Timed Reps By the Numbers

I did timed reps yesterday - ten singles in the snatch and ten singles in the clean and jerk, with between 1:15 and 1:45 between reps. The weights here weren't earth shattering at around 80% of my gym maxes. Doesn't look like much on paper but I am SMOKED today. In an effort to figure out why the hell I'm a mess today, I crunched some numbers:

Snatch -
80 x 1 x 4 = 320kg
82 x 1 x 2 = 164kg
85 x 1 x 4 = 340kg
=824kg (check my math)

CJ -
100x1x2 = 200kg
105x1x3 = 315kg
110x1x5 = 550kg
=1,065kg (again, check my math)

Compare this to a recent Saturday max-out workout. Note: I'm only including +80% lifts in both places:

4/6
Snatch:
85 x 1 = 85kg
92 x 1 = 92kg
80 x 1 = 80kg
85 x 1 = 85
90 x 1 = 90
95 x 1 = 95
=527kg

CJ
100 x 1 x 2 = 200
110 x 1 x 1 = 110
117 x 1 x 1 = 117
122 x 1 x 1 = 122
127 x 1 x 1 = 127
120 x 1 x 1 = 120
=796kg

As usual, math is tough to argue against. I did 297kg more tonnage in the snatch and 269kg more tonnage in the clean and jerk. Why am I shocked that I'm hurting the day after?

Now, are these maximal weights? Of course not. Is there some room for error here? Of course. But that is an awful lot of work accumulated towards the upper end of the percentage spectrum in a very short amount of time.

This is something that I'm going to include on Tuesday for the next two weeks to get some specific work done. Tuesday also keeps it as far away as possible from my Saturday max-out work. I want it to complement, not replace or affect. I'm not one to be changing things with a month to go until a meet, but I feel like this will be an excellent specific training modality as I get closer to the meet. I'll probably replace Saturday max-outs with these for the first block or two of my next training cycle as well to really do some base building.

Programming squats becomes a bit of a problem here, but this probably just means I'll front squat for a heavy single or two either before or after these sets. Back squatting will only be on Sunday until after the meet. Combined with my front squatting on Tue/Thurs and this will naturally reduce the tonnage of my squats, which will hopefully carry over to the lifts in the next month.

BeeTeeDub: I threw the original article on timed reps and Joe Mills' 20/20 in my blog right here.