Training Week - 5/27-6/2

Tweet of the week:
"I hate it when you sit down and your legs flatten out to approximately the size of Australia"
-Aimee Everett (@Aimees2cents)



I'm playing with my general warm-ups a little bit. Here's the basic outline:
One or two trips of sled dragging or Prowler push or 500m on the rower
Foam Roll/Agile 8/Lax Ball/Fire Hydrant Circuit (includes front and back hip circles)
One set of reverse hypers to open up back
Band Pull Apart Super Series with monster mini band (I usually do one set as a warm-up and sneak another one at the end of training)
An upper body/lower body/abs circuit for 2-4 sets (ie Pulldown Abs/GH Raises/Chins) or some overhead squats or something along those lines.

5/27
GH Raise/Pulldown Abs - three sets of each
Front Squat - worked up to 125x1
Snatch - 60x3 70x2 80x2 87x1 92x1/ 75x1 80x1 85x1
Sn Pull to Knee + Sn Pull (1+2) 90x1x4
B Squat - to 155x1/ 120x3 130x3 130x3
GM 3x5 @ 60
Hypers/Traction

5/28
GH Raise/Pulldown Abs - three sets
Muscle Snatch - 50x3 50x3 60x3 50x3
High Hang Snatch - 75x2x6
Pwr Clean + Pwr Jerk - to 100x1x5
Front Squat - to 140x1/ 120x2x3
DB Press + DB Bent Row (10+10) - 50s for three sets

5/29
GH Raise/Pulldown Abs - three sets
Front Squat - to 130x1
CJ - 60xsome 80x1x3 100x1x2 110x1 120xFJ 120x0 120x1/(Two Clean + One Jerk) 100-100-105
Cl Pull to Knee + Cl Pull (1+2) - 130x1x4
Back Squat - to 160x1
Pause Back Squat (three count) - 120x3 125x3 125x3
GM - 70x5 80x5 80x5

5/30
Back Squat up to 150x1 (getting much better at making bigger jumps fast)
High Hang Clean - up to 90x2x2 100x2x2 110x2x1
Pwr Snatch up to 70x2x4 80x2x1 (awful)
Front Push Press - 3x5 @ 80
Front Squat - up to 142x1 then 110x3x3
Three sets: 300m row + 12 chins
Neck + Pulldown abs - three sets each
No traction, back feels good. Knees are a bit disappointed with the path I've chosen in life.

5/31 - Off, lots of stretch and foam roll

6/1 (Did this as one long session, but in the future it's going to be an AM/PM split
Front Squat up to 125x1 135x1 140x1
Snatch up to 95x1 102x1 105x1 (post-broken hand PR)
CJ up to 125x1 135x0x2 (MUST STOP RELEASING THE BAR WHEN I GO UNDER)
Back Squat up to 145x1x2 150x1x2 (playing with technique, didn't go super heavy here)
Five Count Paused Back Squat - 3x3 @ 110kg
GM 85x5x3

Something I'm totally shocked by is how much time I was wasting sitting. These workouts have been clocking in right around 2-2.5 hrs from the time I open the gym door to the time I walk out (6/1 was around three hours) with substantially more volume than I had been doing previously. In the same time it was taking me to snatch, clean and squat I've been squatting twice, snatching and cleaning while also getting in assistance work and conditioning. Great idea by Greg Everett at Catalyst Athletics for including that stipulation in this program.

Post-meet training week, a new training block and the Eternal Now

Two videos this week everyone, in honor of me not writing last week and eating with great vengeance and furious anger. This first one is an awesome compilation of power/squat jerks in international competition. The Chinese in particular are insanely good at squat and power jerking.

The second video is the 85kg champion from 2013 European championships, Apti Aukhadov. Staying with the theme of the day (and unbeknownst to everyone watching), Apti switched from split jerks to power/squat jerks. High fives for the awesome multi-directional views here as well. Epic consistency and technique; notice the final jerk is faster and caught higher than the first two.

The week right after a meet is such an individual thing. Some people are so banged up physically that they can't do much of anything besides go for some walks. For some people the body feels good but the nervous system is bashed up and a 50% lift feels like a max lift. You just have to see what you're feeling and react accordingly. I did three workouts this week, all of which consisted of sled work, Prowler work and high rep dumbbell circuits for the upper body. I didn't spend more than 45 minutes in the gym at any one time. The first time I picked up a barbell was one week after the meet and I did some power clean/power jerk and power clean/push press singles at 90kg. Nothing special, just moving a bit.

As far as the week post-meet, there are a couple general guidelines that I can suggest. In A System of Multi-Year Training in Weightlifting, Medvedyev stated that recovery methods involved approx 60-85 mins PER DAY. This is difficult to do for those that work full time jobs or don't train full-time, but it's something to keep in mind the week after a meet, when your training is throttled back. This is an ideal time to dial up the accumulation of recovery time.

