Wednesday's Reunion

Today I got to train with two mates of mine, Gerard and Tom, who I haven't seen in ages. Gerard was a training partner back when I started going to the gym, so it was great to get training with him again! Of course the craic was good, so the lifting suffered a little.

I started off with the shoulder rehabbing exercises. Thoracic spine extensions, bar hangs, lat stretches, shoulder dislocates, and overhead squats with a progressively narrower grip (These are really improving my flexibility). I'm feeling these in the left shoulder especially, hopefully this indicates they're working.

I was still training at home, so I couldn't snatch fully. Last time I did I almost tore a bicep lowering the weight back to the ground. I chose to do the snatch balance instead. I find these great for getting comfortable with full snatches, they really improve the lock out. I finished with some cleans, squats and power jerks. Everything was feeling a little off, but I'm sure once I get back to DCU, and start training normally, things will fall back into place. Here's what I did-

Snatch balance - 2x35, 2x40, 2x45, 2x50
Clean - 2x40, 2x50, 2x55, 2x60, 2x65, 2x70
Back Squat - 5x60, 5x70, 5x80, 5x90
Power Jerk - 3x40, 3x50, 3x60, 2x65, 2x60

The power jerks weren't feeling very solid at all. In hindsight I probably should have stayed below 50kg, and really focused on the lockout. The rehab exercises are leaving my shoulders pretty fatigued, but I'm sure this will improve with time.

Here's a video of a great exercise I came across for improving shoulder mobility. For anyone with few issues here, it could be used as a warm up.



Gerard and Tom study in UL, and I think I may have talked them into joining the weightlifting club there. So hopefully you'll have two new members down there in semester 2 Cathal!