Thursday's teetering total

Today's session was not the unmitigted disaster it might have been, but it did not go as well as hoped. I had a feeling today would be a hard session, a kind of sticking point to get through, but I had less in the tank than I realised. Here is what I did:

1. Snatch doubles: Work up to 90, but I missed the second rep and could not Snatch even one rep after this. I went back to Hang Snatch singles and worked up to a single at 90 and left it there. My co-ordination was not at its best.

2. Power Clean: Work up to 100 for 1 x set of 3--Again, I went light with this even though it felt heavy and slugish.

3. Back Squats: Work up to 130 for 1 x set of 5 reps--As above.

Today was the the inevitable day where the volume caught up with me, but I am very happy with the progress I have made over the last five weeks. I will have another lightish day tomorrow and save some energy for when I go to Holland to train with a Dutch coach I met in Bucharest supporting the lads at the Europeans.

Here is another classic battle from the 85kg class class in the 2000 games in Sydney:

Sunday's Snatch question

I read this post a while back and I have been thinking about how it relates to weightlifting. Here is a post from Ross Enamait's blog:

Dr. Bradley, M.D., suggests the following:

“To perform any physical feat with grace and dexterity, the human being must practice and practice to achieve relaxation of uninvolved muscles. Such simple acts as running, jumping, even walking, are instinctively performed gracefully and automatically by nonhuman animals. Grace in physical action is a result of ability to keep the uninvolved muscles relaxed, and economy of muscular action. This does not mean we human beings cannot achieve physical feats similar to those of animals. It means, rather, that we must recognize the human need for practice and physical conditioning of our muscles in the apparent absence of human instinct.”

The question is this: how relaxed should the uninvolved muscles be in the Snatch? Now, when one is in the zone or in their flow state, all this happens naturally and one does not have to think about it. However, this is not always the case, particularly in training. Here is a video of Rigert's Snatch and below it is Dimas's Snatch. I will let the viewer guess which Snatch was performed with grace and which one has muscle tension written all over it. Is there an optimal state of muscle tension or is it all dependent on the individual's physical and mental makeup?