Just poppin’ in to say training looks awesome! Those heavy pulls are wicked! I like the way your Oly coach is coaching you.
The pants splitting is hilarious - also, you’re practicing squatz in the bathroom! HAHA! Only in PW is this the part of the story that surprises no one
You know, I’ve never been one to limit carbs via fruit/veg/nuts. I always just said, if its not a grain or white gold (sugar) then its all systems go. And honestly, this has been really tried and true for me. Over the last year or so I found that 100g of carbs has been my magic number in terms of feeling good physically and mentally. That’s why I’m so interested in seeing what happens now that I’m eating more carbs! Carbs now make up about 50% of my diet, whereas it was about 30% when I was training. We shall see…
Anyways, great work in here! Keep up that swimming - oh so good for the muskels and the lungs!
I like fruit, I don’t understand why it gets so much hate. There’s so much other crap to cut out of most people’s diet before fruit should go.
[quote]Cal Jones wrote:
Nice job on the PRs and the flexibility. I’m in the corrective camp too - I am a walking injury. At 44, I just can’t sit in front of the computer all day and then go to the gym and expect everything to work properly. Sigh.[/quote]
I’m finding myself in this club too. When I lift with my brother he often gives me shit for warming up and such. It’s a lot of ‘who cares about form, just pick it up.’ Ah, to be a 22yr old male.
So…I’ve been gone from the interwebz for a while. My logging will probably be sporatic for a while. I have been quite active however!
July 25th-28th: I did tons of glute activation and other re/pre-hab stuff. My hip flexors had been killing me, so I took a break from oly lifting to make sure everything was working properly before I tore myself up for the upcoming rugby tournament.
July 29th: Left for Chattanooga with my wild and crazy friends. The weekend started with a wild and crazy white water rafting trip at the Ocoee river. We then got to the tournament site just in time for the free beer and the wild and craziness that goes hand in hand with rugby! The free beer was a flowing.
July 30th: We played 3 games and then started drinking once again. After the tournament was over, we wanted to get clean because it was SO hot and nasty. The options on site for getting clean was a slip and slide with laundry detergent and a pond thing full of the foulest water imaginable. So, we drove into town about 5 minutes from the tournament site for more beer and to figure out where to get clean. Right next to the gas station was a self serve carwash!!! So, in a moment of brilliance we pulled in and showered away. I even shampooed and conditioned my hair. We went back to the tournament all clean, just to put body paint for the costume social! The party went on all night with lots of debauchery. Oh how I miss rugby socials.
July 31st: We packed our stuff up and headed back home. Unfortunately, 2 hours from home, my friend’s car broke down. We followed behind while she coasted to the next exit. We then had to push her car to the gas station up a very steep hill. Thank goodness for prowler work. It was a breeze for me!
Aug 1st: Worked out with Molly. I did push presses and some other stuff. Nothing to write home about. I was just getting back in the swing of things.
Aug 2nd: Went to my Oly coach’s house to work out in his garage. He has a pretty sweet set up. We did some clean work. He loaded the bar and I wasn’t really keeping track of what I did. I followed it up with inverted rows and reverse lunges.
A couple pictures from the tournament. At one point, we thought it would be awesome to give ourselves fake facial hair. We were hardly out of place. One team of guys wore dresses, another guys team was dressed up like beauty pageant contestants in bikinis. There was also lots of nakedness. It was really like an alternate universe.
I’m glad you all appreciated the stache and rugby craziness. I can’t party like that often anymore, but it’s fun to cut loose every once in a while.
Last night was hang snatches: I hit a PR!!!
Warm-ups
pop-ups: 1x3xbar, 1x3x30kg, 1x3x40kg
Hang snatch:
1x3xlittle bar
1x3xbar
1x2x30kg
0x1x40kg Then he told me to get a big arch and try again. I told myself that I was going to drive my hips as hard as I’ve ever driven them in my life. I wanted it really bad.
1x1x40kg I finally did it!!! Both fortunately and unfortunately, I landed it fully standing, without hitching my arms or anything. I could tell my coach was excited and annoyed all at the same time. He said that it meant two things:
I’m really really strong and powerful in my hips (his words) to be able to bring the bar up that high and not have to squat underneath it to catch it.
If I would learn to drop, I could lift almost 2x as much weight.
Pull off blocks: 3x2x60kg
Face pulls: 3x10
Good mornings: 3x10x65lbs
Step-ups with front squat grip: 3x10xbar
I asked the coach to help me learn to drop. He gave me some cool jumping drills. I’m going to just try to work on it without weight. I think my body is a little reluctant to let myself drop in that position with weight, so I’m going to just try to ease into it, and gradually become more comfortable dropping into the hole.
I’m really really strong and powerful in my hips (his words) to be able to bring the bar up that high and not have to squat underneath it to catch it.
If I would learn to drop, I could lift almost 2x as much weight.
[/quote]
This! For the love of god, THIS!!!
Inevitably the weight will get too heavy for you to be able to bring it up on your own - at some point it will only get up to your boobs! Then what? Then you have no choice but to drop under it, no?
This is an awesome revelation Sarah! Imagine how much weight you’ll need on the bar for it to be heavy enough for you to HAVE to drop under it. Could be huge!
And yes, its true - as I was told, if you can drop under an unweighted bar, you can drop under anything. Its a learning curve, but once you get it, you’re golden. I’d be interested to see what kinds of drills your coach has you doing.
