Congrats on the PB, the session during grading turned out very great.
[quote]elliottcorum wrote:
[quote]alexus wrote:
snuck to the gym (in the middle of a batch of grading).
[/quote]
You know someone’s a passionate, dedicated badass when their “sneaking around” involves going to the gym to rip some weight off the floor. Good job.[/quote]
quite true!! you’re so determined, and it shows! great work…makes me very inspired!
i’m pretty darned sure you got an eyeful of debra’s glutes and hammies rather than mine, Cal. I WISH mine looked that tasty :-p
Thanks for the support, guys 
TRAINING:
Fairly fast EVA rolling (calves and quads mostly for ankle and hip mobility)
1x5 wall squats
Bar drills…
Snatch.
Worked up to singles at 32.5kg. 1, 0, 0, 1, 1. Little bit fuggly. MIsses are about chickening out on 2nd pull (deja vu)
27.5kg 3x3.
Clean.
Worked up to a couple misses at 40kg. Not happening for me today.
Push-Press.
Worked up to a couple misses at 40kg. This is tragic (but coffee high petering out about now).
1x5 at 25kg, 30kg, 35kg. Realizing that the problem is I’m not activating my abs properly.
Squats.
2x5 20kg, 2x5 25kg. Not heavy but almost kind of starting to get the movement right (really pulling hips through and knees out on the way up). Want to get some vids of this. Maybe (hopefully?) I’m finding my style.
Planks.
Swiss ball 2.00
Straight arm 2.00
Bent arm 2.00
I reckon bent arm is hardest for me (used to doing straight arm ones). Will do 3x bent arm next time then start adding weight if i get my 3 sets.
Focus on ab activation for the rest of the week and lay off push-pressing. Got to be careful about too much overhead stuff (elbows and shoulders get cranky) and I’d like to hit a PB push-press on Saturday.
Oh we weren’t talking about bent arm planks the whole time? Oops.
I don’t think I feel anything with the straight arm ones. Besides cranky shoulders.
I hope you are finding your style with squats, actually, I’m sure you are.
Looks like a good session, slow and steady always wins the race.
Just checking in. Great stuff in here. You look very proficient considering you haven’t been doing the lifts long. I’m having a real hard time dropping/pulling myself under on the snatch. I have the flexibility, I just seem to have a “mental block” about it. Any tips?
You sound just like me. Cranky joints and always promising yourself a day off, but it just never seems to materialise!
So if I understand correctly, you finally stood up with a 40kg full clean? 41 is just around the corner.
Is using windows on a virtual machine possible for kinovea? I know virtual box has a mac version of their binary available, the only problems would be having a copy of windows to load up on it, and whether or not kinovea will run in the windows running on the virtual machine. Don’t know if kinovea uses any fancy graphics or not.
Nikki - yeah. i started out with straight arm because I thought they were harder. turns out they are harder on the shoulders and less hard on the abs. so bent arm planks for me from now on.
farmerbrett - thanks. um… it is actually almost 1 year since i started learning Oly lifting. but spent a good few months just learning an Oly style squat before i got to do any pulling… and i only had 6 months of gym activity before that. so… i’m doing alright, i guess i really like these for learning to get under (just dropping rather than push-pressing to start):
then starting from the hang (so hip driving) and dropping. then from the floor. different people find different things work for them, though.
carl - yup, i stood up a 40kg full clean. caught it a bit high but rode it all the way down and got it up. how cool would it be if i could clean more than i could squat? heh. by ‘virtual machine’ do you mean i could run bootcamp or something like that? i think i don’t know what you mean… but i’ll look into it if the following doesn’t work:
i just found a program called Objectus that is mac friendly (typically used for golf swing analysis). the demo is free - but you get a ‘demo’ mark. the program isn’t too(ooo) expensive as far as programs go if i find it works well. thus far i can’t get the demo to open my movies, though. will try uninstall reinstall and see if i get better luck. otherwise their comp support people seem good (told me i needed to try opening a .mov file rather than an i-movie project file already heh).
TRAINING
just wanted to stuff around.
lots of rolling 2x5 wall squats
SQUAT JERKS
are much much much (much much) harder than they look. Need a wide grip for my catch. Need a narrow grip for it to be comforable in the rack. Bit of a trick to getting it past your face… Hmm…
ONE ARMED BARBELL SNATCHES
10kg (preloaded). Easy peasy.
15kg (preloaded). Mostly okay. Need to be careful to grip this properly in the middle, though, and it tends to wobble. Good grip training, I think. Walked / jumped / messed around with this for a while 'till my wrists / fingers had had enough.
-----edited to include the following:
yeah, ok, they were powersnatches. i wasn’t sure a full snatch was possible. looks like it is, though. damn.
Yay for your squats. You are so determined that I just know that you’re getting it. You got this. Nice job.
Squat jerks! I’m afraid of those!
