Tuesday's Preparation

As I said I'm hoping to compete at the masters this Saturday. As part of my preparation I'm water loading. It's pretty tough going, the amount of toilet visits are plentiful! I'll keep at it though. I'm not a fan of dieting, so hopefully this works.

I trained Tuesday in DCU. It was a pretty short session. I lowered the volume, and worked up to a little above what I hope to open with Saturday. It had been a few days since I'd trained, so I was pretty fresh. My snatches felt a lot faster than usual, and very solid overhead. The Clean and Jerks were a lot more snappy too.

After some shoulder rehabbing and stretching here's what I did-

Snatch - 2*30kg, 2*2*40kg, 2*42.5kg, 2*45kg, 1*47.5kg, 1*50kgX, 1*50kg

The rep I missed landed me on my ass! I likely would have lost it behind if my shoulders were more flexible.

After some jerk and clean warm up -

Clean & Jerk - 2*50kg, 2*55kg, 2*60kg, 1*65kg, 1*70kg

The lock out was better on these than usual, which I was happy with. I'm finding the second rep pretty tough for any I did. Really need to improve my conditioning!

I left it at that, and headed to the pool for a little while. Can't beat a little chillin in the sauna!

I'll be training in Hercs today.

3 More Sessions to Finish the Week

Been pretty busy over the last two days, so only getting a chance to post this now.

Tuesday
I trained in Hercs again. I was pretty tired, as I'm still adjusting to the volume, but it was still a good session. I'm beginning to realise I need to start taking a record of my lifts in the gym, because I'm struggling to remember what I did afterwards! So I'll just give a brief summary

• Hang Snatch + Snatch - Worked up to 4*2*48kg

These were pretty rough, and there was definitely a few misses in there. Still not extending fully, and compensating for this by pulling with my arms. Hard habit to kick.

After some jerk skill work-


• Clean & Jerk - Worked up to 4*2*65kg

Afterwards Alex showed me some stretches to help sort my shoulders out. I did some leg stretches Harry was doing too. Was damn hard to keep face, the pain was pretty serious! I've no doubt keeping at them will be beneficial though, so I intend on doing them each session. Alex is reasonably new to lifting, but has a lot of potential. Her technique is excellent for a beginner, and her strength levels are quite good too. Definitely one to keep an eye on.


Wednesday
Harry advised me to take the day off Wednesday, as I was tired Tuesday. So I did a session in DCU, focusing on my shoulder rehabbing. I tried some of the lat stretches Alex showed me, as well as adjusting some of the older exercises I was doing, on her advice. They're all feeling a lot more effective. She definitely knows her stuff.

I finished off with some squatting, and glute/ham raises.

• Back Squat - 3*50kg, 3*60kg, 3*80kg, 3*90kg, 3*3*100kg, 3*3*102.5kg


• Glute/Ham Raise - 3*6reps

Thursday
Trained in Hercs again today. Harry wasn't in, but Laura and Gill were. I was out last night, so I was suffering a little! But I decided to train anyway. I'll undoubtedly have to train hungover every now and again, so I might as well get used to it.

It really wasn't very productive, but I'm glad I went in anyway. Here's what I did-

• Overhead Squat + Snatch Balance - 2+2*bar, 2+2*30, 2+2*40


• Snatch - 4*2*40kg, 2*2*44kg, 3*2*47kg

As with Tuesday, some of these were misses. I wasn't extending fully as usual, and the arms were doing most of the work. Laura offered me some advice on getting the full extension. Driving hard through the heals, while thinking about driving yourself up onto your toes. I started doing this, and some reps improved slightly. I was definitely getting the bar closer throughout the lift, which is a start.


• Front Squat + Jerk - 2+1*50kg, 2+1*55kg, 2*2+1*60kg

These didn't feel great at all. I was unbalanced, and couldn't lock them out fully. This is without doubt my main problem in the jerk, and Harry is placing a lot of emphasis on how important it is to get sorted. Hopefully this shoulder rehabbing will pay off in the end. So I "cut my losses short" as Laura put it, and moved on to front squats.


• Front Squat - 3*60kg, 3*70kg, 3*3*80kg

That's all I'm going to train this week. I'm playing at a friends 21st at the weekend, so gonna be busy with some last minute practice. I'll try doing some of the shoulder rehab anyway to keep things in order.

Friday's Final Session of the Week

I was training with Jason again today, he's following training advice from Victor Costa. It's not really applicable to Olympic lifting, but there's some interesting stuff there.

Today I started off with the usual shoulder rehabbing exercises. I'm finding my shoulders are pretty sore, so I might give them a rest tomorrow.

After some overhead squats and snatch drops I moved straight on to cleans. I only did a few warm up sets, and then moved onto the full clean and jerk. My lockout is still pretty bad, but I mainly put this down to the fact that my shoulders are fatigued. I finished the session with some squatting, which went pretty well. Here's what I did-

Clean & Jerk - 1+2*40, 1+2*50, 1+2x55, 1x60, 1x65, 1x70
Front Squat - 3x60kg, 3x70kg, 3x80kg, 3x90kg, 3x100kg
Back Squat - 3x60kg, 3x70kg, 3x80kg, 3x90kg

I left it at that. I would have liked to do a final set of 100kg for the back squat. But I was tight on time. Here's a video of my 70kg C&J, comments would be appreciated. I'm pretty sure my front leg needs to go forward more for a start. (Forgive the quality, my phone sucks!).



I won't be training again until Tuesday, as I'm working most of the day Monday. I should be training in Dublin next week, Hercs hopefully; if the roads are drivable that is.