Monday 26 October 2009

Monday's meaningful session

I had a great session tonight. I have a week's holidays, so I will be training quite a bit over the next few days. However, I have to be careful so that I pace myself and do not burn myself out; I also need to remember to use this time to improve my technique with lighter weights, not simply lifting heavier weights with the same flaws so that I do not improve. I will leave most of my strength work to my squats and pulls. My technique must improve when practising both the classical lifts and also the supplemental assistance exercises.

After a nice warm up, myself and Zag did the counter movement jump test again. Last week I got 42.5cm and this week I got 45.7cm. Zag got 48cm. I just dipped lower, but I also need to get the hang of bring my toes up when I jump to get that extra time in the air. It is just good fun and also a way to see how fresh we are at the time.

I started off performing an exercise recommended to me by Charlie Hamilton and Morgan Ask, a Swedish weightlifter who has helped me out with my technique. It is a nice exercise to warm up with and it is also good to reinforce technical pointers such as staying over the bar and keeping the back locked. It starts off with a Snatch deadlift, then two reverse pulls. I worked up from 60 for a few sets to 70, 80, 90 and 100. The last two sets are on the video below, so let me whether you think I am doing them right and also if you think they will be beneficial.

Snatch--1x3@60, 60, 60 1x2@70 1x1@80, 90 for six singles. Like Saturday, i focused on staying over the bar and extending up. They felt ok, but once I got a faster finish with the pull--Thank you for the point Dr Flanagan--they felt much better. Although tempted, I kept it at 80% so I could work on my technical pointers. One of Charlie Hamilton's technical pointers was to use the shrug at the end of the pull to guide the bar into the correct path while pulling yourself under the bar. I need to start incorporating this agani I think.

After these, I did around 20 minutes of flexibility which I thouroughly enjoyed. As this was an extra session on top of my program, I kept it light and technical with lots of flexibility. Have a look at the video below and let me know of any constructive criticism.

2 comments:

ESC-NI said...

I tried the big breath today and feels a lot better. May not look it but certainly felt like a major step forward to improving my posture. I can't make Limerick but with Pete Stewart back at xmas we are doing a comp/training day up here, if you boys fancy it. I'll keep you informed. How is the yoga going? Robbie

Barry said...

A communal Christmas session sounds great Robbie.
Yoga is fantastic: very relaxing and great for my flexibility!

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