I moved up to 135.  I did two lifts at that weight and they felt like the best ones of the night.  On Friday, I went into the lifts at 135 feeling more confident than I had a fortnight ago.  They went just as well.  My focus at these lighter weights was to not hang out in the bottom of the squat.  I often do that just because I know I can gather myself and do an overhead squat to finish the lift, but I think part of the reason I kept failing at 180 previously was because I was hanging out in the bottom and wobbling when I should have gotten on with it and tried to stand up.  On the four lifts I did at 115 and 135, I hit the bottom and stood back up with some urgency, even though I wasn't really in any trouble.

135 would be the last weight that I did more than one rep on.  I wasn't sure how many attempts I would need at the heavier weights and I didn't want to rush those tries.  A couple of minutes between lifts would give me my best chance at a PR.  I added 20 pounds to my barbell and gathered myself for the lift at 155.  This was the first lift where I paused in the bottom, but I wasn't stuck down there too long.  There was no wobbling of any sort and I felt very under control as I stood up 155 pounds.

170 was where I thought I might need a couple of attempts.  Sometimes these lifts feel like they are going well enough and then out of the blue you encounter more trouble than you expected at a certain weight.  I was expecting plenty of trouble at 180, so 170 struck me as the weight where I might go through some growing pains before I got a chance at a PR attempt.  When I walked up to the barbell, I was hypersensitive about every aspect of my setup.  Why overlook something and have to do it three times?  If I did everything properly, I should be able to clear this weight on the first try.  Once I felt locked in, I made sure my shoulders were pinned back and that my gaze was at the level that Faby had told me to have it at when he was helping me out at Open Strength.  I made my 1st attempt at 170 and got it overhead.  I was sitting in the bottom of the squat, remaining calm, trying my best not to wobble forward or backwards.  Once it was clear that I wasn't wobbling, I began to rise.  There's a point not too far north from the bottom of the squat where I can tell I'm going to be able to stand up the barbell.  It speaks to how much faith I have in my overhead squat.  I got to that point and I knew I had it.  I was relieved that I didn't waste too much energy on 170.  That allowed me to give 180 my best shot.

I added 10 pounds to my barbell and then took some extra time to get ready for my PR attempt.  It's just another lift.  You know you can snatch this weight.  You had it 3 times already.  Be confident and stand it up.  I probably needed most of the time between my lifts at 170 and 180 to get my mind right more than I needed it for physical recovery.  I was finally ready to go.  I approached the barbell and began making sure my setup was perfect.  For some reason, my grip didn't feel right.  I was already crouching as I tried to get my grip the way I wanted it.  Then I pinned my shoulders back, but my knees were bulging forward when they should have been back.  I was about to fix that problem when I decided to let go of the barbell, walk away, and start over.  I was under no obligation to continue on with the lift just because I laid hands on the barbell.  It was better to start fresh.  When I came back to the barbell, things felt better.  My setup was the way I wanted it.  I began the lift and, a second later, I had the barbell overhead.  As I sat in the bottom of the squat, I told myself to stand.  Just one problem.  I had avoided wobbling when sitting in the squat on my earlier attempts.  I was definitely wobbly now.  Specifically, I could feel myself tilting backwards.  Someone could have yelled "timber!" watching me slowly tip.  I knew I had to bail the barbell behind me.  That was my 4th consecutive attempt at 180 where I felt like I had it, only to watch it slip away.

I thought I still had plenty of time for a few more attempts, but Aimee said we should be working towards our final attempt as I got ready for try #2.  I didn't rush because I felt like I could probably convince her to let me make a third attempt if my second miss was a near miss like the first one.  Aimee gave me a tip upon seeing me lose the barbell on my 1st attempt at 180.  She told me that I had to keep pressing up when I was sitting in the bottom of the squat.  I think I was so focused on staying tight and trying not to wobble that I let the barbell sit in my hands.  Once it began to roll, I lost control of it.  I wasn't letting that happen a second time.

There was no false start this time around as I felt comfortable when I set up.  The lift was a carbon copy of the first attempt.  For the fifth straight time, I had snatched 180 pounds over my head and caught it in the bottom of my squat.  As soon as I caught it overhead, I made sure I was continuing to press upward.  There was a moment where I sat there trying to figure out whether I was wobbling forward or wobbling backward.  Then I realized I wasn't wobbling at all.  Aimee and my classmates were yelling at me to stand up and I began to rise.  It wasn't official until I stood completely upright, but when I hit that point along the way where I knew I had it, I allowed myself a smile.  I knew I could get 180 and now I finally had it.  When Aimee asked us for our scores and I told her mine was 180, she asked me if that was "with a purr".  Yes it was, Aimee.  Please go ahead and write PR next to my score.

Could I have done more?  I think 185 is a real possibility for me, but I doubt I'm strong enough to go higher than that at the moment.  And I wasn't interested in rushing to make one more attempt.  180 was good enough for now.  Besides, the cash-out on tap was going to require plenty of energy.  Here's how we were wrapping up class:

5-4-3-2-1
Squat snatch (75% of your 1RM)
Bar muscle-ups

Being the math nerd that I am, I was extra pleased with hitting 180 because 75% of that was 135, meaning I could put two 45 pound plates on my barbell and be all set for the cash-out.  Easy peasy.  As for the bar muscle-ups, doing 15 was asking a lot, especially since it had only been 4 days since Bryan resuscitated my belief that I could do them.  The most I had done in any workout was 9, so there was a good chance I would need to scale these somehow.  I was going to see how the first round went and then go from there.

