Fenrir's Mayhem: God of War, Part 1/n

It was an epic adventure today! I did finish last today, but I put up one heck of a fight and held my own as well as apparently dominating WOD 1, at least from what people have told me.  All I knew was that I just kept moving and heard my judge and my ride-or-die buddies yelling at me to NOT die.

Many more photographs, obviously will show up, but here's the first cut...

I didn't make this one, but I gave it all I got.  My shoulder-to-overheads have been suffering a fair amount in my transition in form, but the sacrifice now with recommended changes from Coach J will most likely translate to a much longer lifetime of lifting aggressively.  I have learned this past year or so that if Coach J recommends something, it's a good idea to listen to him because I have seen many athletes get injured when they *don't* listen to his advice, and he has not had any significant injuries in the time I have known him. 

Ugly, but I succeeded in doing Snatchsquatch.  I had to remember all the cues that Coach J had given me for this, including waiting on my second pull until the barbell hits my hip crease. Yes, it did take some physical cues from him and some questionable verbal cues along with addressing things unique to martial arts and music, but it's slowly working. 

I was surprised I even came close to finishing the Ride to Hel!

And then the Hounds of Garmr ate me alive...

So today was the main workouts themselves... first let me introduce a handful of characters to my little epic...

First there's Coach A, the "Lion of Iron Legion", who has been like the "younger older brother" at the gym with his wisdom beyond years.  He also took second place in the male individual RX. Suffice to say not only is he a very capable athlete, especially in weightlifting, but he's also highly intelligent with a knack for putting people back together.

And then there's the one and only Coach J, who has been my primary mentor figure at the gym as well as my weightlifting coach and all-around geekiness arch-rival. He's played a huge role in getting me not only to lift more safely, but also helped me build up my endurance and inspired me to get back into music again, which has also boosted my athletic performance. There's a reason why I see him as a strong mentor figure at the gym for me...

The head Viking himself who started this wonderful community and got me started on my weightlifting journey even if I had already started to do some CrossFit already...

And then there's my "sister" of the matching pants and fellow scaled athlete, although she did end up destroying me this weekend in all but the first WOD, which was the one that involved a good couple of sprints.

And then there's Rothgar, the head Viking's trusty canine. He simply makes my day with his cuteness!

And then there's my ride-or-die training partner, T, who has also been very much like a mentor figure in the gym for things that a highly intelligent, super-geeky, very technical 37 year old male can't exactly help with... 

Clean and Jerk Complex Fun

So I have generally been trying to partition my training into a conditioning component (typically CrossFit or endurance work depending on what's on my barbell programming) and weightlifting.  Today, I worked on endurance drills... after a general warmup, it was six rounds of three minute runs with a 45 second break in between.  Suffice to say, I was thankful that I did NOT get lost in the vicinity of the gym and downtown!  Suddenly, I understood why Coach J made a comment to the effect of it being a *tough* workout especially in the heat and humidity.  He's a tough cookie to have done it in the mid-day heat versus the late afternoon I did this!

And then there was the clean & jerk training I did afterwards... suffice to say, I'm VERY thankful for Coach J even if he generally hung back because he was split between a whole bunch of athletes with varying levels of competencies and needs, including a little kid whose focus makes mine look halfway decent and two adults with some pretty significant injuries to work with and around.  He's amazing at giving me very useful cues as well as reminding me when to stop and regroup.  I tend NOT to remember when to stop while trying to hit perfection or at least as close as I can get to it.

Apparently with cleans, I'm not supposed to pull as high as I do with the snatch, and I'm actually supposed to wait a bit longer before I initiate the second pull. The second pull actually begins at the "pocket" and apparently is supposed to be much shorter and more abrupt than its snatch counterpart.  And then there's my jerk... I've opted to focus on squat jerk because it's got far fewer degrees of freedom, which increases the probability of a long career in weightlifting and is actually more appropriate for me given my build.  For the record, fatigued jerking is brutal, but it is a reality, especially if my lifts are relatively close to each other, like they were at X3 back in September.  Semi-visible and semi-audible is Coach J, who is floating between multiple athletes, giving verbal cues, and/or doing his own lifts with the class to keep his own skills sharp. 

