Tag Archives: Snatch

Measurements

Big Dave asked me to come in today around lunch time to get my measurements done for the IDI challenge. Also, we wanted to see if we could maybe knock another goal off my list (snatch).

First, the measurements. I have to admit, I knew that I was losing body fat because of how my clothes have been feeling, but I was really surprised when I saw the results of my measurements. I will scan the paper and post it when I get it, but in a nutshell, here’s the skinny (no pun intended):

  8 Weeks Ago Today Delta
Overall BF % 22.6% 16.8% 5.8%
Weight 217lb 215lb 2lbs
Lean  Mass 167.96lb 178.88 +10.92lb
Fat Mass 49.04lb 36.12lb -12.92lb
Legs     +2″ each leg
Arms     +1″ each arm
Waist     -2″
Hips     -1″
Chest     -1″

 

I will fill in the blanks when I get my sheet back from Dave. I would say that the goal to “have a downward trend in body fat” is blown out of the water. If I divide by 8, that means that I shed .72% every week. I’ll take it. Additionally, take a look at the lean mass and fat mass. In 8 weeks, I gained almost 11lb in lean muscle and lost close to 13lb in fat mass. Whoa. Thank you, Mathematics!

In addition to the above, Dave helped me to get my snatch technique headed back in the right direction. In my last post, I was somewhat frustrated with the fact that I felt like I lost my technique on the snatch. Well, we did some work today and I was able to get passed my current PR of 155#. Although not a huge jump, a PR is a PR (now 160#), but more importantly, I started dropping under the bar again. This is only the beginning.

Last but not least, is my goal to run a mile in under 9 minutes. From my post a few weeks ago, I totally crushed that one.

Aside from my goals, I have also felt the following during the past 8 weeks:

  • Solidification of what I need to do personally as far as diet goes in order for me to lean out. FINALLY.
  • PR’d “Fight Gone Bad” by over 40 points. Maybe 300 is just around the corner? =)
  • Experienced increased recovery time both during AND after working out.

And so tomorrow morning is the “I Do The Impossible” challenge finals. We will do the same workout that we did when the challenge began. I am curious to see how I will do. All I can say is that I am slightly leaner and [thanks to work] meaner than I was 8 weeks ago.

I think that this challenge was absolutely fantastic. Even though I didn’t hit all 5 of my goals, I am absolutely blown away by the amount of progress that was made. The funny thing is, that it’s largely attributed by just adding more green veggies into my diet. To be completely honest, it’s not that hard… like… at all.

I will continue to eat this way and hopefully continue to loose a bit of body fat every week. Perhaps in another 8 weeks, I will be even closer to where I want to be. This challenge has really given me the jump start that I needed.

Paleo works.
CrossFit works.

You just need to do it right and be smart about it. Might I also add, that I was able to get all of this accomplished while traveling for work 3 out of the 8 weeks of the challenge. Yes, folks, it IS possible to eat well while you are traveling. It’s really no excuse. Additionally, I ate a cheat meal or 2 every week and STILL lost body fat. I was skeptical, but the calipers don’t lie.

Thanks to all of the CrossFit Cedar Park coaches that helped the 30 of us though this past 8 weeks. I know it wasn’t easy for you at times, but the differences you are making in people’s lives are nothing short of amazing. A big, big thanks to Big Dave Tillman for looking at everyone of my meals, day in, day out and helping me stay motivated with my goals. Also, a shout out to Mike Fio for being an awesome coach in my day-to-day work outs. You guys rock.

Get Under the Bar!–IDI Update

“I Do The Impossible” has just 1 week left. While I am ecstatic that I have indeed made progress and decidedly met one of my goals, I am getting bit dismayed with the fact that there’s one week left in the challenge, I have to go away for business, and I have 3 goals left. Here’s an update on my goals:

