Valentine's Day Massacre

Somebody acquired a crazy Russian overreaching programme and of course like crazy people we all did it. Myself, Gillian, Barry, Sami, Cathal, The Butcher and the ever-taciturn Jimmy convened at 11am Saturday morning to get it done.

The day was split into 4 45 minute sessions with 30 minute breaks between. Session 1 was power snatches and clean pulls, session 2 snatch and power clean, session 3 snatch pulls and C+J, session 4 squat. For almost every exercise the idea was to work up to a max for the day, then drop down to 80% of that and do doubles until the allotted time for the exercise ran out.

In deference to my torn callous and dodgy quad, I just rack jerked for session 3 and sat out the squats (I did some glute ham raises and band external rotations instead, then ate my sandwich while everyone else squatted. Hardcore).

Session 1:
Bit of warmup stuff, some overhead squats with the bar.
Power snatch: 3@25, 3@30, 1@35, 37, miss@39, 39, 40, 41 (new PR), 42, miss@43, 43, 2@35 x 5 sets
Clean pulls: 2@45, 2@50, 2@52, 2@54, 2@56, 2@58, 2@60, 2@62, 2@64 x 3.

Session 2:
Overhead squats and drop snatches to warm up
Snatch: 2@30, 1@35, 37, 39, 41, 43, 45, miss@47 x 4 (last two very close), 2@36
Power clean: 45, 47, 50, 52, 54, 56, 58, 60, 2@48, 2@49 x 3

Session 3:
Jerk skill work to warm up (dips, catches, split jerks)
Rack jerk: 2@40 x 2, 1@45, 1@50, 54, 57, 60, 62, 54, 65, 66, 67, miss@68, 2@55 x 2.
3 sets of GHR supersestted with 2 sets of band external rotations.

I'm really glad I did this, torn callous and all. I hit a 3kg PR on power snatch, and a 5kg PR on power cleans (I was pretty shocked I was able to do 60 actually, god knows what I can full clean - I've never gone to a max on cleans with jerks being my limiting factor at the moment on C+Js). The really nice thing was the rack jerk PR though - jerks were feeling very very strong. The grim mood I was in on Friday has lifted and I've felt energized since doing this.

The only low point for me was the inability to get 47kg on the snatch, it's a bit silly not to be able to do this (have done 48 before). It's a combination of the training I've been doing lately not being conducive to max effort snatching, and a few technique factors - starting position of feet and bar and timing the pull. I really need to work on these over the next few weeks. All snatch ancillary work is getting much stronger so chances are it will come together at some point and all of a sudden there'll be a decent jump in it.

I haven't trained since Saturday in order to let the callous heal and get a bit of recovery in but I'll be in tomorrow (Tuesday) and back to the normal routine.

Kudos to Barry on his 138kg C+J, Gill on her 51kg snatch, Cathal on his mid-traps and thanks to Sami for letting us invade his gym. And muchos gracias to Harry and Jimmy for the coaching and the help lowering the bar on the max effort rack jerks.

Video of the day, courtesy of Barry:
http://vimeo.com/3226169