And then there were the clean pulls to help me with my timing and positioning issues.  These are typically relatively heavy, and Coach J was trying to get me to emphasize moving my knees out of the way quickly as well as getting my chest up, which in turn gets my knees back under the bar and maintaining balance. And then there's the issue of timing my second pull, which is supposed to happen relatively high up, but I tend to fire off way too early, which then hinders my ability to drop under the bar properly.

CrossFit Iron Legion Halloween Party 2019, Valkyrie Photography Style Plus A Few Snatch Complexes

I had a little too much fun with I. Ramirez of Valkyrie Photography and my fellow CrossFit athletes after scaling 20.3 and completing it in 6:30 minutes.

Nothing like being among fellow CrossFit athletes on Halloween for a good grin!

And then there was barbell class, where I was working on snatches, primarily focusing on the high pull and power snatches, although I also had some fun with overhead squats.  I'm also looking forward to the analysis from Coach J in the morning as well as corrective drills to help me strengthen my position and timing.  Did I mention that I look up to Coach J quite a bit, especially with how he's able to actually give me good cues I can actually remember and utilize, as well as being a bit of a mentor figure despite being slightly younger than me?

I still struggle with NOT pulling the barbell during the second half of the first pull, although it's gotten a bit better with me starting with a wider initial stance combined with pulling my knees out of the way faster.  The next challenge is to get me to drop at more than one depth and actually be able to control it.  I do know it is a function of how high I actually pull the bar, although it's not the most linear of functions.

Quasi-Sight Reading Fun Plus Endurance Work

First... I dug up some old sheet music I haven't really touched in many years.

There's Tchaikovsky's Marche Slav, a rather watered down version admittedly, but still very entertaining and fun to play with.

And then there's Ippolitov-Ivanov's Caucasian Sketches, which I don't know too much about beyond that it's inspired by the folk music of the Caucasus mountains in Russia.

This morning, I had some fun with my barbell training, which included lots of critical fumbles on my snatches, but after observing the footage, I realized that I am too forward weighted and I'm STILL rowing the bar towards myself. My CNS is apparently a lot more fried than I thought from 20.3 with the 45x95 lb deadlifts and 45x135 lb deadlifts when I'm weighing in around 140 lbs.  Those 135 lb deadlifts felt both easier and harder! 

I did much better on the runs, and I was generally pretty consistent in my times on my shorter runs. The longer runs were a bit of an obstacle course because of the massive art festival next to the gym, but I think I still held up pretty well. 

Halloween Party and CrossFit Open 20.3

I hope to Rx at least one more WOD this season in the CrossFit Open. Whether or not it happens remains to be seen, but 20.3 was one I definitely scaled because I wanted to actually do the entire workout and see just how much progress I had made since February or March of 2018.  So CrossFit Open was a repeat of 18.3, which was as follows for scaled: 21-15-9 reps of 95 lb deadlifts and hand-release push-ups followed by 21-15-9 reps of 135 lb deadlifts with a 50 foot bear crawl in between. This is FAR better than the 155 and 205 lb deadlifts and the handstand push-ups and handstand walks in Rx.  All of this work is under a time-cap of 9 minutes.

I had a plan, and I stuck with it, which included pre-hydrating and taking a bit of First Phorm Project 1 and Ignition, doing the warmup prior to the WOD, and going into the WOD with my glasses off because I know I lost a lot of time in 2018 fumbling with my glasses on the hand-release push-ups and bear crawls, plus I notice I focus significantly better when I can barely see. Also, I had designated pausing points during the WOD, such as the transition from my final hand-release push-up to the 135 lb barbell and quick sips of water between sets of the heavier deadlifts.  I was able to do 95 lbs unbroken without any issues, and I knew I could do 135 lbs unbroken... somewhat. I chose to break the round of 21 into sets of 7, round of 15 into sets of 5, and the round of 9 into a set of 5 and a set of 4.  The result? Completing the entire WOD in 6:30!

And then there was the Halloween party that followed.  I decided to test out my potential medieval garb and dress up as an elven archer, complete with Xibalba in hand.

Power Clean Experiment

So there's been some experimenting with my clean form because I have a tendency to row the barbell in past my knee as well as not having my posterior chain firing off properly.  Coach J has had me experiment with changing my starting position yet again, including adjusting the height of my hips and/or the width of my stance along with speeding up my initial pull to give me LESS time to think about what I'm doing and just go through. 