  1. See a downward trend in body fat percentage – I am pretty sure this one is working. I have not been measured at all during the challenge, but all of my clothes are looser, so I am guessing this one is going well. Exactly how much of a difference there is from 7 weeks ago, I will not know until I am measured again.
  2. Run a sub 9 minute mile – accomplished with a time of 7:28. Awesome!
  3. PR on Snatch – My current 1RM is 155#. V opened the box up for me today to try and work on it, but well, it didn’t go very well at all. I am getting stuck between the shrug and getting down under the bar. At this point, it’s strictly a technique thing, but I don’t know what to do to break that barrier. Clearly I don’t practice this movement enough to be where I need to be on it. If I could just figure out how to make myself get under the bar quicker, I would be a monster. Then again, if the Queen had balls, she’d be King, so there you go.
  4. Get 10 butterfly kipping pull ups in a row – I would say that this one is coming along, but it’s still not there. I am starting to understand the motion that my body has to go through, but making it happen in a cyclical, repeated fashion is still taking some time. With one week left in the challenge and being away on business all next week, I doubt this is going to happen.
  5. PR on dead lift – My current 1RM is 445#. Given that my back is still healing, I am not even worried about trying this one. This was a silly goal to put down and I don’t think it’s going to happen for a long time. It’s not impossible to me, I just want to take my time working back up to it.

I am frustrated.

I fee like I spent so much time worry about goal #1 that the rest have pretty much fallen by the wayside until last week when it dawned on me that there were like 2-3 weeks left and I haven’t been working on crap. The fact that I have had to travel for work for close to 1/2 of this challenge has made things difficult as well. It’s been hard to nail down time for Dave and I to work together on this stuff.

On the positive side, I managed to accomplish the goals that I actually used to perceive as “impossible” (#1 and #2). The rest, I think, will just take time and practice. They will eventually come. Will they come in over the next week? Most likely not, but I am not totally ruling things out. Maybe I’ll get lucky and a light bulb will go off for the brain-body connection.

More WODs

Friday (1/14/2011) was all about snatching. The WOD was:

  • 3 – 3 – 3 – 3 – 3 {Muscle Snatch, Hang Squat Snatch, Full Squat Snatch}

The weights I used were 75#, 95#, 105#, 115#, and 135#. Then, we had 15 minutes to find out 1RM for snatch. I was able to meet my current PR of 155#, but failed repeatedly on 165#. Thing is, I pretty much muscle snatched that 155#, so I think I have the potential to do a lot more. The thing that scares me, honestly, is getting under that weight. I don’t think I have ever OHS more than #135.

Saturday (1/15/2011), Carson had some nastiness planned for us for open gym. It was a buddy workout and you could split it up however you wanted:

  • 1000m row
  • 150 squats
  • 150 sit ups
  • 150 push ups
  • 150 pull ups
  • 1200m row

Jody and I pulled this one off in 28:51. Mean, Carson… very mean.

It’s a bit over a week and I am starting to notice some changes in adhering to what Dave has told me to do for the “I Do The Impossible” challenge. I am down a notch on my belt, I am not as sore from WODs, and I am feeling pretty good.

Snatch Night

I’m sure you are sick of reading these words, but I can’t really say it enough… It’s good to be back at heavy metal night. It’s still and by far my favorite CrossFit class.

This time we focused only on the snatch. We spent most of the class working with PVC on the different parts of the movement, then the movement all together. Near the end of the class, we did the following WOD:

Set the clock to 10 minutes. Each minute, do 3 snatches. On the last minute, do as many snatches as possible.

I got 12 snatches on the last minute which totals 39 total snatches in 10 minutes. Not too shabby.

What went well?

I used 95lb, so the snatches were not really too heavy. I thought about going with 115lb, but wanted to focus more on form as I have not done snatches in a while. I think for all 9 sets, I was able to do the 3 snatches in about 15 seconds give or take a few.

What needs improvement?

On the last minute, I think I could have done better on firing the snatches out. I was having a bit of hard time controlling the weight on way down to set up for the next snatch. I think if I could get this under control a bit better, I could have gotten more out.

Overall feel.

I will admit that I got off to a bit of a slow start getting the movement just right again, once I got it, I felt great during the whole class as well as during the WOD itself.

Snatches and Soreness

Last night at CFCP was awesome. I really love the Friday evening class. The Olympic lifts that we are learning are SO much and even more fun when you know how to do them correctly.

