Monday's malicious doubles

I woke up with a tight back and posterior chain in general after a day off on Sunday. I expected this, but after a little warm up and stretch, I felt better. There were two sessions yesterday and it was extremely demanding, but very beneficial.

In the first session, after around fifteen minutes I felt a little better and after going up to a double with 100, I hit 110 for a single on my second attempt. I went up to 130kg in the Clean and Jerk, and even though these are not heavy weights, I had never hit high intensity weights so early in the morning. Glenn had me focus the most on staying back on my heels rather than falling onto my toes which would cause me to leave it out front. He repeatedly said that the biggest thing I need to work on in my lifting is consistency--Wayne Healy also told me the same thing several times--and that if I am going to make mistakes, that they should be the same mistakes every time. One of the issues in my lifting is that I am not doing the same thing every time. With the Cleans, he also had me focus on staying back on the heels and timing the catch so that the bar was racked at the same time as my feel landed when I got under the bar. I was pulling the bar, planting my feet and then letting the bar fall down on me. The more I focused on it, the better I got and the Cleans felt far more comfortable. My Jerks felt pretty good also. John was training with me that morning and he was feeling pretty rough, but he turned it around massively in his second session.

The second session was quite frustrating as what I wanted to work on--consistency--did not play out like I wanted. In the Snatch, I worked up to doubles with 100 and 105 and I was unable to get it with 110. I worked back down to 90 and I hit my sharpest Snatches with 90 and then 100. The timing and speed felt great, but I could not translate that afterwards. So many doubles.....

In the Clean and Jerk, I did doubles again trying to work on my technique and my consistency. I worked up to doubles with 120, 125 and then I could only get one rep with 130 and 135. I worked back down to 120, hit 125 again, hit another single with 130 and then the bar fell back on me on the second rep. I went back down to 120 and ground out three of the hardest reps of my life, but I got them. I was so frustrated with myself for not going under the second reps of my few attempts with 130 and 135kg. It felt horrible to feel like I was lacking the necessary testicular fortitude and I needed to hit my triple with 120 just to show myself that I could do it. So many doubles, but when you have John North screaming encouragement and Glenn Pendlay sitting there in judgement, you can push it that extra bit. Now I simply need to get a double with 130kg which should not be a problem considering my max single is 147kg. Frustrating, but you have to start somewhere I guess.

Have a look at this video and let me know what you think. John had an insane session with countless doubles in both lifts and he was sore and beat up today. There is also a nice interview with Max Aita and I think many of you will find it fascinating. He trained under Ivan Abadjiev and Steve Gough and he has had a lot of experience in this sport: