8/22 - squat cleans and thrusters...

I’m not sure what hurts most today – my traps, my lower back or my quads.  Ouch.  I can’t really complain though as I’m happy that we had another barbell day today with (relatively) heavy weights.  It’s a good struggle – and I still can’t get over how just a few lifts can really elevate your heart rate and bring on the sweat.  Who knew.  Tim was coaching us again tonight and once again we had a ‘fun*’ little warm-up.

*I know my definition of fun is very skewed at this point

Warmup
Leg swings – front and sides each leg
1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1 burpee/ wall to wall sprint
Work through WOD movements with empty bar

Strength
Squat clean complex
Deadlift into hang clean squat clean into full squat clean
20-30-40-45(f)-45-47.5

This was a good one.  I quite enjoyed it but had to take the time before each movement to think about what I was doing next.  On 40kg I did the deadlift then a hang power clean rather than a full squat and then I laughed, put the bar down and started again.  I think it was just conditioned into me from the WOD the previous night (too many cleans).  I failed at 45kg the first time on the full squat clean, Coach Tim noted that my core collapsed at the bottom of the squat and I ended up falling backwards while dumping the bar.  It’s a good focus cue.  I was quite happy getting 47.5, starting to feel more comfortable dropping under the bar at the heavier weights.

WOD
9-15-21
Squat cleans (45/30kg)
Thrusters

14:40 Rx

This was very hard.  I knew from the start that it would be – squat cleans and thrusters – a nasty pair.  I wasn’t sure how I was going to break it up but I knew that I didn’t want to start too fast as it’d just kill me.  I did 5-4 on the first set of squat cleans then I went straight into the first 3 thrusters and did two more sets of 3.  I was a little all over the place for the round of 15 doing anywhere from 5 to 3 reps a time with no real rhyme or reason to it just making myself pick up the bar instead of resting even when I felt horrid.  There was a 15 minute cut-off and I knew it was going to be close going into the round of 21.   

The squat cleans felt okay overall but the thrusters were going to hurt, I knew this before I even started them.  I did one thruster straight off my last rep of squat cleans then put the bar down for a rest.  It was at this point that Coach Tim came by and it was great timing (that being said there were only a few of us still going at this point).  He saw the one rep then told me to pick a number of reps and stick with it for the last 20 and then he watched… and counted… and because of that I couldn’t stop after three, I managed two more and put the bar down at 5.  That was my number, three more sets of that with about 2 minutes remaining in the WOD. It was going to be tight.  I did it though, finished just under the wire with sets of 5 reps on the thrusters.  I’m pretty sure had I been only doing 3 reps at a time I wouldn’t have finished in time.  On that note though – I’m super proud of the girls in the 5:45pm WOD that finished out the WOD even after time was up – it’s inspiring and I know how much better/ stronger they got today because of it – nice work Brenda and Bonnie!

For Coach Tim