These are both with my higher hipped starts, complete with some cues to help me get started.  Ideally, the bar path is almost entirely straight up.  In reality with the way I tend to move, the bar tends to follow a much more curved path as I row it in.  I get to work on my deficit deadlifts and pulls once more to make sure my posterior chain gets properly engaged as well as adjusting my timing so I can get a stronger clean!

Various Barbell Drills

Weightlifting has been a sanity saver in the absence of a reliable archery range and has actually given me far better results for the time involved, although I do try to get to a decent range when I can.

Monday was a pretty standard barbell class with hang power snatches, snatch pulls, and overhead squats. I was actually late for class courtesy of a doctor's visit that ran overtime and was in a bit of a mood from that combined with traffic and a less-than-helpful fuzzball.

First were the power snatches, where I still have a tendency to row the bar in as well as not always remembering to drop down fast enough. Apparently I also sometimes forget to get the knees back under the bar. It's a learning process, but it can also get pretty steep.

Then there were the snatch pulls to help with positioning, timing, and maintaining smoothness.  Again, I do struggle there with my tendency to row the bar in, but that's where block pulls start coming in handy, as well as remembering some of the cues I've learned.

To cap it off on Monday, there were some overhead squats, which are my strength and one of my favorite, most comforting lifts.  Granted, I struggle to get very much over my head, but if it safely gets over my head and stays up there, I can overhead squat it.

So today (Tuesday), I worked on some drills based on my observations of where I tend to struggle on my snatches.  One thing I have learned from a mixture of working with Coach J and following sites like Ma Strength and observing other athletes is how to address form faults.  Coach J has been especially helpful in teaching me what to look out for and what will likely help me reinforce better movement patterns. I ended up working on my drop snatches because I have some trouble dropping down quickly enough on my snatches as well as block snatch pulls because I have some trouble with timing and positioning on my pulls.

I do have a tendency to not be very smooth or continuous on my drop snatches and turn it into a bit of a piecewise function when it should be a continuous function where there's no abrupt change in direction.  And then there were the snatch pulls from the blocks... Apparently I was able to finally figure out how to get my knees back under the bar in a timely manner, although it was very subtle and Coach J had to point it out to me.

And 20.2 Is In The Books...

I had to scale 20.2.  I am NOWHERE near doing toes-to-bars. Even hanging knee raises are generally difficult for me.  The 35 lb dumbbell thrusters and double unders aren't too bad for me, even if I will be slower than a tortoise.

Basically 20.2 for me as a scaled athlete was a 20 minute AMRAP of 4 dumbbell thrusters (20 lbs), 6 hanging knee raises, and 24 single unders.  I was thrilled to have completed just over 22 rounds without any stops aside from when it got a little too hot and I had to shed a layer of clothing.  My judge was amazing, and she crushed it at 27 rounds I think.  I was just thankful that I didn't collapse, stop, have a hypoglycemia episode, or otherwise think I was going to die.  This was nowhere as spectacular as my 20.1 performance, where I *almost* finished 80% of the WOD at RX, but still a respectable one given that I am extremely weak in gymnastics and usually fumble with the jumprope.

Coach J has taught me exceptionally well for breathing technique!

Working on Barbell Drills

So circumstances got to where I couldn't make my usual class time on Friday. That's what Saturday is for.

This was a focus on clean & jerk, opening up with some triples at moderate-challenging weights, leading into heavy pulls and some moderate-challenging back squats. I generally notice that I tend to row the bar in and not keep my heels down long enough during the clean. By rowing the bar in, I'm not generating as much of the upward force I need to be able to produce a controlled squeeze that will then let me drop under the bar faster.  And then on my jerk, I'm having some trouble dropping under fast enough, and I suspect it's a mixture of not enough explosiveness in my upward drive and not aiming the bar back far enough. 

And then there were the clean pulls.  I was pretty fatigued going into these, plus part of my circumstances of NOT getting to the gym yesterday involved some potential medical concerns. These were all done at 115 lbs, close to 95% of my 1RM. The benefit of the heavy clean pulls is that I'm forced to concentrate much more on smoothness, consistency, and positioning than on simply exploding upwards. 

And then there was the back squat, which will help me build up the strength in my legs, core, and glutes to be a better lifter all-around.  I'm especially trying to focus on my squats knowing that there is a very strong correlation backed by causation for enhancing my abilities to squat jerk. Ultimately, I want to move from power jerk to a more consistent squat jerk. I don't ever see myself ever becoming Lu Xiaojun or Shi Zhiyong, but I can always emulate them!

