Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Wednesday 21.8: Clean and jerk, toes-to-bar

Wednesday. Skills, 3 x ME handstand hold. 3x10, clean & jerk (60kg). Metcon, 6 rounds of: 5 c&j (60kg), 8 t2b. Time 8.22.

Got some new stuff from Rogue, c'mon! Gas station t-shirt, lacrosse ball and resistance band for mobility. Got to say that the ball was great. Tried it today after the training session. Anyway, today's agenda was handstand hold against wall, going for 3 sets of max effort in time. Then some long-lasting clean & jerks and finally a c&j metcon. Quite a number of clean & jerks. Mobility in the end.




Handstand hold. 3 x max effort handstand hold against wall. Results. 1:00, 0:45, 0:40. My plan was to go to a place where I would have had the chance to work on my handstand skills. That plan was flushed down the toilet so I had to change plans and improvise. Decided to stay on the wall for as long as possible, three sets for time. The pressure really starts to drill on the shoulders after a while.

Strength. 3 x 10 reps of clean & jerk @ 60kg. Something a little different. Conventionally it's been sets of 5 reps at max in a metcon / strength training or then 30 reps for time when you're doing Grace. I took a different approach. Muscle endurance through completing 10 reps in a row.

Those last reps were tough. I've been thinking (never tried) how far I could go without dropping the barbell to the ground. How many reps could I go unbroken. Some day I wish it would be near those 30 reps but that day is not looming behind the corner. Going for 10 reps was challenging, maybe not in the first set but the 2 latter ones were physically tough, especially the last 3 reps. Could have pushed some more reps but let's save those attempts to the future. The key here is to keep the barbell going. Clean it, bend your knees while catching it, then bounce it right up overhead. Once you stop after the clean, it gets heavier.

After I was driving home, I drifted away in my thinking and came across the style of workout Mikko Salo - The 2009 Champ - used to do a lot back in the days to increase shoulder strength. That was 3 rounds of 2 min amrap push press with 2 min rest between amraps. Why not transform it to clean & jerks as well. Two minutes is a long time doing c&j's. Doing a total of 3 sets of 2min totals in a lot of reps. That would definitely convert to good muscle endurance. Got to try it. It's common sense that it's gonna suck, sound horrible but still, worth trying =)

Second set of 10 clean & jerks, 60kg


Metcon. Time 8.22
  • 6 rounds of:
  • 5 clean & jerks, 60kg
  • 8 toes-to-bar

After those tens, I decided to do something similar Pony did on Monday. He went all the way for 8 rounds with c&j's and pull-ups. My shoulders were fatigue already as I entered the gym so I completed 6 rounds and changed pull-ups to t2b's. I was able to push through each round unbroken with both movements but had to catch some breath in the transition. That was seen in the round times. I had 10 meters to walk between the stations, this time that distance was somewhat welcomed. Round times were between about a minute and 1:48.

It's actually an awesome combination to mix clean & jerks and some bodyweight movement: t2b, pull-ups, double unders, burpees, rowing. It makes it challenging on the heart, so it's exactly the way crossfit is supposed to feel.


That's a lot of weight on the PR snatch of Garret Fisher

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