-Get outside. Go for walks. Get in the sun.
-Nap and foam roll. A LOT.
-Keep the time in the gym to a minimum and emphasize prehab/rehab movements and things you haven't done for awhile. I did some DB bench for the first time in probably a year.
-Get outside. Get in the sun.
-Nap A LOT.

Here's an example of what my Tuesday/Thursday workouts looked like:

Foam Roll/Reverse Hypers/Fire Hydrant Series/Agile 8
Abs x100/TKEs 2x20
Band Shoulder Circuit
25 minute circuit - DB Single Arm Press 15+15/Chins x10/Parking Lot Sled Drag
Abs x100
Reverse Hypers and Traction

I also ate like a total fat ass basically this entire week. I stayed carb-free during the days all week, but Thurs/Fri/Sat/Sun nights were carb explosions. Really just let the diet chill out a bit and didn't stress. No idea where my weight is at and I don't care. No meet for the foreseeable future so no worries. If anything this past meet solidified my thoughts that it's better for me to stay in the 94s rather than try and move up to the 105s. Mostly I need to think about getting my body composition squared away a little bit and get a little more Jacked, Tan and Vascular. To that end I'm gonna make a couple changes for this upcoming block:

-I'm going to actually start counting my carbs on my backloads; 200g seems like a nice round number to start and can tweak it up or down.
-I'm also going to start eating breakfast every morning and try to dial the calories up a little bit in the morning.
-Trying two PWO shakes instead of just one. I got the chance to have a chat with Kiefer and he discouraged the idea of just carbs intra-workout and encouraged me to just have an additional PWO shake. My preferred PWO is Muscle Feast's Anabolic Recovery, so I'll probably dial up two scoops of that during my workout and another two scoops for the drive home. This also decreases the amount of food for my backloads, which is probably a good thing.
-Same recovery methods as always: not pushing the recovery means on training days so as to not interfere with adaptation. I would like to push the contrast showers a bit more in the mornings.

I will do a better job of writing out training, recovery means, etc with this block than I did on the previous one. Better to do it here than try and read the chicken scratch from my training book.

With this upcoming block (courtesy of Greg Everett at Catalyst Athletics), a lot of this is going to be going by feel. Last training block I didn't squat more than three days a week; this block I'll be squatting twice a day and around ten times a week. When I hit my all-time back squat PR of 190 I did it when I was experimenting with Bulgarian training, squatting daily and doing all singles. I have a better base to build off  now with my best back squat set of five increasing from 140-170kg and my SSB squat pushing up to 400lbs. I'm excited to get back to singles now and see what happens.

I'm operating with the below max lifts in mind as far as making percentage calculations for this block:

Front Squat - 160
Back Squat - 190
CJ - 130
Snatch - 105

One of Greg's guidelines for this block stood out to me: no sitting down. Isn't this weightlifting? Hell, the Iranians and the French basically take smoke breaks in between reps. I tested it out a bit as I was getting ready for my last meet and I actually really enjoyed it. It's really easy to sit and relax a bit and let five minutes go by without knowing it. Plus pacing around the platform makes me less of a target for people who want to just sit and chat.

Don't get me wrong: I love talking to people. I love talking lifting, teaching lifting and it still makes me giggle and beam with pride whenever someone asks me for suggestions or training ideas. BUT one of the few places that I've found peace and quiet is on the weightlifting platform, both in competition and in training. For my money it is the epitome of being in the present moment, or the Eternal Now, as it is often referenced in Zen. I very much like that feeling. I'm not worried about a trade, my bank account, if a girl likes me, if I'll ever get married and have kids, if my mom is OK, if I'll ever pay off my student loans or if I need to fart. I'm there. I'm here. I'm everywhere. Going to war with gravity while you have a barbell somewhere on your person tends to focus the mind.

The Week That Was - 5/13 - 5/19

"Making plans for the future is of use only to people who are capable of living completely in the present" - Alan Watts

Starting the week around 96kg, so it's 50/50 whether I cut for 94s or just lift in the 105s. I'd had this magic idea of moving into 105s but...well, as a friend of mine delicately put it: "You're too short for 105". This, of course, is a really nice way of saying "Lose some weight fatty". So we stay on the grind and I'll probably cut down to 94.

5/13 - Acupuncture and Chiro

5/14 MORE acupuncture and chiro - I woke up Tuesday morning with my back basically locked up. For whatever reason, getting adjusted and then lying face down on a table getting needled for an hour really wrecked my SI joints.

