Daily maxin' and back crackin'

So, I drove south to train with Coach H yesterday morning (as has become my custom on Wednesdays), and to my delight he says we are doing a daily max. Yay!

I mean, really, what good CrossFitter doesn't love to find a 1 rep max? It is part of the cult people. :-p

My current max in Olympic lifting training was 45kg (99# - just multiply the value in kilos by 2.2). That includes practice, and my first competition.

In practice I was a mess, and I don't even think I could stand up with 45. In competition, it was easy and light. Not a struggle at all to stand up with it at all. So I knew my "true" max was higher, but I was sure how much higher.

So, off we go in our practice session. I took the weight off the rack, did one split jerk from behind the neck, then dropped the bar, then did a full squat clean from the floor. (Oly lifting training is full of these "combo moves" as I call them. Like 1 clean and 3 front squats, or 1 clean and 1 power jerk and 1 split jerk. I love it.)

My weights went something like this:
35-45-48-50-52.5-55

I really thought I was done at 52.5! It was sloooooow standing up. But Coach H had me load my bar with 55, and we were off. I pressed out the 55kg jerk, so that didn't go too well. But my 55kg clean went great! Again, it was slooooow off the floor, but I stood up with it! Woooooooo!

I know 55 kilos is only 112#, so not exactly the most amazing squat clean in the universe, but it was amazing to me. I haven't felt this excited about making progress on a skill in a very long time.

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I'm still having that weird pain in my hip, so instead of full snatching, we did a horrible exercise where you start from the hang, and then lower yourself through the proper positions in the lift. So, it's like an eccentric version of the lift. I have to do this because my back is too weak and tight to get into the correct starting position for the snatch. And because I just plain need practice in how to make that transition from floor to knee to above the knee to power position to jump. (More on this later)

Because I can't do the start position correctly, right now I only snatch from mid-thigh, above the knee and just below the knee. Last practice with Coach H I snatched 42 or 43 kilos from above the knee -- which is incredible since my current PR is 45. So once I get my starting position fixed, I should really start making big progress. Wheeee! :-D

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Well, yesterday was my very first adjustment at the chiropractor. My husband has been doing chiropractic care *forever*, but since I don't suffer from any chronic back pain, I never really considered it. At least not until I learned from my Oly coaches that my back was incredibly weak and also incredibly tight -- and that the tightness was affecting movement throughout my lower back and hips. Not cool!

So in addition to strengthening my back under their direction, I decided I would also hit up husband's chiropractor and see if she could help loosen things up and improve my flexibility as I got stronger.

After reviewing my xrays with her, turns out I have a curvy spine! How weird is that! hehe So if you look at my back, as my spine leaves my pelvis, it curves over to the left and back in. There's some little "mini" curves just below my shoulder blades. The tightness comes from the body trying to compensate and keep the spine in line -- by tightening the connecting muscles first on the inward side of the curve, and then on the outward side of the curve. It's like a tug-of-war that's locked in a stalemate.

I'll admit, I'm still a bit skeptical of the whole thing. I'll believe it's when I see a second set of xrays after a few weeks of care and less curve. :) Also, less tightness in my low back after some of my lifting exercises would make me a *true* believer. :-D

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One more thought on going to the chiropractor. Maybe this is venturing into TMI territory, but after my first adjustment yesterday, I couldn't help but make the connection between how your first adjustment is like your first trip to the gynecologist.

Here's my point. When you go to the gynecologist, you know lots of people who have gone, and you kind of get the general idea of what they're going to do to you. But for some reason, NO ONE warns you about the really surprising parts!

For gynecology, nobody warned me before my first appointment that the doctor was going to do a breast exam. I knew she would be poking around "down there", but geez, someone could've warned me about the stuff that was going to happen up top!

At the chiropractor, I really would've liked some prior warning that she was going to try to twist my head off my fucking neck! Seriously! She kinda felt around my neck, turned my head, everything was fine, and then BAM! What the fuck! So much stuff cracked inside my neck it made my sick to my stomach. I am *not* one of those people who likes things to crack -- except maybe a nice low back stretch, with one or two small pops. That is it.

So yeah, I am not so much looking forward to going back, especially because of the neck thing, but I am committed to trying it because I really want to do everything I can to get my body in optimal shape for Oly lifting. I'm also going to try some therapeutic massage as well, even though my last experience with that kinda sucked. The lady was on my traps for-ev-er and they were sore for a week afterward. Not cool!

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Sorry this ended up so long! I know some of you wanted to hear more about my Oly adventures. I will try to keep it shorter and sweeter next time, and stick more to exact details on what we do in the training sessions, and what I'm learning about the lifts. Knowledge is power! :-D

Cleans with Coach Aimee

Hello from vacation! :) We're relaxing in our hotel after a fun afternoon at the water park. We had dinner at a DINER, which we were both super-stoked about, because good diners do not exist in the south. Yes, we're going back again in the morning for breakfast. :-D

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Soooooooo, let's talk about Monday, shall we? (Saturday and Sunday were essentially rest days)

In the morning I had an hour-long, 1-on-1 coaching session with Aimee Lyons at CF KoP. I had emailed her a long list of stuff to review, but we spent the entire hour on the clean.