Love the pics btw! So hilarious with the facial hair. And congrats on the 40kg snatch! That was my snatch PR - you better double that shit by the time I’m back
Hey Masche- Thanks for all the good vibes. I’ve done lots of lots of boob pulls! I am just so tired of it that I just have to learn the drop. The coach taught me this little squat double jump thingy. Next week, when I’m back in the gym, I’ll try to film it. I had been pulling up my legs but then extending. This is helping me learn to pull them up and land with them pulled up. The first time I did it, the impact was a bit jarring. I told him that it was no wonder that my body was uncomfortable doing it with 90lbs above my head. He laughed and told me to stay tight on the landing. That helped, but I still think I need a lot of work to feel comfortable with the idea of doing a “cannonball” on land (that is what it reminds me of) while holding a weighted bar above my head.
I’m glad you enjoyed the facial hair. Life is just too short to take yourself too seriously.
i think it does help to practice the drop separately and start out light and gradually increase the weight. you need to be committed and in order to be committed (and not certifiable) you need to be able to trust your body to hit the position fast and tight.
with the snatch i find drop snatches really help. basically start with the bar high on my back in a snatch grip and then drop myself under it faster than the bar can fall so i catch it in the bottom position with my arms fully extended. took me a while to be able to do that with a broomstick. took me a while to get fast enough and also to hit that position tightly. seems to me anyway that adding weight doesn’t dramatically change the nature of the exercise. i think it is about learning the transition from everything being loose for a fast drop then everything tightening up for a comfortable catch.
you can practice the drop from the hang, too. but that is harder because you need to not only get the above part right, you need to get the hip drive and extension right as well. so it is more complicated to do.
cleans are hard because there isn’t a drop equivalent, i don’t think. and hang cleans can be hard because they build in the hip drive and extension component already.
a lot of people seem to think that you can’t practice these with broomsticks or with just the bar because the bar is ‘too light’. i think that is partly because it is hard to develop the muscular control to drive the hips properly / extend at reduced force. also (tied up with that) the stick is totally unforgiving about your bar path. i’m working on trying to get the 2nd position / hip drive transition that results in the bar going UP rather than OUT and that results in the bar (or stick) landing on me (back a bit) comfortably when i do hit a tight bottom position. i think stick work / bar work / light weight work is useful for that. gives me a lot of practice in dropping under, too. i find getting a tight bottom position for cleans harder than for snatches. god damn i hate front squats.
congrats on your PR!! of course you have a lot more in you! you have very powerful looking legs indeed. you really are going to kick some ass with your oly lifting!
Interesting discussion going on in here, the cannon ball comparison makes a lot of sense. It’ll be cool to see vids of how you trick your mind into letting your body do it.
Alexus-Great thoughts. Your knowledge is extensive and quite helpful!
Patch-I am also excited to see if I can override my instincts.
On Saturday I went up to Indianapolis to visit Bill Hartman and Mike Robertson at IFAST. My oly coach and another friend went to get assessments. I went up with them to get some more pointers and try to figure out why the front of my hips are killing me so bad when I back squat.
As always, I learned way more than I could have imagined. Lucky for me, another olympic coach was there too. He and my coach had some mutual friends in the weightlifting circle. He was able to correct a few things in my form. It was a great learning experience.
As for the hip pain, Bill (the PT genius) found that my problem had nothing to do with tight hip flexors. My hip flexors are plenty stretched. The pain is from some bone on bone action due to weak glute medius and adductors. So, I’ve been demoted to goblet squats with a band around my knees. I really need to learn to drive my knees out even harder than I ever thought imaginable. He also gave me some stuff to work on foot strength.
Today’s workout was more of a rehab day. I was hungry, so I didn’t have much steam.
Wednesday workout:
During the afternoon, while watching TV, I did some activation stuff.
3 sets of squats with a band around my knees. I was focusing on driving my knees out harder than I’ve ever driven them out before. I used to think I was driving out, but this weekend I was schooled in what knee drive is all about.
I supersetted these with a foot flexion drill Bill Hartman gave me, to strengthen my feet. While laying on your back, you have a band attached to something that won’t move. THe other end is on your foot. You then flex your foot up to towards your head and then bend your knee up towards your chest.
In the evening I went to my parent’s house to help with their bathroom renovations. I got to sledgehammer the tub! That was pretty fun.
Late evening I went over to my coach’s garage to do some oly lifting. It was a snatch day. We worked on mostly technique stuff again. I’m in the process of figuring some technique stuff out. I’m finding that it’s one thing to know what to do, and it’s quite another to convince your body to do it. Here are a couple things I’m working on:
-DROPPING!!!
-Getting my extension from my hips and not by jerking my lower back
-Not thinking too much. I tend to over think.
-Keeping the bar close.
-Big V with the upper back
I’m really trying not to get frustrated. Sometimes I feel like my body is never going to play along. Okay, enough of that. I will just keep at it. It’s got to sink in at some point.
[quote]sbmart2 wrote:
I’m finding that it’s one thing to know what to do, and it’s quite another to convince your body to do it.[/quote]
Oh yes, know what you are going through well. And sometimes the body does something right but I can’t figure out what I did. Ah well it will all sync eventually. I’m not quite sure about you, but I’ve been a bit sporadic with oly lifts (diving comes first for me until the seasons over) so that doesn’t help.
Your hip issues sounds like mine. I actually can’t bring my leg very far towards my torso without discomfort. I’ve been doing glute stuff for a few months now and have recently added stepovers to free up my hips some more. I’m hoping swimming breaststroke will take care of any medius weakness - they are certainly sore after I’ve been in the pool, at any rate.
i’ll give them a go. on the look out for stuff i can do with my bands… both of those sound very useful for me.