244# Snatch (PR)

Workout of the Day

WOD 1 – in the morning…
Handstand Pushup Practice

WOD 2 – in the afternoon…
Establish a 1RM snatch
Complete Regionals WOD 5 snatch ladder
Air Dyne Wattage Ladder – 2 minutes at 150 watts, 2 minutes at 175 watts, 2 minutes at 200 watts… etc until failure to accomplish

WOD 3 – in the evening…
“Diane”
21-15-9
225# deadlift
Handstand Pushups

Day 1 back training has me in Scottsdale, Arizona visiting with James Fitzgerald at the OPT compound here.  Things look a bit different and a lot more settled than the last time I was here in December.  The place has everything you need to study the body from the inside out and really determine what works and what doesn’t.  The team here is beyond qualified and is seriously dedicated to the process of learning and exploring human potential.

For me, being a part of that process is exciting.  I love being around people who have the ability to understand and explain to me why I’m feeling the way that I am, or what my potential roadblocks are.  Even just tinkering around with James on a strategy for a workout like Diane was time well spent.  Taking advantage of this kind of high-level resource is something aspiring crossfitters and athletes need to consider as a necessary component of their training.

As far as my workouts for today, it was a mix of good and bad.  I hit a new PR on the snatch, lifting 244# for the first time ever.  I attempted and missed 252# twice before moving on to the regional ladder.  This I made clean lifts all the way through 225# before failing at 235#.  I really think this is the weight I need to make in the event and fully expect to given that I won’t have gone after a bunch of max effort attempts 5 minutes beforehand.  From there I’ll have to decide whether it’s worth it to go for 245# or just knock out as many double unders as possible instead.

Following this I did OPT’s lactate balance test on the air-dyne, which was a predictably un-enjoyable experience.  The point of the test is to determine how quickly your body re-absorbs lactate from the blood into the muscle after intense exercise, and how quickly that lactate is then re-flushed back into the blood as activity resumes.  The long and the short of it for the guy on the bike (me) is that you’re building a high tolerance to feeling pumped out.  This is valuable but very taxing.  I could feel the effects later in the evening when I did “Diane.”

That experience was at first disappointing, then relieving.  My time was slower than I’d hoped (3:37) given all the practice I’d done with kipping HSPU, but more disconcerting was how inefficient I felt doing the kip under fatigue.  Initially I chalked this up to my core being fried from the deadlifts, but upon further review it turned out I had completely misaligned myself at some point during the WOD.  Rather than keep my head close to the wall to allow an upright body posture with stacked spine, I had allowed my head to creep out toward my hands and force my torso into a completely extended position.  It’s literally impossible to kip from there.  Hence, my kips sucked and my arms got tired.  I plan to do this WOD again Friday with this single focus in mind, something I wouldn’t have considered unless I failed so miserably today.  There it is… turning a negative to a positive.  Get on with your bad self.