This commercial came to mind when I saw what was on tap for Wednesday night's WOD. KOP's blog said we would be finding our 1RM snatch once again. What?!?! We just did that 2 weeks ago. I remember going to Coach Jenna's class and practicing my snatch in advance of the BBC meet. How could we be doing it again so soon? Seeing Double Grace programmed twice in 8 weeks was surprising, but finding our 1RM snatch for the second time in a fortnight was truly shocking. Like the internet, I thought the supply of possible Crossfit WODs was never-ending. But maybe we were the husband in this commercial, surfing through all of the options out there and accidentally hitting the end we never knew existed.
I got to the 7:30 class and discovered I'd be snatching with Bryan, Scott, and Neil. While we were waiting on the 6:30 class to conclude, Neil asked me the question on both of our minds: "Didn't we just do this a few weeks ago?" Yes, we did. The cash-out was different at least. If you wanted to be really technical about it, the 1RM snatch portion was slightly different in that today we had a 20 minute time cap, but I think we had about 20 minutes to find our heaviest snatch when we did this 14 days ago.
With the 6:30 class now over, the four of us began to warm up. We had taken over the left hand portion of the gym, while the BBC class occupied the right half. It was graduation day for the BBC students as their 8 weeks of training was coming to a close. As they went after some new PR's, Jenna talked to us about the cash-out we would be doing after we were finished with the snatch. Then she looked at me and said, "I was thinking about you today". It was one of those phrases that probably sounds nice to most people, but I knew better than to think that applied to me. At best, a backhanded compliment was forthcoming. I played along and asked Jenna why she was thinking about me and she explained that her class was given a soft 10 minute time cap for the cash-out. She wasn't done when 10 minutes elapsed, but she stubbornly kept on going until she finished, something I seem to be known for doing. Not the best thing in the world to be associated with, but I could use this story to my advantage later on. If I surpassed 10 minutes in the cash-out, I was definitely going to continue on until I was done. Here's the cash-out that Jenna was referencing:
Cash-out:
6-9-12-9-6
Front squat (185/125)
Burpees over the barbell
*Front squats would be taken from the floor
We'd get to that soon enough. It was time to snatch first! Whenever I see "1RM", I'm thinking of finding a way to PR. I didn't think about the fact that I only got through 170 pounds when I did this two weeks ago or that I could only muster about 160 pounds during the BBC meet. I was going to come up with a plan where I'd have a shot at 190 pounds. That plan didn't require much thought. I could just use the plan I had in mind when I did this WOD two Wednesdays prior. The progression would be 115-135-155-170-180-190 with two reps at each of the first two weights.
The two reps at 115 served their usual function of warming me up for the squat. It's a weight that I could power snatch if I wanted to, but it's always good to stretch out my legs with these early reps. When I did my reps at 135 a couple weeks ago, I noticed that they felt heavier than I expected, but I didn't have the same experience this time around, which gave me confidence that I might fare better on this evening. 155 was another weight that didn't feel incredibly heavy, but I took my time standing up out of the bottom with my barbell overhead. Jenna was watching me during the lift and she marveled at how slow I was during the lift and how low I was willing to get to ensure that I ended up underneath the barbell.
170 pounds was where I found trouble last time and it got me once again here. I came close to holding it as I dropped down into my squat, but I was unsteady and had to bail the barbell in front of my body. Jenna was watching this lift as well and she noted that I hadn't kept the barbell as close to my body as I needed to. It's always good getting that feedback. There are so many moving pieces to the snatch and you might think one thing is causing a failed lift when in reality it is something else. When I felt ready to make another attempt, I was completely focused on keeping the barbell close. I drove the barbell up overhead, caught it in the squat, and didn't rush to stand up with it. 170 only took me two tries, leaving time for several attempts at 180, and if I was lucky, maybe a shot or two at 190.
Jenna saw that 2nd attempt at 170 and shook her head with a grin on her face. She was still having a hard time comprehending how I could be that slow, yet have enough mobility to catch the barbell with my ass nearly touching the floor. I didn't want to tinker with anything though, as I was ahead of where I was two weeks ago when I tested my snatch. I moved up to 180 for my next lift. There was still about 4 minutes remaining on the clock when I took a shot at that weight. As was the case with my first attempt at 170, I almost caught it, but had to bail it in front of me. Jenna sez? Well she said what she had been saying all along: I was too slow. There wasn't really anything wrong with my form. I just wasn't going to get that weight overhead without an increase in speed.
I've been paranoid that my form would fall apart if I tried to snatch faster than I normally do, but I had no other alternatives at this stage. If I wanted to snatch big weight, I had to increase my speed and do my best to maintain my form. With the clock reaching 18:30, I determined that I had enough time for two more attempts. Approaching the barbell, I was no longer thinking about hitting my hip crease. Not thinking about how close the barbell was going to stay to my body. It was purely Top Gun time.
The worst that could happen is I would miss just like I had done a few minutes ago, so the pressure was off. I got into my setup and as soon as I felt ready, I went for it. A second later, I was sitting in my squat with 180 pounds overhead. I could feel the tension leave my face as I began to smile. I knew I could stand this weight up. I rose from the squat, held the barbell overhead for an extra second just so it was clear that I had fully completed the lift, then dropped it to the floor. I got 180. And there was just enough time for one attempt at 190!