5/15
Snatch complex up to 80x1 then did three singles at 80, just testing the back out.
Klokov complex up to 105x1
Last carbs tonight until after weigh-ins

5/16
Snatch up to 90x1
CJ up to 110x1
Shit ton of rumble rolling

5/17
AM - Chiro and Acupuncture
Lots of napping and generally lying around on my ass.

5/18 - Meet Day!
Started the day by checking the scale. Weighing in at a robust 93.6 kilos, I could eat and drink a bit without wrecking my weight. I went with decaf coffee with coconut oil and whey in the morning and worked through a pound of bacon throughout the day. I'm used to running on fat anyways, so not a huge stretch for me. I wanted high calories bang with Sipped some water throughout the day, foam rolled a bunch and squeezed in some reverse hypers to get my back opened up a bit. My legs were super stiff from lying around all day on Friday. #firstworldproblems

Flatirons Crossfit ran an awesome meet. This is the most "on time" meet I've ever been a part of, especially considering the size of the sessions. 14-16 lifters in each of five sessions with six attempts each is between 84-96 lifts per session. Squeezing those into a two hour period while simultaneously getting the next session weighed in in not easy. I've been to meets where the last session is cleaning by moonlight. They got each session started in a two hour window, with sessions beginning at 9am-11am-1pm-3pm-5pm. They have a perfect facility for weightlifting; plenty of platforms, very good bars and kilo plates everywhere. I highly recommend if you're in Boulder or the surrounding area that you check them out. Slowly but surely the Front Range is building a very solid weightlifting community. Along with Flatirons Weightlifting, Paul Fleschler has a very good program going on down in Colorado Springs with Front Range Weightlifting. 2010 World team member Rachel Crass is coaching and building a program at Centennial Weightlifting. The I-25 corridor is becoming a very good space to get some excellent coaching in the Olympic lifts.

                                       Thanks MuscleDriver, USAW and Oskar Blues Brewing

Meet Results:
Snatch - 95-100-102x
CJ - 120x-125x-125

225 total, good for 2nd place in the 94s. 6th overall.

Yet another 3/6 showing with yet another poor performance in the jerk. I got a little unlucky in that my 120 opener got turned down 2-1 for a press out. I shouldn't have let it be that close; 120 is a smoke show jerk in training. I'm still thinking through these technique changes instead of being able to really cut it loose. I hit the goals that I had in mind for my second attempts (100/125), but I had ideas on 102 and 130 for my thirds. In a perfect world, I left seven kilos on the platform. But I got past my openers while entirely changing my jerk and my pull techniques last week. Tough to be too pissed about that. The playlist for my videos is here. The jerks are a bit ugly, as is the 102 snatch that wasn't even close. I've embedded my third CJ below (125) that I made to avoid bombing out of the meet. I'm proud of this jerk as I actually dropped my elbows and brought in my feet. Maybe after another 10,000 attempts it'll start sinking into my skull.

So what's next?

A week or two of downtime, a week or so of real live lifting and then back to the grind. A couple of my rules for the week after a meet: no more than 60mins at a time in the gym, no barbells, no squats, lots of unilateral work, sled and Prowler work, nap a lot, drink a beer or two and LIGHTEN UP FRANCIS.

No planned meet on the horizon so I want to get a little banged up and beaten down in this upcoming block. I would imagine this will entail a lot more squatting as my squat seems to go up when I train it constantly. Squatting three day a week (for triples and fives) previously helped move my 5RM up a bunch (from 130-165) in short order, but that didn't really transfer over to my max, which has been stale at around 180-190kg for a year now.

Oh, I also hit the gym on 5/19 and did an hour of sled dragging and a ton of traction and low back rehab work.

The Week That Was - 5/6 - 5/12

Some excellent mobilizations for a better bottom position from California Strength



5/7 (Still working through this new pull, so just did the full lifts)
Snatch up to 96x1x3  (no misses and lots of reps over 90%)
CJ - 100x1x3 110x1x2 120x1 125x1 130xFJ (no missed cleans, all very sharp)
Clean DL/Pull (no real finish to toes, just fast pull to 1st Position) - TON of doubles and triples here at 150-160

5/8 - Long Walk

5/9
Muscle Snatch 70x3x2 75x2 80x0
High Hang Snatch to 80x1x2 (cut this short because a squat rack opened up)
Front Squat - to 140x1 120x3x3
High Hang CJ to 120x1
(My groove from above the knee to the hip needs some work. Doing some extras as warmups this week)

5/11 - Last heavy day with the full lifts
Sots Press - barx10 40kgx5x2
Snatch - up to 92x1 97x1 102x0x2 100x0
CJ - up to 105x1 115x1 122x1 127x1 132x0
Sled Drags - three trips
Reverse Hypers

5/12
Sled Drags and OH Squat - 3x10 w/ bar only
Front Squat 60x3x2 80x3 100x2 125x2 140x1 152x1
Random Stuff + Traction

The Week That Was - 4/29 - 5/5

I don't have too many heroes, but I have plenty of role models and people who live their lives in a manner which I would consider to be successful. Henry Rollins is on that list. Alan Watts is on that list. And with regards to finance, Paul Tudor Jones is at the top of that list. Not for the wealth he has amassed, but for his approach to finance and all he does as a philanthropist through the Robin Hood Foundation. Awesome profile here from 60 Minutes.

