Deth

Even a bad day lifting is better than a day with no lifting but Sunday and today were two great days for lifting and general fitness to boot.

Yesterday I was feeling pretty tired but I decided to get off my lazy ass and go do some stuff in the garage. I started out with this week’s 20 rep front squats. I did them at 150 pounds this week and I don’t think they could have felt any better than they did. Front squats in general have been feeling really good recently after they felt rusty a few weeks ago having not really done many of them in months. Of course my quads and particularly hamstrings were burning today but 20 reps is a lot of reps even if its a super light weight. For me I’d say the 150 pounds was probably a moderate weight but the squats themselves felt smooth and easy except for the breathing aspect. That was cardio.

After a little while to recover I decided to do Monday’s WOD a day early. The WOD was 4 rounds of 15 sandbag burpee to deadlifts and 20 hang to overhead. I had no clue what to expect from this WOD in particular so I took it cautious and slow.

The burpee to deadlifts did have me a bit discombobulated. It was a weird transition to me and even weirder to not go from the burpee into the ground to overhead like typical sandbag burpees they program. Muscle memory wanted to do the normal sandbag burpees so I really had to keep a good focus on not doing that. I caught my self a couple of times.

The hang to overhead were easy for me. I have plenty of practice and my 53 or so pound sandbag is pretty light these days for me. I didn’t want to up it to 75 pounds though because I was strongly considering doing another WOD later in the day, probably after supper. I would end up not attempting another WOD since we ate later than I expected and supper was more filling than I had anticipated. I did do something yesterday so I was happy with that.

I wanted to relax on the patio after supper but unfortunately a neighbor down the street had kids visiting and for hours it was nothing but non stop screeching. Kids should be kids but screeching non stop isn’t necessary unless something is wrong.

Today at was a great day in the garage gym for sure! I did my strength. Perhaps I’ll do a WOD after supper tonight.

The squats were at a moderate weight of 215. They felt different than normal. Looking at my videos they were a bit different. I’ve become a bit more upright with them while getting a tad bit deeper than I have been. They were also very explosive. All in all I have to admit that I was very happy with them and certainly am happy with my progress both weight wise but more importantly with my progress in technique. Safer and better movement is always better than heavier loads.

The strict presses felt light, granted they were only 105 pounds. A few months ago that weight would’ve felt harder than it did today for sure. This is one lift that I can never really seem to make much progress on.

The power cleans felt slower and heavier but then I realized after I was done that I was dong 175 pounds which was pretty heavy for me. My all time max is only like 210 pounds and my can make any day heavy single was 195 pounds last time I tested that last fall. The important thing with the cleans for me is that I have somehow after struggling with it for years learned to be more patient with the pull. This is allowing me to get better extension. I have no idea what changed that or I’d share it in case it could help someone else.

I can remember a coach trying to help me with that and he came to the conclusion that I knew what I was doing wrong and when I was doing it wrong. He told me that he could give me ideas that might help and drills but I have to figure it out on my own. He also said that I shouldn’t be able to move like I do. He also noted that I was very efficient with my pulls even with not getting full extension. I blame that whole bad habit on the “squat” clean crap in Crossfit.