As my mom pointed out this morning, I haven’t posted a blog since Wednesday. My Thursday schedule is an all day event starting with practice 9-12-ish, a quick shower and lunch then off to the Y at 1:30 until 9:30 or 9:45 (depending on if I have to wait with the front desk staff). Once I’m done at the Y I drive back to Bridgewater and it’s after 10 and I am ready for bed. No excuses, but there’s just not a whole lot of time to properly blog on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I was a slacker because now it’s Sunday and I’m just starting to finish the workouts from the last week. I’m working on getting better (both with blogging and lifting).
To be honest part of my hesitancy for Thursday’s blog is because I wasn’t thrilled with the outcome of the workout (at the time). Thursday was a test a programmed increase in both lifts. Go deacs. A few weeks ago Ellyn asked me what numbers I wanted to hit at the next meet, I told her and then she and I made a plan to reach those numbers one kilo at a time. With the plan she told me I would be lifting new PRs each week to build my confidence as well as to hopefully make a few of the lifts. Short version of the story: I didn’t make any new PRs and I was upset and frustrated. Little bit longer version of the story: Sometimes having practices that don’t go perfectly are good for me. When everything is smooth and easy, I tend to get comfortable with what I’m doing and satisfied with the progress I’ve made. But that’s not a good thing for me (to be comfortable) because I have so much more work to do and technique and strength to improve and increase. Not successfully completing lifts makes me focus more on what I need to be doing- it basically kicks me in the ass and gets me motivated.
Here’s the longer version of Thursday’s practice: Kindof excited and kind of nervous for the new maxes. Spent more time alone (focusing) than I normally do at practice (umm… something to think about) because the new maxes would need my full attention. For snatch things are good..mentaly, physically, emotionally.. until going over 65/reds/and maybe even a little anxiety adding weight to get to red. I don’t have the piece of paper that had all the numbers I was supposed to hit, but from what I remember, I started missing lifts right at my PR. I think I took 3 attempts at weights at or higher than my PR and missed them all. Womp. Good times.
And it’s from this point I’m not sure where or how to begin. I had conflicting feelings and thoughts about each lift and the failed attempt. At the time I was angry and frustrated at myself for working every day and “getting better” and getting stronger, but having nothing to show for it. If I’m so much stronger and my technique is so much better, why can’t I lift more right now? I was frustrated with those thoughts and Ellyn kept telling me to focus on ‘just this one’ and to stream positive thoughts about the lift… reminding myself I stood up with significantly more weight with snatch recoveries and over head squats and I pulled more weight with my snatch pulls than I was attempting to lift then.. I tried to hold onto those thoughts, feelings and memories- I probably did an okay job- but none of that was enough to get the weight into a stable and manageable position to complete the lift. Once I was freed from my snatch attempts I moved on to clean and jerk- my good ole standby. In between exercises Ellyn told me to leave the snatch shenanigans behind me so I could focus on clean and jerk. I told her that’s never a problem for me to leave snatch behind and move onto clean and jerk- usually it’s a relief to be able to move on… (maybe that’ll change one day…)
Clean and jerks felt better (and looked better according to Ellyn) than they ever have before. I don’t get nearly as anxious with clean and jerk as I do with snatch. The warm-up weights weren’t difficult and for the most part, each lift felt the same- which I don’t remember happening very often/ever before. Progress. I think when I got to around my PR or higher the lifts weren’t coming together… I had the same thought process I had with snatch… “If I’m getting better and stronger every day, why can’t I produce better results?” I must have said this or something along these lines to Ellyn at practice because she told me if I were tapered, or rested, or if it had been a competition (more rest between the two lifts), things would have been different and I probably wouldn’t have struggled with these lifts. At the time the things she said weren’t being heard. I didn’t care about this or that- I just wanted to make the lifts and be better today. With a little time and separation from the lifts, I know taking those lifts (that I missed) made me better and more prepared for my next meet and the next time I face those weights in practice. Bring it.
God Bless Ellyn for putting up with my crazy attitude and mood swings, because she was happy with the progress I made this week and the weeks before. I’m trying to wait patiently (ha!) for everything to come together… one day closer.
No comments:
Post a Comment