Monday's mutilation

I woke up in a haze of pain and body confusion, but thankfully I ended the day well. Myself and Sami had our best sessions of the trip and these were needed very badly. All the guys were sore and tired from the competition on Saturday and there was a general sense of fatigue.

Our first session was 25 Snatches every 90 seconds. I had to Snatch off the blocks and Sami joined me there. I started off struggling to hit 90kg, but around 15 Snatches in, I worked up to 95 and then a few Snatches later, I worked up to 100; a few later I went up to 105 and for my last Snatch I worked up to 108kg; not a heavy weight but it felt far better Snatching this than Snatching 90kg for my first one or two singles. After the session, I chilled out and rested. It was actually a struggle to force myself to eat because when you are that tired, it is the last thing you want to do. It is quite weird because it is the same when I need to sleep very badly: it is really hard to go to bed and sleep and when I am feeling very tight and inflexible, the last thing you want to do is stretch. Counter-intuitive it may be, but it is still there.

The second session had us start off with Back Squats and we were all going for pr's with our five rep maxes. Jon hit 220kg for five reps which turned out to be a 10kg pr. Sami hit 150kg, Kevin hit 222kg for four reps. Spencer just missed squatting 280kg for a single. I went up to 170, but only hit 3 reps with it; I could not get through the sticking point with the fourth. I went back down to 162.5kg and got my five for a 2.5kg pr. Embarrassingly small, but 2.5kg less so.

We then moved onto Clean and Jerks and we had 20 to do every 90 seconds. I worked up to 130kg and started from there. I needed to hit this figure and try to get over my fear with the Clean. Everyone really pushed it in this session and it was the most intense training session I have ever had in the sport of weightlifting. It felt far longer than the Snatches and everyone's legs were already shot from squatting to maximum. After 15 Clean and Jerks, the fatigue really started to creep in and I had to switch off the mind completely in order to get through the lifts. Every now and then just at the mid point of my pull, that little doubt would creep in and try to screw me over. I had to try and not think about it at all. On my last Clean and Jerk, I worked up to 135kg and forced myself to lift past the point were that devil whispered in my ear that I can't do it.

Here is a video of the Clean and Jerk part of the session. Everyone was sweating really badly and everyone was hurting from the squats; it is only really in the last ten minutes of the video that you can tell people were hurting.



I did a massive amount of active recovery after the session again, with an ice bath and later that evening some contrast water therapy also.