Monday, April 12, 2010

Pressing and cleaning and swinging from the rings

Today I physically felt BLAH. Instead of working out between coaching 0630 and 0830 like I usually do, instead I read a book and took a nap.

Then I proceeded to take 2 more naps over the course of the day. Geez.

Thank goodness I forced my butt out of the house for the 5pm class at CFC.

Strength:
Press  3 - 10 - 2 - 10 - 1 - 10
Results: 85 - 65 - 85(1) 75 - 60 - 80 - 60
While I'm not sure I picked the right loads for the last 4 sets, I know I was perfect on my 3 rep attempt and my first 10 rep attempt. My old 1RM for press was 85, so I'm totally pumped about putting 85 up 3 times in a row tonight. Though I think I should've attempted 85 isntead of 80 on the 1 rep set.

Metcon:
As many reps at possible in 6 minutes of body weight power clean.
Results: 26 reps at 115#
I'm glad I tested my power clean 1RM the other day (sadly, still @ 125#), because that gave me the confidence to choose the load for this WOD. I toyed with the idea of doing 125, but decided to stick with 115. There were some pretty ugly catches in terms of foot positions and low elbows on the reps past 20, so I think I made the right decision. Only failed 2 or 3 times -- basically aborted after the first pull when I didn't feel right. I think I maybe could've gotten 2 more, but really was operating right at the edge of my capacity.

Doing this WOD made me anxious to try Grace at 95# soon.

--
After all that, it was on to the rings to work my muscle up. I am making progress with my false grip, and just improving my overall comfort level with playing on the rings. I almost got myself through the transition at one point, but then I just didn't have enough juice left in the tank to re-try.

Some of the things I talked to Paul and Dave about, just for my own future reference:
 - Practice short ROM pullups on the rings holding false grip, from elbows at 90 degrees up to chest to the rings
 - Practice "bottomed out" dips -- dip down, hold for a count of 1-2-3, then push back up (being able to do this is gonna take me a little while, I'm barely able to do 1 unassisted ring dip)
 - Practice kipping on the pullup bar with hands facing in; this will help develop the "feeling" of a different hand placement when kipping (I already tried this, and I think it will be a big help)

Dave suggested that I not get my hips so far out in front when I'm trying to kip up into transition. I was trying to emulate some videos I had watched from BeastSkills (Flickr), and I just got the wrong idea. I was trying to push my whole trunk into something approaching a horizontal position. But that puts the hips too far forward. After hearing Dave's feedback at the gym, I came home and watched the BeastSkills videos again, and now I can see that the hips stay in line below the rings, and it's the legs only that come up to horizontal. Looks like L-sits also go on my skills/goals list for next quarter. :)

I'll try to take some video next time I play around with MU's so I can watch myself and see what I'm doing.

I had one really good kip where I almost made it through transition, I just wasn't aggressive enough with pushing my head/shoulders through. Probably due to hips being too far forward. The good news is that my elbows/arms were in a good place, so I'm solid there.

Enough rambling, time to clean up and have dinner. :)

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for all your comments on my blog. We are very close on a lot of the lifts and skills. If I'm ever down there, or you're ever anywhere near Tulsa, we should do a WOD together! :)

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