Wednesday, 1 July 2009

CFNZ Tuesday

Hang Clean 3 x 5
40kg
45kg
45kg
I'm still jumping too high so Darren had me lessen my dip. It helped, but I'm still overdoing it. I should have talked to him about it instead of the other things we discussed afterwards.

I only recently cottoned on to jumping the weight up to get full extension and leave my arms out of it and I don't know how to do that and not leave the floor very much. I know more weight would keep me down but my front squat lets me down. Long legs and a short back puts me at a disadvantageous position there so I can power clean more than I can front squat. I can't assume a very knees forward position to get my back more vertical or my knees are very unhappy with me for several days afterwards. I know I need to work my squat more, but I suspect that will always be the case.

Then:
5RFT
10 x 30kg Thrusters
10 x 16kg KB Swings
100m "sprint"

9:22

I got a new battery in my pulse watch, planned on recording my splits and I set the timer going, then on my first thruster I heard a weird series of beeps from overhead and when I stopped the whole watch had reset to the default date and time. It works fine now, but something is weird.

Thrusters; I wanted to use 25kg for the thrusters, but all of the 2.5kg plates were gone. 30 was a wee bit much. I kept my knees out of it and hamstrings engaged, so I can do that for front squats, yay! Hip pop was inconsistent and so were lockouts. Room for improvement.
KB swings; Too light. I wasn't sure if I was up to 24kg and opted for discretion. They were alomost a break after the thrusters and I was pulling the KB down to speed things up. I got pulled up for swinging too high. I was doing games standard, which is how I've always done them and that's more than is required. It's no strain on my shoulders and currently harder for me to judge if I've hit the required height so I'm not sure I like that yet. I think I'l aim to master both variations so I can switch between them as needed.
100m; Not a sprint. Nearly a stagger. On the last round I decided this was stupid and got my act together and Posed some of it (as best I could).

I spent some serious time on the roller at home and my knees are much happier this moring. Now of course I don't know if that was becuase of the roller or because I woked squats last night. I'm going to credit the roller and must spend more time on it.
My back is a little off from a couple of badly received hang cleans.

Then I helped with the second session, coughing my way through a burnt throat.
Great progress on the hang cleans by several people.

4 comments:

kempie said...

Mate I popped some comments on this day's thread on your questions, thoughts.

Did you see them?
have a look and let me know if they need any clarification or expansion

Cheers, kempie

Craig Massey said...

I hadn't, but I dug them out and have read them. Some I'm not too worried about just yet e.g. early arm bends are a huge problem for me and if my Air Jordan imitation with an unloaded bar stops me doing that for the first time ever then until I have that bedded in call me a jumping bean. I know with weight my hang time stops dead, so it's not a biggy. It feels like I'm finally getting an idea of how the lifts should feel and it's to some extent a matter of putting the pieces together.
I have a huge conceptual problem exerting force on a bar that I'm holding in my hands without using my arms. Bodybuilding training has a lot to answer for :-)
An example that might mean something for you given your background is rowing on a C2. I literally cannot feel my legs powering the movement. I watch the PM and I can for brief periods see the power output increase when I know my arms are not pulling as strongly, but I don't feel any more force coming from my legs. If I try to push harder with my legs all that happens is my arms come into it, which is exactly what happens with the O. lifts. I've realised that at some point I just never developed an ability to know what my legs are contributing to a movement. It took me about 8 months after Jeff taught me to air squat to be able to feel my hamstrings engaging and now I’m working to broaden that to other movements. I’m using my warm-ups on the C2 to establish that connection with my legs when I’m pulling a bar, the PM is a fantastic tool to give me instant feedback, and that should transfer to the Olympic lifts.

I will use the drills you mentioned, jumping flat footed especially as I know I’m springing off my toes which isn’t helping. Don’t expect anything miraculous though.
I am listening to what you say, I’m encountering some very odd gaps in my co-ordination and awareness of my body that are impacting on my implementing what you’re saying.

kempie said...

With the C2 have a pop at legs only rowing - it's freaking horrible and stilted but really highlights the contribution of the legs and where the arms should jump in. Feel free to hit me up by PM or email if there is anything you want clarification or feedback on.

Cheers, kempie

Craig Massey said...

I don't know what to say.
I am stunned into speechlessness at the elegant simplicity of that suggestion.

Blindingly obvious when you think about it.

Thank-you, obviously.