Corrective Drills - Clean & Jerk Flavored

So I have some growing pains as I'm transitioning from being a split jerker to a power / squat jerker after realizing that I tend to do better with fewer degrees of freedom.  My 1RM on my jerk has gone down significantly, but the name of the game is longevity, so I'm willing to take a temporary hit now for the long-term enjoyment of Olympic weightlifting and CrossFit.

I often have to do my workouts relatively independently because I choose to try and develop my power jerk into a squat jerk, plus the 1700 hrs time slot can be a little bit of a nightmare for me when I'm trying to share Coach J with a dozen other athletes with orthogonal needs. Luckily, he's also taught me many good cues to look out for as well as helping me program my supplemental drills.

Monday, I struggled massively on my clean and jerk once I got past my 85-90% mark.  My last successful clean and jerk was at 100 lbs, although my form did fall apart because I'm not quite dropping down fast enough.

And then my three failed attempts, all about halfway through the jerk, where I didn't quite commit to the lift and therefore didn't drop fast enough.  Part of the corrections involve working on both my jerk drive and then the tall jerk.

So some of the corrections I applied included the jerk drive, which involves a smooth dip and a forceful drive upwards, aka the first half of the jerk.

And then there's the tall jerk, which is effectively the second half of the jerk, where I'm extending my lower body and hitting the end of the jerk drive and then dropping under.  This is a much lighter weight drill than the jerk drive.

And although my cleans are much, much more successful and reliable than the snatch, I still have some issues with my form, particularly in position and timing.  I have a tendency to "row" the bar into myself once the bar passes my knees, so I have been working on deficit deadlifts to help me keep pulling until I reach my pocket.  The massive acceleration is supposed to occur once the bar reaches my pocket, and that's where I have to work on my clean pulls.  I also have a tendency to NOT squeeze upwards, and one of the cues I get as I pass above my knees is "chest up"... and every time I work on cleans or snatches, I can hear Coach J telling me "chest up" along with additional commentary based on what quirks I'm struggling with that moment.  I usually don't hear a coach's voice in my head in their absence, but I think Coach J is getting through to my skull!

I still tend to pull the barbell in, but it looks like my balance and timing are getting a bit better... of course, I will most likely hear from him soon once he catches up on the dozens of other athletes he's working with and programming workouts and nutrition plans!

CrossFit Open 20.1: Visiting the Realm of RX plus Following Up

So I did a thing... I RX'ed 20.1.  For RX, it was the following: 10 rounds of 8 ground-to-overheads at 65 lbs (snatch or clean & jerk acceptable as long as I lock out on top) plus 10 bar-facing burpees (both feet must leave ground at the same time when I actually jump over the bar) with a 15 minute time cap.

I had an amazing judge who also allowed me to be her judge as a practice for in case I actually have to judge other athletes.  She also put up one heck of a fight in the SX division!

And of course, Killer Parakeet had to poke his head up a bit.  Killer gave it 0 out of 10 stars, but I thought I did pretty darned well at RX by getting well into my 8th round!  Then again, Killer tends NOT to enjoy CrossFit Opens very much.  I didn't vomit or feel sick, and I didn't wind up in Xibalba or Tuonela even if I did taunt the Lords of Xibalba and the Swan of Tuonela quite a bit!

And then after watching my snatch and clean & jerk form go to heck in the name of CrossFit speed, Coach J gave me some accessory work for me to do to help me cool down and exit the hybrid Ranger / Barbarian state of mind that allowed me to do so well in this workout.  Coach J knows VERY well what can happen if I don't do something about the Barbarian Rage courtesy of me acquiring a level of Barbarian once upon a time, and he also knows that my levels of Bard have helped temper the Ranger quite a bit. 

I was able to get some work on re-educating my body on positioning and speed, including some buildup into squat jerk after working on some drop snatches, all at very light weights just to help get things to calm down.

And then there was the work leading up to squat jerks because they are much more forgiving than split jerks, plus Coach J thinks that I have the build and temperment that's much better suited for power / squat jerks along with a significantly reduced risk of injury. I am favoring squat jerks because that's one less degree of freedom for me to worry about in getting the bar overhead.