Excellent work in here! Keep it up
hey!! thanks for the drop snatch vid! i’ve never really thought of doing them for getting under the bar–see the nativeness bursting forth for my understanding of oly stuff…
wait a minture, i thought squat jerks were easier then regular c& j? …now i have togolook at the www.internet to see em again.
maybe i hurt my back. or maybe the fist that is punching and twisting inside my uterus is doing weird things to my back, too. damn. haven’t had it this bad in a while. almost took a day off… but decided to focus on rolling / mobility in the hope i’d find some comfort.
EVA / softball rolling. quads / itb not too bad today.
hurts to extend lumbar spine. sort of. sort of hurts NOT to extend my lumbar spine, too. weird dull (actually not so dull) ache.
wall squats 1x5.
bar warm-up drills. not too bad. some discomfort in my back in a relaxed squat before pulling myself up to starting position.
maybe i hurt my back pulling the light pre-loaded barbells from the floor yesterday 
Snatch.
doubles up to 25kg. 3x3 at 25kg. fairly comfortable. not happy with my lack of speed under the bar.
Clean.
singles up to 30kg. spent about an hour on warming up and about half an hour on snatches so pretty tired… standing up a clean not feeling too good.
GHR.
used the oly stick to climb my way up and down using my glutes and hammies as much as possible. about 5 reps. i like this.
bail.
hope my back feels better tomorrow.
oh no! hope its just girlie probs? feel better!
i hope so too, brute. i generally do have a little teeny tiny bit of a dull ache in the L/T junction (old fracture there)… hoping to rehab it away… but it definitely gets worse during bio dictated deload time. thats usually my first clue that it is bio dictated deload time (along with my desire to stuff around rather than train seriously, too, i guess) - my lumbar spine / hips get particularly cranky for squatting movements. but this time… it does feel injured. fingers crossed it isn’t…
squat jerks are supposed to be harder. i didn’t realize how much harder till i got out the trusty broomstick. holy crap they are hard. hit myself in the face a few times with the 10kg heh. did some landing on my ass, too. need to look into what kind of grip people use… probably get better mobility for a closer stance overhead squat… i guess i was thinking ‘hey it is just a drop snatch with a bit of a push first and in front rather than behind - how hard can it be??’ turns out… much harder than that. damn.
Mind you, you got the narrower grip overhead squatting style for it, Brute.
Hats off to the one arm snatch guy - wow.
I really think I like the mobility to do the oly stuff without hurting myself. Since I’ve started I’ve had all sorts of problems. I did check out the Tony Gentilcore article on the front of the site and I fail pretty much everything except the leg internal rotation. Not a good recipe for doing snatches and C&Js, to be honest.
Anyway, hope the back problem clears up. There’s nothing more annoying than an old injury returning.
I really think I like the mobility to do the oly stuff without hurting myself.
yes. me too. that is what got me into oly lifting. i was like: ‘i don’t think it is possible for me to move like that’. never mind the weight, just talking about the movement. saw the article you are talking about and was like ‘uh oh, i can’t do any of that’. but i keep tapping away at it… took me 3 months to get an ATG relaxed squat (forget about lumbar curve - just a relaxed asian style squat). i practiced every day. my squat is still far from perfect… but it is gradually, gradually getting better over time. i still have so very much to work on (toes still aren’t anywhere near close to being able to split-jerk comfortably).
i have faith now that i’ll get there eventually, but i really didn’t think it would be possible for me. all i know is that the goal chose me. and there it is.
Olympic lift log yeah!
I used to have the clean and jerk in my old lifting routine.
Maybe I’ll start throwing some in near the end of summer, they went really well with sprints.
Did you manage to quit smoking? I used to smoke too.
still smoking will quit again but know from experience that I need to plan on getting seriously ill for a couple weeks after quitting for a couple weeks. it is tricky with the contract work i’m doing at the moment.
TRAINING:
rest.
no gym.
grocery shopping.
learned that hard boiled eggs keep for 1 week in the fridge. while i hate venturing into the communal kitchen i can do it once a week. yum. i love eggs. can cook some other stuff while i’m at it.
figured that the best fish oil is the one i’ll take. have some super dooper industrial strength liquid. i don’t take it very often, though, because the fruity flavor and the texture is too much for my palate. got a bunch of capsules. can take 8 per day. still not the same EPA / DHA as the liquid - but the best fish oil is the one i’ll take.
figured that my back (not as bad as yesterday but a bit overtrained) is because of all the max push-pressing i’ve been doing. when i max i lean back and use my spinal erectors for stability. lower weights / higher reps i get better abdominal activation. forget that while you can max snatch and clean and jerk every day other things need to be maxed a bit more cautiously. no push pressing today and tomorrow and we’ll see how i do on saturday.
going to sleep well tonight.
Just catching up. Sounds like your back is going to be alright. Sometimes our bodies just remind us that we need to take care of them when we expect so much challenging work from ourselves on a regular basis.
That was a long session that you did the other day. Glad you got/are getting some rest. Feel better