12-02-15: Presses and snatch balances

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Wednesday, February 15th, 2012

Overhead press. Note the utter LACK of knee bends or leg action. The ONLY thing moving the weight is the upper body. Everything from the nipples down is locked into total support for the moving weight. Everything.

Snatch Balance. A slight dip (pic. 2) and re-extension of the legs drives the bar up, allowing time to redirect the body under the bar, catching the bar with arms fully extended. Fun fun fun...

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• Strength: 5-5-4-4-3-3
  Press @ 85% (110#)
• Skill Work: Snatch Balance (65#)
  

Push presses... you know, I don't think I've done these since June. That was my last PR at least, so I think that was the last time I did them at any sort of weight. Given another 7 months of work, I decided to up my work weight a bit from the original 85% of 115#, which would have been 100#. 110# instead, which was nice in that I then got to work in with Woody, a recovering distance junky. Between the work he's doing, and my making my way back from soccer and frisbee imbalances (upper body strength? Schwa?!), we both ended up at 110#.

I think I picked well, since the first two rounds felt like I had "one or two left in the tank," as 85% of 1RM should come out to a 6-7 reps. By the third or fourth rounds, fatigue was building up and I started struggling to finish the rounds. By the final two, the supposedly "easiest" ones (if you're naive), I was barely finishing. w00t! However, I was happy to make it through without failing any of them.

After that, it was on to working on the snatch skill set. I chose the snatch balance, since dropping into the bottom position is one of the biggest issues still facing my performance on the full movement. After several reps at 45#, I moved up to 65#, and instantly the struggles began. One of my big struggles is getting all the way down cleanly and quickly, compared to catching the bar most of the way down and "riding the elevator" the rest of the way down. I think I started to see some success, or rather, more success... still some work to do.

 Best song of the workout:

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