11-10-28: Handstand Push-Ups and Power Snatches

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Friday, October 28th, 2011

Where was THIS a year or so ago? Big thanks to the fine men and women at CrossFit Camp Dubs: Forging Elite Warriors in the Mountains of Afghanistan.

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WoD: 10 Rounds or 25m AMRAP

• 10 Handstand Push-Ups- Band-assist
• 3 Power Snatches 155# 115#

Well, it was bound to happen. After feeling pretty good setting new strength PRs over the last few weeks, I needed the amazing ability of CrossFit to suddenly and abruptly keep my ego in check. Yup, a lengthy couplet chock-full of two movements I sort of suck at...I used to think I was ok at power snatches, at least prior to starting at Elm City. Now I've had the chance to be coached and had my technique looked at by someone else, and have a much better grasp on all the things I need to work on. They are legion.

Handstand push-ups have recently become near impossible again, since I graduated to doing them with assistance bands from the pull-up bar. Hell, its not even the HSPU's themselves... its getting myself kicked up into the correct position in the first freaking place. Well, I got a bit of practice today, that's for damn sure.

Today was a lovely workout, where there were only two of us (my assumption is that everyone else was saving themselves for tomorrow's Barbells for Boobs sponsored "Grace" (30 Clean & Jerks for time) being hosted locally at CrossFit New Haven.) which led to LOTS of personalized training and feedback. We blew through the first round in 90 seconds, and set that as the pace we should maintain. Sounded good on paper. Round two took quite a bit longer, and after that all bets were pretty much off. The second or third round, I could barely kick up into the bands. My power snatch form was unsteady throughout, which was VERY frustrating.

When we started the workout, there was no 25 minute cap, and no AMRAP element, just the goal of ten rounds, to ensure a proper focus on form, especially on the snatches, where a workout like "Grace" will tend to devastate form, leading those in the real Olympic community to hate CrossFit. Rightfully so. In musical terms (you did see the banner at the top of the blog, right?), its the equivalent of someone trying to play a Charlie Parker solo by wiggling their fingers as fast as they can go. Sure, they played a lot of notes, but chances are NONE of them were right, and it didn't sound *anything* like Bird. So, the goal was to avoid that, and where necessary, time was taken to stop and coach the power snatch.

My eye opener came when Coach Vin shot a video of one of my reps. Mid workout, he had me stop to watch. I'll be damned. The amount of crap I do wrong is frackin' JAW-DROPPING. Most heinous, I do the stripper move. Despite focusing on the start of the lift being a deadlift, apparently the sheer terror of what follows after the deadlift portion makes me completely crap the bed. The first thing to move up is my ass, like I'm sliding it up a stripper pole. (I wonder how many hits that phrase is gonna give me from Google searches...)

At some point, we were asked where we were in the workout. Kara had stormed into her 8th round, moving like a champ. I gasped out that I had just finished my fifth round. Next thing I knew, Vin had written the slight variation of "25m AMRAP" on the whiteboard. Again, form shouldn't suffer, but he apparently didn't want my corpse screwing everything up for the next class coming in at 6:30am. I continued trying to to work on my power snatch form as well as I could, and was finding somewhat more luck with the band-assist HSPUs. By the time the timer was up, I had amassed 7 full rounds and 4 HSPUs. Not bad, since I seriously thought I was going to pass out just about every time I came down from the HSPUs and in between power snatches after about the third round. That can be the one HUGE problem with working out first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. No gas in the tank can mean just exactly that.