Feel free to skip the following section, I need to write about what we did so I won't forget...

We started with the first pull, because as Aimee said, "there's a lot you can fuck up when you pull the bar off the ground."

First, she totally revamped my setup. Feet were moved farther apart -- they were too narrow. Toes and knees were pointed slightly out. Ass was lowered. A LOT.

Then, I tried a hook grip on the ladies bar. I think that was the first time I actually did hook grip properly, with my thumb wrapped around the bar, and my fingers wrapped around my thumb. I so need one of those bars now... Not likely to happen any time soon.

Then, my ass was lowered MORE. Aimee proved to me that my shoulders were still in front of the bar, even with my ass practically on the grass. Craziness -- no wonder I couldn't figure this shit out on my own.

Learning to start the pull slowly took me a minute. Pulling the bar against my shins was more learn-able, since I've been practicing that with deadlifts. Took me another minute to figure out how to move my knees out of the way -- unbend, but don't completely straighten.

Cue: "Pull slowly to your pockets, then explode."

With all the work we did at the start, I was overthinking, and having a hard time with my "explosion". I even forgot to move my feet on a few attempts, WTF? *sigh* I am always such a trainwreck during 1-on-1 sessions. I trainwrecked a good bit at my L1 cert anytime the instructor was focused directly on me. Especially during push jerk, ugh.

Anyway, also related to L1, my squat is still busted. Fuck fuckity fuck. Boo.

I first learned I had a butt wink at my L1, and started trying to fix it after that. But apparently I haven't gone far enough, because it's still there. And it's keeping me from coming up out of the bottom of the squat clean.

Scenario: clean bar, land in squat, lose lumbar at bottom of squat, fight up to regain lumbar, ass jumps up, then (if you're lucky and the load is light) you come up out of the squat. Not a pretty picture.

So, I am to practice deep front squats with good form. "Good form" == no loss of lumbar, no shooting butt up first out of bottom (think about elbows/chest up first). I am going to need to do a lot of video of myself...

I have to learn to release the hook grip. That could be a problem once I get to heavier loads.

I squat cleaned 113, but failed 3-4 attempts at 125. One attempt I cleaned and caught at the bottom, but my lumbar was lost so I couldn't get back out of the bottom.

Game plan:
 - Practice squat cleans @ 95# with low ass starting position, hook grip, slow first pull and then explosion, release of hook grip, strong front squat with high elbows out of the bottom; use video to determine if arms are bending early
 - Practice slow first pull and POP @ 55# or 65# (also with new setup)
 - Squat therapy (need to Google for more advice on fixing butt wink...)

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While I learned SO MUCH at this session, which was exciting, I have to admit that by the end I felt very frustrated and defeated. Not being able to do 125 for a "finale" was very disheartening, and I could feel some tears coming up. Not being able to get out of the bottom of the squat a few times even at 113# was incredibly frustrating, and surprising. That's not where I expected to fail, because I thought front squats were one of my strengths. Hell, Jason complimented me on my front squat form during my last visit! I guess maybe it doesn't exactly translate to the front squat the end of a clean... 

Driving home I admit that I was thinking, "if I'm this fucked up on a lift like the clean, what makes me capable of helping others learn this stuff?"


I know the best I can do for my athletes is continue to learn and better myself, and I *am* doing that... But I guess that perfectionist side of me demands that I be better, know more, before I put myself in front of others and ask them to trust my advice.

At some point you have to be GOOD to be a coach, good intentions just won't make the cut...

So yeah, I think I'll be back in Philly sooner rather than later for more coaching, and I'll be doing a lot more clean videos of myself and really applying what I have learned. That's the only area I will focus on as far as barbell movements, while I continue to focus on improving my gymnastics.

Speaking of which, I forgot my kip again, or something, but the story of Monday afternoon's 30 minute WOD will have to wait til another day, no more computer for me tonight. Back to vacation. :)

5000 pounds, WOD backlog

For those subscribed to my feed, I apologize in advance for all the new posts that will be popping up in the next few days. Instead of catching up on the last 4-5 weeks of WODs in one giant post, I'm going to publish separate posts for each WOD. This works best for me because of how I use labels to categorize WODs by the exercises they contain, but will probably cause some annoyance in your feed reader, Sorry in advance!

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I am always happy to work on cleans, they are my Oly lifting "happy place". :)

WOD: Clean 7500lbs / 5000lbs for time.

Results: 8:18 -- 50 reps @ 100#

I chose that load because it made the rep count a nice, even 50. It's too far back for me to remember how many reps I was stringing together, but judging from my time, I think I kept up a decent pace overall.

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These are the types of workouts where I feel like, yes I know what I'm doing, yes I have some skill, and yes maybe I have something to share with others to help them on their journeys...