Saturday, December 04, 2010

Hungarian style snatches

Teaching the snatch in Hungary.

I felt great from Wednesdays one arm swing fest on Thursday and Friday but woke up this morning with some strange cramping in my leg rectus femoris( main hip flexor of the quads) for no damn good reason. I say that the definition of getting old is getting injured sleeping.

Well, here's a great example. I did nothing,really, out of the ordinary yesterday or the day before, stretched out and woke up with a weird muscle spasm that I couldn't explain. The I did do some fairly dynamic high knee lifts that I haven't done before but c'mon, I gotta walk that thin a line? well I guess I do because the leg didn't want to release this morning and I didn't have a lot of time to stretch before my workout time started.

Of course I could have just stretched out and skipped the session but I have had enough experience with things like this that I know that sometimes just getting back into a 'normal' motor pattern can reset the bodyclock and the 'pain' goes away. Or at least diminishes greatly.

So I figured I would warm up and see how things felt then but man, I hate little crap like this! I just have to be very,very, very careful with which movements I do and how 'hard'. MY engine is way to strong for this frame these days and I have to always remember that.

I also know that I haven't made the time to fully stretch out before work and that's a mistake. I have to "open up" my body before I start training people as the cold studio( they're warm, they're swinging,lol) mixed with so much standing and truncated movements gets me very tight very quickly.

It's so easy to forget and or stop doing enough of what gets one into balance once one feels in balance. The 'need' to balance is not as strong and it's easy to get lazy.But it sure can come back and bite you in the ass and being in pain is such a major time and energy sink.
And I have LOTS to do these days,my regular job being almost the least of it,lol

Plus, you end up doing so much more stretching to get back to plumb you might as well do it in the first place.

Not to say that's the sole reason this happened; it's more likely those high knee lifts but I still need to stretch out early every day.
Who needs sleep?

7-8 am stretch out and roller

8-9:20 am

warmup
one arm swings
16 kg x5/5/5/5 x3
20 kgx5/5x2

snatch ladder
16 kg x5/5x2
20 kg x5/5
x6/6
x7/7
x8/6x 2 rungs
104 reps
4576 lbs

these went very well and I made some modifications to my stance that I probably needed to do anyway. My stance has been creeping in to the narrowest position it's ever been in and it's a bit too much hip and back and not enough leg
So I opened up a bit and really sat back on the descent FIRST and then did my normal groove. this put my COG over my base more and spread the load better. Felt good immediately which is usually the sign ,lol.

Tracy and her girls were doing their normal 1000 snatches or something like that.The workout was very quiet so I know it was a hard one. But she is a machine I tell you, a machine! Her work capacity rivals any one I know of.

So,now finally warmed up and my leg feeling normal I went to the 24 kg but decided to do them as I did my swings on Wednesday, Hungarian style; i.e one arm at a time.
Still wanted to be cautious and respectful of my leg even though it was feeling better and stayed with five rep sets

Hungarian snatches
24 kg
20 sets of 5 reps ,alternating arms
100 reps
5300 lbs

this was reminiscent of max vo2 training although I was totally off the clock and going by feel. Nick was out today so I had to pace myself, no problem as I was finally warmed up and feeling good. I didn't even look at the clicker as I did sets and had to real goal but to go until I felt like my form and or speed/power of each rep started to decline.

When I finally looked at the clicker and saw 17 sets I was surprised and happy. 100 reps this way was very interesting and my power stayed up for all the sets and reps and my rest periods were not long, probably no more than twice the amount of the work set( 12 sec?).

I just really wanted to get into the zone and go by feel and it worked great.I also just realized that this was a 200 rep snatch workout. Although half of them were with the 20 kg it's ok. 200 reps is 200 reps and more than I've done in quite a while.

One arm swings
24 kg x5/5
28kgx5/5
32 kg x5/5 x 5 sets

Two more sets than last week and they were much stronger. used the same slightly wider stance and layback technique here as well.My grooves are always a moving target and I have to stay alert to what my body is telling it me it needs now in order to perform safely.

Theses heavy one arms on Saturdays will really help my volume Wednesday work as well.

Two handed arm cast ladders
15 lbs x 10/10
20 lbsx 8/8
25 lbs x 5/5
x6/6
x7/7
x8/8
x9/9
x10/10

these felt very strong and didn't irritate anything,lol. nice. Actually got a lot more work done today than expected.

now go home to tape, stretch and relax for the weekend!

datsit:))

2 comments:

guy said...

Another great post Bossman! Thanks!

Mark Reifkind said...

thanks Guy, appreciate your readership.

195 x 1 x 11 , 20 kg swings 5 x 8/8, floor pushups 35, 25

  Not great sleep and a bit sore ( no aspirin for last three days) so all in all it was a strong day . Just definitely not 'fresh'  ...