If you follow
me on any social media sites, Facebook, