Thursday's thunderous 85's

The 85’s were, by far, the best competition so far. Although Rybokov the Snatch freak was not there, we still got a 168 Snatch and a barely missed 171 by the Armenian guy who came so close to winning, but missed his second and third Clean and Jerks. Hennequin had the final lift for glory. A 206 Clean and Jerk was required. A beautiful Clean and a shockingly close Jerk miss followed. This competition had everything: drama; technique; brute power and the best crowd involvement so far. Below is a video of some of the best Snatches.



My own training today was hard but enjoyable. In my first session I worked on the Snatch Combination of 1 Hang from above knee, then below knee, then from the ground. I also worked on light Power Clean and Power Jerks as well as some light Front Squats.

The second session of the day had a focus on the Snatch and then Snatch Pulls. The Snatch was going very smoothly and I hit a beautiful 97. I then proceeded to miss 102 twice and then 104 twice. It simply was not in me. I was hitting the bar too far out and I did not have my usual speed to get under it as fast. For this reason, we worked on Snatch Pulls for a while after.

A Dutch coach came over and gave me a brief physical assessment and said I was far too tight in my groin and hip area to get the necessary recieving position and also the starting position. He showed me some interesting stretching techniques to help me. The were immensely painful but very effective because my Overhead Squat saw a massive improvement. This 20 minutes was worth the trip alone, but there many of these moments over the four days.