Corrective Drills: Drop Snatch and Jerk Drive

So as part of my quest to improve my snatches and clean & jerks, Coach J has given me drills such as deficit deadlifts / pulls, tall cleans, tall/drop snatches, jerk dips, jerk drives, and tall jerks.  He's been amazing at giving me insights and feedback even when he can't be there physically (usually because he's either tied up with another athlete / class / family), and has done wonders for me when other coaches have had smoke coming out of their ears.

The drop snatch is to help me drop down under the bar faster and hopefully catch lower as well as improving my footwork.  I tend to catch the bar really high, although I think my issues do arise from earlier in the lift due to questionable positioning during the pulls.  However, it never hurts to work on simply dropping under the bar.

The jerk drive is to help me dip and drive the bar from the front rack position, so approximately half of the jerk.  It's gotten better, but I do have a tendency to not be very explosive on my upward drive and not very smooth on my dip.  This drill also helps me reinforce better starting position, particularly with the low and outward elbows as well as making sure my shoulders are up and my core is properly braced.  I do tend to have some difficulty with the transition from the jerk drive into dropping underneath the bar, but first, we're working on my initial positioning to get some more consistency there. 

Olympic Recurve Experiment

Sometimes, I feel a bit impulsive and want to do some hypothesis testing. Today was a day for that because Saturdays tend to be my rest days. Tomorrow will be a hybrid barbell and endurance day after the disruptions to my schedule, courtesy of illness and a nuisance doctor visit.

Today's drill reminded me that I do need to work on pulling through the ENTIRE shot, which is a recurring theme that has also plagued me in Olympic weightlifting, where I've been shorting my pulls on my snatches and clean & jerks, especially when it gets heavy.  Or my timing is just way off.

Random Early Stage Fun: Spirited Away

For anyone who's known me for a while, I think it's pretty well known that I'm a big fan of many Studio Ghibli / Hayao Miyazaki films.  So as part of my hiatus from my standard mid/late Romantic era music, I've been digging up various pieces from Studio Ghibli films, particularly Spirited Away and Mononoke Hime, although I'm also hoping to find materials for Gedo Senki and Howl's Moving Castle. 

Today, after a sudden change in plans revolving around a cancelled first aid class, I thought I'd have some fun with some relatively easy to sight-read material. 

If my focus can hold, I may also have either another segment from Mononoke Hime or even a segment from Nightwish's "Imaginaerum" album.  Realistically, my restlessness is a 12 on a scale of 0-10, so I'm just as likely to do an active rest day workout so I can get back on track with my Olympic weightlifting sooner.  

X3 Championship Meet

It all started about a week and a half ago when the head Viking at my gym made a very passionate speech about the lack of CrossFit Iron Legion members competing... and then approaching me about this being a very local competition for me to try and showcase what I have learned from Coach J. It's VERY well-known that I have made some massive leaps and bounds in my snatch and clean & jerk despite the low 1RMs I have had.  Anyway... fast forward to today.

I did receive a bit of a devastating text from Coach J indicating that he had a family emergency he had to attend, but all through the day, he would message me with a mixture of cues, tips, and general reassurance and encouragement that I would do well.  Even from afar, he was basically walking me through and practically holding my hand and pretty much being there for me.

My high school English teacher buddy didn't know how to operate my camera to film, but she got a few good shots of me anyway on my 33 kg snatch.

The Bear then got my other two snatches, a successful 33 kg snatch and a spectacularly failed 36 kg snatch.

And then there were the clean and jerks.  I was only successful on the opener of 43 kg.  I got a little ambitious and went partway between how I was actually feeling and the plan that Coach J and I came up with for my jumps on Monday.  One thing I really love about Coach J is that he also trusts me with any choices and changes I make as well as giving me a rationale for why he recommends something for me. Plus he has a great way of helping me integrate music, martial arts, archery, and engineering into my lifting and training in general.

My cleans are significantly more reliable than my jerks.  I do have some issues with dropping under the bar quickly enough, and that is something that Coach J will be working on heavily with me. A lot of my issue seems to be a timing / rhythm issue lower down in the lift, so we will be addressing it soon. I suspect I will be getting a lot of dropping under work along with figuring out an optimal rhythm for my early pulls based on my natural balance and quirks.

And just for fun, I played with a Hercules hold again!

Pre-Competition Preparation 1/n

So Coach J did give me a really good outline of how to get ready for the upcoming Super Total X3 Competition. I'm only doing the Olympic weightlifting portion, but that is already a very tall order for me. There's also powerlifting and strongman as well as an award for someone who can do all three, but not at this point. Maybe next time, if I can ever get enthused about bench press and handling items of questionable sanitation.