I scrambled from one end of my barbell to the other, ripping off the clip, slapping on a 5 pound weight, then sliding the clip back into place. There was less than 30 seconds to go before the 20 minute cap, so I was only getting one shot at this. I couldn't spend a lot of time on focusing or ensuring that my setup was exactly how I wanted it. I really only had enough time to get up to the barbell, make sure my grip was good and that my shoulders were pinched back before going after the PR. That might have been a positive. The less I thought about during the snatch, the faster I was likely to move. I tried to duplicate the speed I had just produced at 180 with ten extra pounds on the barbell. I think I was able to pull it off too. I came very close to catching the barbell, but I rocked forward on my toes and had to let it go. There was no time for another attempt, but 190 felt like a weight that I might be able to get in the near future.
We readjusted the weight on our barbells for the cash-out. I tried to figure out what weight would be appropriate for the front squats given:
- There was a soft 10 minute time cap
- We'd be doing 42 burpees over the barbell to go along with the 42 front squats
- The front squats were coming off of the floor, not off of a rack
If we were simply doing 42 front squats from the rack, 185 pounds wouldn't have frightened me at all. But given the other factors at play, I decided to scale down from 185 pounds down to 165 pounds. I removed 25 pounds from my barbell and got ready to finish this cash-out in less than 10 minutes.
Just one problem. Neil was directly behind me and he saw that I had loaded up my barbell with only 165 pounds. He was using the RX weight for the cash-out and he wasn't about to do it alone. "Come on, you can do 185 pounds", he said to me. It wasn't the most persuasive argument ever, but it was effective. I grabbed two 10 pound plates that I had moved off to the side and added them to my barbell. There was very little chance of me completing the cash-out in 10 minutes using that much weight, but who was I to screw up the hard-earned reputation I had for failing to stay under time caps?
There were two keys to this cash-out. The first was limiting the number of cleans for the front squat. The longer you held on to that barbell, the better. Big sets of front squats were your friend. Round 1 of the front squats was no problem as I held on through all 6 reps. The second key was moving at a solid pace through the burpees. I did not come through on that front. Springing up and down was going to use up my leg strength and moving quickly was going to leave me breathing heavily. If I got back to the front squats with wobbly legs while unable to breathe, I'd be doing a lot more cleans than I had the energy for. So I crawled through the burpees as best as I could. Even at my slow pace, that took a lot out of me.
I had no faith that I could manage 9 (never mind 12) consecutive front squats, so I broke them up in rounds two through four. I went 5-4, then 5-4-3, then 6-3. The opening set of 6 in the second-to-last round was intentional as I wanted to convince myself I could hang on for all six front squats when I got to the final round. The power cleans to begin each set got really tough as I progressed through this workout. I also had the unpleasant experience of cramping up again like I did during the pistols 24 hours earlier. I tried to shift my weight on to my left leg as much as I could during the front squats to ease the pain.
By the time I made it to the second round of 9, I was well behind my classmates. None of us were staying under 10 minutes, but I was a considerable distance behind them. They cheered me on during the 9 burpees thinking that it was my final round, but I still had 6 more front squats and burpees awaiting me once I was done with that batch. The last few front squats that I did hurt like hell, but I wasn't cleaning 185 pounds again. I made it through all 6 of those, then tried to pick up my pace a little bit on the remaining half-dozen burpees (let's call it a fast crawl). Final time: 14:16.
I was exhausted and dealing with some leg pain after that cash-out. My classmates helped me put my plates away, then I found a bench to sit on for a while. I watched Chris S on the platform, trying to clean 100kg (220 lbs). This was his end-of-summer goal before he headed back to college. He made several attempts, but just could not hold on to the barbell. I dragged my beaten up body closer to the platform, sitting on a medicine ball off to his right. Coach Tom told Chris he could take one more shot at 100kg. We were all rooting Chris on, but once again, he couldn't hold on to the barbell as he tried to rise from his squat clean.
Tom went into the lobby as Chris began to remove the outer plates from his barbell. He was trying to honor his word that he wouldn't make any more attempts at 100kg, but I was among several people who felt he should give it one more try. He was really close! This was his end-of-summer goal! Plus I felt compelled to pay forward the "screw it, just go for it" mantra that Kris had given to me before I hit my clean and jerk PR at the BBC meet.
Chris looked toward the lobby as though he was a kid that was going to get grounded for disobeying one of his parents. We told him that we'd accept the blame if Tom was upset about him trying the clean one more time. So he put 100kg back on his barbell. While Chris was getting ready, Tom came back out. He saw Chris was taking one more shot at the clean, leading him to replicate Jenna's earlier head shake with a smile. I think he knew that Chris wanted this badly and that he wasn't far off from getting it. Chris walked up to his barbell and we all yelled encouragement. Things got really loud as he caught it in the squat. Then we got really excited when he walked forward with the barbell, but under control. After a few steps, he came to a stop. Chris had reached his end-of-summer goal!
It was cool watching the end of the BBC summer program. A lot of KOP athletes work with the Philadelphia Barbell Club because it is a more established lifting club, but I think the coaches we have at KOP do a really good job improving athletes' form. They deserve more credit than they get. Here's a look at the smiling faces of those who completed the BBC 8-week summer program, along with their coaches:
Friday preview: After showing the discipline to skip a rope climb workout on Thursday, I return to the gym on Friday for overhead squats and jumping ring muscle-ups. Could I actually stay under a time cap?
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