4/30
Sots Press - 40x5x3 50x3x2 55x2 55x1
Pwr Snatch up to 80kgx1x3/ Pwr Sn + Abv Knee Pwr Sn 70x1 75x1 77x1 80x1
Snatch Pull - 100x3x2 110x3x3
Pwr Clean/Pwr Jerk - 50xsome 60xsome 70xsome 80x2x1 90x1x2 100x1 110x1x2/ 2+1 90x1x3
Clean Pull - 100x3 130x3 140x2x3
Back Squat 70x5x2 100x5x2 120x5
Traction and Hypers

5/1 - Off/Roller/Epsom Salt

5/2 (This took WAAAAYYYY too long)
Sots Press - 40x5x2 50x3x3
High Hang Snatch - 50x3 60x3 70x2x2 80x2 87x1 92x1 97x1 100x1 102x0 102x1/80x3 85x3 90x3
High Hang CJ - 60x3 70x2x2 90x1x3 100x1x2 110x1x2 117x1 120x1x2 125x0 125x1
F Squat - triples up to 115; knees are banged up.

5/4 (May the Fourth Be With You)
Spent the day helping out at the USAW Level I course at Centennial Weightlifting. I also got the opportunity to pick Mark Cannella's brain a bit on my lifts. Mark is one of the US Olympic coaches and is a mastermind when it comes to technique. In general I need to work on my position from above the knee to the hip, scrap my dynamic start and go back to basics. Mark made a couple really good points and, while the bar doesn't move as fast off the floor, there's definitely a difference in the lifts. I'm more "connected" to the barbell, if that makes sense.
I snatched up to 95 for three sharp singles then missed 100 three times; twice out the back, which NEVER happens. So I guess no more dynamic start for this guy.
Also did some sets of ten of Sots press and Russian Snatch Balances with just the bar.

5/5 (CINCO CINCO!)
Spent the morning and chunk of the afternoon assisting with the second day of the USAW Level I cert at Centennial Weightlifting. Powered down some Chipotle, took a quick nap and managed to squeeze in a quick squat.
Back Squat barx5 70x5x2 100x3 120x3 140x2 150x2 160x1 170x1x2
Pause Squat 130x3 (blew out my nose on the last rep. Took this as a sign to call it a day.)

The Week That Was - 4/22 - 4/28

"A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play, his labour and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself he always seems to be doing both. Enough for him that he does it well."

- from 'Education Through Recreation' by Lawrence Pearsall Jacks, 1932

h/t @ReformedBroker

Aimee Anaya Everett from Catalyst Athletics on PRs

Josh Brown (The Reformed Broker) on Optimism as the Default Setting


4/23
OH Squat 50x5x3
Pause Snatch - 50x3x2 70x2x2 80x2 87x1 92x0 92x1 97x0 97x1 102x0 (missed behind) 100x0 (left in front) / 80x2 85x2x2
Pause CJ - 50xbunch 80x2x2 100x1x2 110x1 117x1/105x(2+1)x3
Front Squat - barx5 70x4 100x3 120x3 135x1 145x0/120x2 120x3
Rev Hypers and Traction

4/25
Hip Snatch - 40x3 60x3x2
Snatch - 60x3x2 70x2 80x1x2 85x0 85x1 85x1x11 (1:15-1:30 btwn reps, took around 15 mins. 1,020kg of work sets)
Hip Clean - 60x3 80x3
CJ - 80x2 90x1 100x1 110x1 110x1x4 112x1x2 115x1x2 117x1 120x1 (1:30-1:45 btwn reps, took about 18 mins. 1,241kg of work sets)
Front Squat - barx5 70x4 100x3 120x2 120x1 130x1x3
Traction and Reverse Hypers

4/26
Hip Band Series - 4x15 of Knee Outs/Band Stomps/TKEs
Sled Dragging - 30mins or so
Traction

4/28
Hip Snatch - 50x3 70x2x2
Snatch 50-60xsome 70x2x2 77x2 85x1 90x1 95x1
Hip CJ - 60x3 80x2x2 90x1
CJ - 70xsome 90x1x2 110x1x2 120x1 125x0x2
Attempted a squat but knees were not happy so I left this one alone
GH Raise - 5x8
Traction

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.