This cash-out was meant to be a sprint and pretty much all of the times from earlier in the day were under 10 minutes.  I was going to do my best to respect that without giving up on the bar muscle-ups immediately.  Whether I truly have bar muscle-ups or not, I can say for certain that I am not proficient with them yet.  I had to expect some failed reps at the beginning, but hopefully I could learn from those misses and slowly turn them into good reps.  It would help my cause if I moved quickly through the squat snatches and I did a solid job of that in round one.  135 pounds was a little too much for me to go touch and go, but I did five fairly quick singles with only one real breather necessary in the middle of the set.  Once those five were done, I jogged down to the end of the gym.  I wanted plenty of space for my bar muscle-up attempts and the most desolate portion of the gym was  at the far end of the pull-up rig.

I stutter-stepped back and forth as I got ready to make my 1st attempt at a bar muscle-up.  I tried to stay positive, telling myself that if I had done it earlier in the week, I could do it now.  Then I swung on the bar and made it happen.  I certainly wasn't expecting the first rep to be a successful one, but it was.  I immediately got a big head and started thinking that I'd be able to get 14 more of these.  After failing on my next 3-4 attempts, I started to become more realistic about how this cash-out was going to go.  Aimee had seen me get the first rep and she had seen a couple of my failed attempts as well.  She told me that I needed to be more aggressive as I swung during my kip.  To her, it looked like I was just floating along and hoping to magically end up on top of the bar.

The words she used struck home with me because she used to say something similar when describing how I would snatch.  The barbell would make contact with my body and I would stop pulling from that point on.  Aimee would say that I was hoping the barbell would magically float overhead, except that's not how the lift works.  She had actually spoken about this at the beginning of today's class and I took a little bit of pride in knowing that I no longer rely on magic.  I've made an adjustment and worked on continuing to pull after the barbell makes contact with my body.  If I had fixed that problem with my snatch, then I figured I could fix it on the bar muscle-up as well.  My next attempt was closer than my previous attempts, but still no good.  The extra aggression paid off on the following attempt as I finally got bar muscle-up #2.

I was already well behind the class at this point in the cash-out, so I made a decision on how I would proceed the rest of the way.  I wanted to get 1 more bar muscle-up in this round before heading back to my barbell.  Instead of going 5-4-3-2-1 on the bar muscle-ups, I would try for 3-2-2-1-1.  That was 9 in total, something I knew I was capable of completing.  The format of the cash-out would break up my bar muscle-up attempts.  That would probably help me in terms of finishing with a respectable time.

After a few more attempts, I got bar muscle-up #3 and I was able to head back to the part of the cash-out that I felt comfortable performing.  The four squat snatches didn't take all that long to complete and I headed back to the pull-up rig.  It didn't take me as many attempts to complete my second round of bar muscle-ups, but I took longer breaks between attempts.  Whether it ends up being a success or not, every bar muscle-up attempt I make leaves me feeling like I've had the wind knocked out of me.  I was also starting to notice that my arms were tiring out.  That would become much more apparent when I came back to the barbell for my round of 3 snatches.  I caught the first rep in a squat, but my arms started shaking and I couldn't hold on to it.  More rest was needed.  I couldn't take too long though because my classmates were starting to finish the cash-out one by one.  I was strong enough to stand up with each of my next 3 reps and my situation started seeming less bleak.  3 more snatches and 4 more bar muscle-ups and I was done.

My pace slowed even more on round 3 of the bar muscle-ups.  I got the 1st of the 2 reps out of the way pretty quickly, but I really struggled to get that second rep completed.  The more I failed, the more beaten up I felt.  I was the only one still working, but I didn't want to give in because I was so close to finishing off the 3-2-2-1-1 rep scheme I had set out to do.  At long last, I got my body mostly over the bar and I wriggled my way into a terrible looking (but successful) second bar muscle-up.

From there, I ran down to my barbell.  I did two quick squat snatches.  Instead of running all the way back down the gym, I used the part of the pull-up rig that was nearest to my barbell.  No one else was using it at that point.  Holly came over to try and give me some advice on the bar muscle-up, but it was too late for her advice to be useful.  I made another 3-4 attempts, but none of them were close.  It was time to throw in the towel.  I did two chest-to-bar pull-ups instead.  One squat snatch and one chest-to-bar pull-up later, I was finally done.  Cash-out time: 13:01.

That wasn't the way I wanted to finish things off, but I guess I should have been happy that I got 7 bar muscle-ups.  Holly stuck around to show me how she approaches bar muscle-ups.  Her technique was quite a bit different from mine.  When she goes into her swing, she has her feet out in front of the bar.  The reason they are out so far is because she wants to make sure she has a good hollow rock position before swinging into her kip.  I hadn't even really considered what my setup looks like as I jump on to the bar.  I'm more focused on my body position as I swing through and as I swing back.  It was interesting to watch.  Even more interesting was watching Jeremy show me how he approaches the bar muscle-up because his setup was very different from Holly's.  He is borderline vertical (Holly looks more like a C) when he jumps up to the bar, but he pops his hips so quickly that it elevates him up over the bar.  I'm not sure which of those techniques is better for me, but I'll probably play around with both of them to try and improve my efficiency when it comes to bar muscle-ups.

Monday preview: A WOD that is bear complex-like in nature (can't put the barbell down) reveals how weak my grip truly is.  I agree to do an assault bike cash-out with some of the girls.  No cash-out should involve the words "10 rounds".