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| Click to embiggenate. Natalie Burgener is just _awesome_. That third pic? The full squat while receiving the bar on the shoulders? I couldn't even BEGIN to get there today. |
Power:
Clean & Jerk 1RM – 15 min cap
WOD: 3 Rounds
- 15 Power Clean @ ¾ BW
- 200m Row/Run
(Warning: Here's where I start whinging about how much I lost when I ended up taking a month off. Feel free to surf on if this bores you. It bores me, but it bears dealing with. As much as I try to put as good a spin as possible on my accomplishments, I think its even more important to try to analyze those things that don't feel like they came together, to hit it harder (and smarter) next time.)
After a nice warm-up, we walked through the finer points of the clean, and then of the jerk. It felt freaking ALIEN to me. I could search through this blog and find the last time I C&J'ed, but it doesn't really matter. It was too damn long ago, and I've forgotten most of what I ever learned/taught myself about it. I could NOT make the full extension make the weighted pvc feel weightless, and forget completely about hitting the receiving squat position. If I ever had it, its gone now. Admittedly, in trying to follow ECC's programming, and going at 5:30 in the morning, I'm not taking the opportunity to review and relearn tips and techniques via the ever-increasingly awesome Crossfit Exercises and Demos page. The only part that felt comfortable today was the jerk, using a split jerk technique. This isn't that shocking, since one of the most recent videos in the Crossfit Journal was Coach B (Natalie's dad, from above) coaching Dave Lipson on the jerk. While I still had coachable points in need of improvement (wider split, allowing me to get further under the bar, so I wouldn't have to jerk it as high), I had a starting idea of what I was doing, and a good concept of how those improvements could be implemented. The clean felt like I was trying to learn how to fly while stapled to the ground.
That said, I did realize (well after the fact) that I come equipped with my own re-training regimen. Tomorrow (and probably every day I workout for the foreseeable future), I'm going to work on my med ball cleans. These are what got me cleaning with a bar correctly the first time, back in the day. Actually, it couldn't have been that long ago, since I only just learned the med ball variety this past December. So, hopefully that means my bar clean and jerk can't be too forgotten, since I only started getting THAT dialed in some time after December, right? One can hope.
We were tasked with finding our 1RM for the day in 15 minutes. Spending more time working on form rather than pushing the envelope, I hit a max of #125. If I could have put the form together, I could have been lifting a lot more than that. For the metcon, it was 3 rounds of 15 power cleans at 3/4ths body weight, followed by 200m of rowing or running. Given my form struggles, I opted to drop a little weight, down to #115, and keep it there. As Rx'ed, I should have been at 155# or so. I wish. The wod was, unsurprisingly, murder, though a somewhat easy variety. I tried to focus on hitting better technique on the cleans, since now the squat was removed from the equation, and had some success. I ended up rowing on the 1st and 3rd rounds, and running for the 2nd. As always, the cardio aspect just devastated me. While I had some muscle-fatigue from about rep 10 of the first round, I never really recovered from the first row, and nearly crapped out on the run. The final row was just an attempt to finally finish the workout... hopefully within 30 seconds or so of the second to last person.
While there wasn't a huge emphasis on time (so we could focus on form on the power cleans), it's still never fun coming in last. But, there's a line from Christopher McDougall's Born to Run that I've always loved: "It's easy to finish first. It's hard to finish last." But you still have to finish it. It's not about the race anyways, at least not with anyone ELSE. In the race against myself, I came in first. And last. And sideways. I gotta work on my form.
EDIT: I just updated my Personal Records page. Turns out I set a 10# PR on the C&J today, and did the WoD at my former PR. I guess that actually makes me feel a bit better. It doesn't change the fact that I was struggling with form at every weight from an empty bar on up... but hey, I put 10# on that Personal Record! ;)
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