We worked more on the Snatch last night and got into doing more of the exercises with weight (presses, snatch balance, heaving snatch balance, etc). The WOD was “Isabelle”. I did this one on Monday in Albany, but I didn’t go with the Rx weight. Last night, I did.

Again, “Isabelle” is 30 snatches for time. They don’t have to be full squat snatches with the OHS, they can be power snatches if you are strong enough.

Last night I got this done is 6:16… almost 3x longer than it took me with 95lbs on Monday. Whatever, I am happy with that.

After the WOD, I wanted to try to go a bit heavier on the snatch. I was able to get 155lbs. I quit there as I was tired.

This morning for open gym, I was on the fence as to whether or not I wanted to work out. I am sore as hell, tired, and well, just not really feeling that hot. When we got there, the WOD was:

3 rounds 1:30 on, 0:30 off of:

  • Dead lift (225lbs)
  • KB Swings (24kg)
  • Pull Ups

I didn’t count my reps on this and really just did the best I could with how I felt. After the first round, I really didn’t want to do any more. You can’t stop though, unless you want to be the target of endless ridicule, so I just kept going.

We did some grocery shopping after open gym, then got home, ate and took a really long nap. Almost 3 hours, I would say. We had a goal to clean the rest of the house today, which we did some of, but not all. It’s been like 2 months that we are trying to do this. Maybe before we leave for MS, it will get done. Who knows.

Tomorrow, we have the finals for the 5k challenge. I am really tired and sore, so, this will be an interesting experience, for sure.

Albany

Albany was a pretty nice little city from what I saw of it. I guess I really didn’t see TOO much, though. At the very least, I found one good place to eat (The Barnsider Restaurant). The people that I came here to work with were really nice. I know I posted a rant about offices just a few days ago and, for the most part, I do really feel all of that stuff, but I didn’t really mean for it to reflect on the people there. They were really a pleasure to work with.

Big thanks to Crossfit Albany for letting me drop in while I was in town. Here are the WODs that I got while I was visiting…

Monday (4/12/2010)

  • 30 Snatches for time
  • 1 Mile Run – Untimed

We started out with some Bergner warm up, which is always good. I got the 30 snatches done in 2:26. The Rx weight for this was 135lb but I opted to go with 95lb instead as I wanted to work on my form a bit. I have never tried to snatch more than 105lb. Last time I tried that much, it went up easy, but I still think I can get better on my lifts. Getting that down is more important to me than throwing around 135lb at this point in time.

I know you will be surprised to read this, but I felt very sluggish during the run. I started out sort of quick then died off. I never really got into that groove where it became easy. I tried to focus on pose the whole time and I think I’m getting better at it. Still, though, it came and went. At least now, I know when I am swinging my legs with my hip flexors.

Wednesday (4/14/2010)

Before I left the hotel for the office, I hit up the “workout room” and used the treadmill for some Tabata Sprints (Slight Incline 10 mph)

Later, at Crossfit Albany, we did the following:

3×5 Strict Presses

Followed by:

“Running Cindy” (AMRAP in 20 minutes of {400m run, 5 pull ups, 10 push ups, 15 air squats})

Followed by:

3×10 Hang Squat Clean with no dip (45lb Bar)

Starting off with the presses was pretty cool, actually. It was fun to have a little strength WOD built in before the actual WOD. My weights were 95lb, 115lb, & 135lb. They were all easy. I guess I had no frame of reference as I haven’t done much strict pressing since starting Crossfit. It reminded me of the old gym days doing military presses. At least now, I know for next time, I can probably start with 135lb.

Incidentally, the warm up for this WOD took it out of me, a bit. It was 3 rounds of {7 (ring rows, lunges, ring dips)}. When I woke up this morning, I was sore  in my upper back and chest… I think this is why. Ring dips kill me every time.

Anyway, moving on.

