The post title comes from Ellyn who wanted more good things than bad.. so Ellyn (i think it was her) started countering my "go deacs" with "nogodeacs". I'm not sure if this is making sense to anyone who hasnt heard me say that before... womp. Moving on.
Practice today was good. Last night I spent some time on YouTube watching videos of various lifters who have much improved/better technique than myself and I think watching them helped me today. Last night when I was online something 'clicked' with my lifts. I saw a lot of the other lifters catch the bar on their shoulders and when they caught the bar it was caught on the solid, ridged shelf of their shoulders. Watching them lift made me realize I often have rounded shoulders (and not a tight back- among other things) when I catch the bar. While I was watching videos I wrote down what I wanted to focus on with each lift. Some cues I had for myself were: tight, hips and shoulders together, finish the pull and to be quick with my over head squats.
Today I think I got better with a lot of those cues I gave myself. Starting with the last big lift- over head squats I went up 7kilos from last week and was tighter and quicker as I was doing the lift. Each set got better and fairly consistently the last rep was the best. Snatch grip behind the neck push-press also increased this week. 3kilos with that one. My focus was better with these lifts than they were before. I was purposeful and really worked on getting the timing of the dip and drive of my legs better today- so I could hear the 'clink' when I changed directions and began to press the bar over head. I had a 3kilo PR with that from last week- but there's still room for improvement. I still wasn't as tight as I needed to be or as explosive with the dip and drive. Anyone surprised I didn't get all bent out of shape about that? Writing about it I'm kind of surprised myself. Does this mean I'm growing AND learning??
On to the fun part: clean and jerk (side note-- be waiting for the day clean and jerk is replaced with snatch!). As of today my favorite/best lift is clean and jerk. It's not hard to figure out why.. it's my best lift (even though there's a lot of work to be done with it!) and it plays more to my natural assist of brute strength. Ellyn says most people are limited by their strength rather than technique- but for me it's my technique work that needs the most work :). That's a good thing because when I get my technical side of the lifts down a little bit better I'll be making big jumps with my lifts. Back to today's practice.. hang clean plus a clean and jerk. Warmups went well- thought Ellyn was messing with me when she wanted me to bang the bar off my hips to see how far OUT it would go.. I was confused and had a bout of nervous laughter. sorry ellyn. :) The lifts were quite a bit better and more consistent than they had ever been= good thing. On the hang clean I still shift my hips backwards (and the bar slides down) before I bring my hips forward and move the bar UP. Not as bad as it has been... i dont think... but still room for improvement. Jerks seem to be completely different from a week ago-- at least with the foot work. I feel my feet moving quicker and getting into better positions (wider and pointed in the right direction!). Doing jerk recoveries last week translated pretty much instantly to my jerks. Which was nice and gave me a lot of confidence with jerks. Yay!
I often feel like something is missing in my blogs when there aren't any pictures or videos or anything visually interesting- so here's a picture of one of the cues (and drawing of what I wanted to do with my lift off the floor) I wrote down the night before the workout. having something to think about right before bed and again when I'm lifting reinforces the habits I am trying to make permanent.
Along with the good practice today there were some pretty epic techno tunes in the gym today! Bill and I already bonded over our social dance experiences last week, and today we continued to share our excellent free style dance moves. As Bill and I were fist pumping (as well as some other a.m.a.z.i.n.g.l.y ridiculous dance moves that involved a lot of hand movements and very little body movement) across the room my teammates would occasionally watch in horror amazement at our skills. I think a few songs into the practice we were the only ones paying attention to the sweeeeeet moves being shared and Bill did a move right as I took a drink of water annnnd I lost it! Water went all over the platform and (maybe) Ellyn. No one else knew what was going on or what was so funny which may have made the whole incident even funnier. I wish I had a video of the sweet dance moves that were on display in Kelly Gym today, but I just have a video of Bill doing a clean and jerk.. At least y'all will put a name to the face :)
nogodeacs!!
No comments:
Post a Comment