Tuesday WOD
We continued our week of recovery and had a particularly light workout at the gym today. We started out with some snatch skill work and then followed that up with some work towards accomplishing more disciplines on the Skills/Pursuit Chart. The snatch work was with pvc only and went as follows:
Burgener warm-up x 3 rounds
-dip/drive and shoulder shrug x 3
-dip/drive, elbows high and outside, lead with shoulders x 3
-muscle snatch x 3
-snatch lands at 2, 4, 6 inches x 3 each
-snatch lands at full depth x 3 each
Snatch skill transfer drills x 1 round
-snatch push press x 15
-overhead squat x 15
-pressing snatch balance x 15
-heaving snatch balance x 15
-snatch balance x 15
The snatch work, although not very intense, was a great way to extend the warm-up and really drill some important phases of the olympic lifts. Such great work to help pattern the movement. These drills come from arguably the best olympic weightlifting coach in the world, Mike Burgener. I'll be working these drills multiple times a week for the rest of my life.
After the snatch work, we went after a 500m row for time.
time=1:23.10
This was an intense row test, I forgot how much gas it was possible to burn in under a minute and a half. I was down for a few minutes after this one. This was a great pull for me. It had been some time since I challenged the 500m row and the last time I did, I rowed either a 1:25 or 1:27. I remember it being awful. And while I'm certainly more fit now, I was about 25 pounds heavier then which has its advantages for the ergometer. So today, to pull a sub 1:25 stoked me up. It was good enough for level 4 on the Skills Chart. I did well to ignore the pain and smashed through the last 200m without going over a 1:25/500m pace. I've been trying to toughen up mentally during wods and this was a good step in the right direction. You start to find the body's capable of so much more than your mind tells you it is when you're hurting. Some people just have the natural ability to push through but for me, it takes practice. I'll keep working at it.
After the row, I challenged 45 thrusters at half body-weight unbroken. This is a level 2 skill on the Chart. Half body-weight for me is currently 120# rounded up. I only made 14 unbroken my first attempt. It was pitiful and that whole mental toughness thing was non-existent. I was still pretty taxed from the rower so I tried to recover for a bit and then went again. The second time I only hit 10. Ouch. I'm certain I could come close to doubling my first score if I was fresh but that still only puts me a little over half way to 45 reps. That's a ton of thrusters to do without ever dropping the bar. I plan on starting to train thrusters regularly.
The Skills/Pursuit Chart continues to expose big weaknesses which is awesome. It's helped me to start focusing my extra effort on the skills that need the most work. I'll look forward to continuing the Pursuit.