Running Cindy went well for me. I didn’t take any breaks, which makes me happy. Well, it didn’t really make me happy during the workout, but thinking about it now does. I am getting to the point, I think where I am starting to rest less. Sometimes you need to just keep moving even if it’s not at the pace you really want. I didn’t take any walk breaks on my runs, which is kind of amazing to me. In total, I got 6 full rounds + 200 meters. When you think about it, in 20 minutes, I did:

  • 6 – 400m runs + 200m = 2600m … that’s 1/2 a 5k, which is a little over 1.5 miles.
  • 30 pull ups
  • 60 push ups
  • 90 air squats

Pretty good…

The last part of this workout was what they referred to as the “tall clean” drill which is basically a hang squat clean but without the “dip & shrug” part. The object of this is very similar to a “snatch balance”. You have to get under the bar without moving the bar very much, if, at all. Obviously, this is more difficult as you have to get under the bar when it’s at your waist as opposed to getting under it when it’s racked across your back. It took me a few tries to get the idea, but eventually, I got it and could see how this could really help with the squat clean technique. This was particularly challenging too as I was really worn out from all the previous stuff.

Regarding the rest of the stuff about the trip… mostly, it was pretty good. I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express which was really nice and very comfortable. They had a hot breakfast every morning which is always good for someone like me. My rental was a Hybrid Toyota Camry. I had never driven a hybrid before, so it was pretty interesting. Honestly, the best part about this car was that it had bluetooth integration. It’s so great for your car to just be your hands-free device the moment you get in.

The trip home… well, that didn’t go so well.

If you were reading any of my Facebook posts yesterday, you could probably tell that I was in a bit of a mood. All of the problems stemmed from missing my connection in Newark. I was supposed to fly from Albany – > Newark, then Newark – > Austin. The flight coming IN to Albany was 1.5 hours late. That means, no connection for me, and that’s the LAST flight coming out of Newark to Austin. Awesome. All I wanted to do was be home.

Anyway… at the desk in Albany, I asked the Continental rep what the best thing to do for my baggage was. It was clear that I wouldn’t make my connection so, he recommended “short checking” the bag so that I could pick it up at the baggage claim in Newark.

When I got off the plane in Newark, I hauled ass to the continental desk where I got a bit upset. They informed me that they would not cover my hotel as the plane delays were due to ATC (air traffic control). I had a few words for the woman behind the desk, but then realized that their policies are not her fault. Oh well. Turns out most of the hotels in the area were booked as this whole volcano thing caused lots of flights to be cancelled which, in turn, results in, you guessed it… people getting stranded in Newark and needing a hotel.

Luckily for me, I am on business travel, which means, (sorry Ben) my company gets to pay for continentals incompetence.

Back to the lady at the desk. She called a few hotels in the area and they were all booked. Finally, she called the Hilton and they had rooms, so, to the Hilton I would be going. I asked her, then, what would be best for my bag. She said to leave it and it would be on the plane tomorrow morning. OK.

Now, I take the monorail thing 3 stops over to P4 which is where the hotel shuttles do their pick ups and drop offs. I wait. And wait. And wait. Finally, I call the hotel at which point, they inform me that they pick up at the bottom of the hour. It was 9:10. Awesome.

Just for grins, I called Continentals baggage services to see what was up with my bag. I had a feeling that it was spinning around the carousel back in Terminal A (4 stops away on the monorail). I was right. I asked if they could pick it up and re-route it back onto my flight for tomorrow. The rep said that I could NOT and that if I didn’t go and pick it up, I would have to file a lost baggage claim when I got back to Austin, and that they would send it.

Argh.

So I get back on the damn monorail and go back to Terminal A where my bag is in the baggage services center WITH A TAG ON IT THAT HAS INSTRUCTION TO RE-ROUTE IT FOR MY FLIGHT IN THE MORNING. I am about ready to scream at this point. Also, it’s past 9:30pm and if I don’t get back to P4 (4 stops away, remember?) in time for the shuttle, I will have to wait another hour for the next one.

At this point, I just took a cab to the hotel. I was done dealing with people’s gross incompetence at well, everything.

I got to the hotel, checked in, ordered room service, talked to V for a bit and went to sleep. No, my room service was NOT paleo. No, I don’t care. It was the only time on this trip whe
re I didn’t make a great food choice and I’m OK with that.

Now, I am waiting to board my morning flight. I had better not have any more problems.

P.S. My flight landed 35 minutes early! It’s good to be home…