Part of my preparation include doing 3x3 of my big lifts plus squats, all at around 50%, as well as my usual warmup drills to get things moving and remembering my position and timing.

My snatch is still struggling, and I did my lifts before Coach J showed up, but I did get to talk with him, and as always, he had some great insights. He didn't get to really work with me today, but I will be seeing him tomorrow morning for greater in-depth work.

And then there's the clean and jerk, which I did singly because it's a more fatiguing lift, plus my ride-or-die training buddy, who has shifted her focus to gymnastics to become a true CrossFitter and eventually qualify for the CrossFit Games, came around to give me some feedback based on what she's observed of me. Plus she did remind me of several of the cues from Coach J because sometimes, I'm more likely to listen to a fellow master's female athlete who is just as tenacious as I can be...

I really do find that I'm learning far more from Coach J than my last 3-4 coaches combined across 5-6 years, but then again, I think it has a lot to do with the mixed martial arts / music / dance / engineering background with the correct cues that work with my brain.  I still have a tendency to row the barbell in, but after talking to him after doing these lifts, it sounds like that can still be addressed without too much of a battle by adjusting my rhythm a bit.  This should be interesting in the morning...

I also did some blank-baling work yesterday as part of a plan to help calm my mind down, keep me active, and maybe gain some insights on some of my lifting quirks.

Absolute First Cut at Mononoke Hime

So I've been exploring and branching out with more contemporary music, especially with my keyboard NOT appreciating very much Chopin or Mussorgsky, plus I think I do need to use my fingers with slightly less brain power.  I got very lucky and came across some sheet music for a small subset of the Mononoke Hime Suite adapted for piano plus a fourth movement that I will be working on integrating into it.  Mononoke Hime is a film by Studio Ghibli, and what many of my classmates at Caltech consider to be the inspiration for the creation of Cylithera in my D&D campaigns and stories.  I am probably not very far from posting a follow-up video after cleaning up a couple of parts, particularly in the first movement ("Legend of Ashitaka") and the third movement ("Mononoke Hime") as well as integrating a fourth movement ("San and Ashitaka").

More Snatch Work: Dropping Down

I am elated at the progress I'm making in my Olympic lifts, particularly on the snatch! Coach J has been doing a wonderful job of providing me with insights on how to improve my form and leverage my mobility and build.  He has also pointed several amazing resources to me as a supplement to all the coaching he has provided me with along with being extremely patient with me when my brain starts overthinking and/or I make errors in interpreting the physics and cues. 

My 3 position snatch from the ground up prior to the dropping under drills, 65 lbs. It's been a while since I've been able to reliably snatch 65 lbs with halfway decent form. I'm catching very high, and I'm still having a lot of work with position and rhythm, but it's slowly getting there.

And then the drills to help correct my tendency to catch my lifts really high... There's a lot of position work involved as well as remembering what's supposed to activate.  Coach J has a good way of identifying cues that actually work with my brain as well as helping me reverse engineer a lift so I know how to minimize the degrees of freedom for error.

Adventure in Music: Going Outside of the Romantic Era

It's pretty well-known that I have a very strong preference for piano music in the Romantic era with composers such as Grieg, Chopin, and Mussorgsky. I decided to explore something a bit more contemporary recently, partially because I found something online semi-randomly while searching for something else, partially because something is a bit unhappy and needs something less technically demanding.  So I stumbled across the Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet.  Usually projects like this make me slightly nauseous because I thoroughly despise most Shakespeare, especially that awful play I had to read and analyze in 9th grade. However, I also took it as a challenge to explore expression and mild improvisation... and here's the first take that didn't result in any of the following: camera falling, incoming phone call messing with the recording, or muscle cramp.

Today is an absolute rest day from the rigors of CrossFit after realizing I went a straight week plus change without any rest, and I have had at least two coaches and my nutritionists get on me about that.  Then tomorrow, barring unfortunate circumstances, it's back to corrective and supplemental drills, Olympic weightlifting, and of course, the CrossFit WODs themselves.

