WEEK 4 | TRAINING WEEK/CYCLE – WINTER CYCLE COVERING WEEK(S) 12, AGAIN?
BODYWEIGHT:
104 kilos
HIGHLIGHTS OF TRAINING PROGRAM:
Competition prep for the winter cycle continues. Repeat of week 12 to prepare for a meet I’m actually able to do. More details below.
BEST TRAINING SESSION OF THE WEEK(S):
Week Day 12 Day 1 :
Wall Squats 4(10)
Jumps 3(5)
Snatch without moving feet
1(1)75%, 1(1)80%, 1(1)85%
1(1)75%, 1(1)80%, 1(1)85% 1(1)75%
Clean and Jerk
1(1)75%, 1(1)80%, 1(1)85%
1(1)75%, 1(1)80%, 1(1)85% 1(1)75%
Back Squat
1(1)70%, 1(1)80%, 1(1)90%
1(1)70%, 1(1)80%, 1(1)90%
Bodybuilding – 10 minutes
YASHA’S COACHING POINTS FOR THESE LIFTS:
For the Clean: Try to pull the clean more with traps and shoulders rather than arms. Start with bodyweight over heels (because the bar moves forward at first).
For the Jerk: Continue to try to push knees out more on dip. Get the bar much higher before going under. You should nearly finish the push press before going under.
Finally, the return of Yasha Kahn. Sounds like a good movie, I’d see it in theaters. Haven’t seen Yasha in a few weeks and although I send him videos of my lifts and post to the team FaceBook group page for his critiques, it’s always different when he’s there in person. Watching him lift, internalizing his movements by watching him lift, and getting live feedback, progresses me forward much faster. But that’s a typical story and one that everyone who’s coach isn’t with them in person everyday struggles with. Yasha goes back and forth from Boston to New York and when he’s in New York he’s not always training at my gym so I take as much instruction from him when he can stop by.
This past week was the week I had planned to compete but as I mentioned in the first of these journals, real life didn’t quite cooperate with my plans of grandeur. But as I looked at my calendar, the next few weeks seem to be the best opening I have to focus, prepare, and go to a competition. SoI decided to sign up for a local meet in Brooklyn that is pretty popular. It’s actually the same meet I did last year which was the beginning of me competing a little more regularly in weightlifting again.
So when Yasha came by, I asked him about how to adjust my training to suit competing on that day. He told me that since I’m still in the competition phase of the winter cycle, going back and repeating week 12 would help prepare me for the date of the competition. So back to week 12 we go.
Fortunately Yasha was there for my day one training:
Wall Squats 4(10)
Jumps 3(5)
Snatch without moving feet
1(1)75%, 1(1)80% 1(1)85%
1(1)75%, 1(1)80% 1(1)85%
1(1)75%
Clean and Jerk
1(1)75%, 1(1)80% 1(1)85%
1(1)75%, 1(1)80% 1(1)85%
1(1)75%
Back Squat
1(1)70%, 1(1)80% 1(1)90%
1(1)70%, 1(1)80% 1(1)90%
I was happy to have Yasha there to watch me do the snatch without moving feet because I’ve had difficulty doing the lifts at the percentages prescribed for these. Yasha coached me through this and addressed some questions as to what the specific gap I had with these was. Actually recorded a full video showing this training and all the cues, tools, and drills he gave to address these.
Insert video
To summarize the key points, Yasha told me that my positions are good but the timing of my turnover and tension of my lockout is off in the snatch. I’m pulling higher with a better bar path and elbow position but I’m not turning over and snapping into position to the height of where I’m placing the bar overhead with the proper rigidity.
Where I should be moving fast I’m not and my shoulders and upper-back/traps don’t push up on the bar immediately when I turn the bar over, so I receive the bar without the proper rigidity and let it just push me down like a rag doll. If you watch the videos, you can see this pretty drastically on a couple of the reps. This is one of the reasons why I’m so wiggly at the bottom, although I still maintain that this is just the dancer in me coming out.
Yasha emphasizes the importance of having your shoulders elevated and internally rotated to actively engage all of the muscles of the traps and upper back at the lockout of a snatch or a jerk. He teaches that this should be so tight and engaged that if the bar starts moving back, the entire body would fall back because the body is rigid from the shoulders all the way to the feet.
Let’s see if I can fix all my problems in a couple weeks for this meet. Also, I just saw a pig flying by my window…