Saturday Strongman Training

With a bit of encouragement from my ride-or-die training buddies, I decided to give the Strongman class a try. As it turned out, the actual instructor wasn't around, but the brain behind the Un-F*** Yourself class took the reins of leadership.  It was rather filthy, as always, but I did get to give myself a challenge outside of my more natural tendencies surrounding Olympic lifts.  The Saturday CrossFit WOD involved an obscene number of power snatches for speed, which I was NOT messing with in the midst of repairing my form, although I could have easily scaled to overhead squats or snatch balances. 

I had massive fun pulling sleds today... along with working on figuring out how to safely handle a sandbag and improving my ability to do a bottoms-up overhead kettlebell carry.  Filming courtesy of one of my fellow Hobbits, A. Gray-Baker.

Speed, Position, and Balance...

There's hope for me in the snatch after a mentally taxing training session with Coach J, who has been especially nice to me and taking the time to really work with me to try and clean up various habits of mine.  Once we got the general movement patterns, which incorporates a fast halting snatch deadlift, a modified fast Romanian deadlift without full extension, snatch pulls, and eventually muscle and power snatches, we experimented with weight to see where my form tends to break down. It broke pretty early at only 50 lbs.

The rationale for this drill is to help maintain proper balance, bar path, and tension in the right areas. Apparently, I have a tendency to tense up in my arms and shoulders way too early in anticipation of pulling up, so I'm also learning to "fire" up when the bar contacts my pocket, which also forces me to drop down much faster (usually...)

Dropping Under Drills: The Epic Continues

So along with some issues with my pulls and raising my elbows, which are starting to resolve a bit after a small modification to my snatch and clean setup and bar path along my legs, I have a tendency to not drop down properly. I seem to be stuck in a perpetual power position (above parallel) before riding it down to kimchee position.

I decided to amuse myself today by watching my movements as a function of weight. The idea is that I'm setting up for a tall power jerk (eventually to become a squat jerk... hopefully in the style of Lu Xiaojun) with the bar already set up at about eye level when I'm at full triple extension. Then, once I'm at full extension, I drop down and lock out and stand the weight up to the best of my abilities. Typically, this is a heavy drill, but I started light, as supervision was a bit scant because the brains behind me working on this was occupied coaching an actual CrossFit class. That being said, the brains still takes the time to make sure I'm NOT going to rack up critical fumbles during quiet times like when the class is occupied with a 500 meter row. I also had a fellow athlete assist me because sometimes, it's a bit hard to reach things!

Besides my general drop drown drills and scarecrows, I now have these to work with in an attempt to develop my Olympic lifts to a higher level beyond scaled CrossFit.

Snatch pulls and snatches

So I struggle with my snatch pulls because I'm maintaining tension in the wrong places and not getting enough of the up component on my chest and elbows. Working on pulls from various points has helped significantly, as well as adjusting my stance and grip.  This was from a solo workout today, minus Coach J, who has been instrumental in reversing years of questionable habits and trying to get me to lift more like the Chinese and eastern Russian athletes based on my anatomy and build.

I'm hoping to spend some quality time with Coach J, who troubleshoots the folks that Coach T hasn't quite been able to debug, so I can develop a much more powerful, efficient snatch and get past my 85 lb barrier.  I'd also like to get past my 120 lb barrier on the clean & jerk...

Dropping Under Quickly

Today was focusing on power jerks after realizing that my split jerks are not the most reliable, although I am eventually looking at moving into squat jerks because they play more towards my mobility combined with needing less thinking.

And then there were the heaving snatch balances to help me work on dropping under the bar faster.

Snatch Work With Lots of Verbal Cues

There is a second coach who works with me extensively on my lifts and has been my technical go-to person the last several months when I have questions that start delving further into physics and/or need more unorthodox cues.  I have a tendency to start my pull way too early as well as swinging myself and the bar instead of pushing/driving upwards.

This is me working on my snatch pulls, which is probably 99% of why I struggle with executing snatches properly and missing on my heavier weights. It's the equivalent of Hydra or Bronco misfiring while trying to flip someone in the air.

And then there's the snatch.  The second one was a significant misfire with me pulling the bar into myself instead of pushing my way up.  According to Coach J, my third snatch was the best one because I didn't start the actual pull until I was at my pocket, my feet stayed in position at the top of the snatch, and the bar actually went further back, startling me a bit because I'm used to it landing a bit more forward.  With proper position, including my weight being more forward and properly getting into proper triple extension, I can also drop under the bar much more quickly, allowing me to catch lower.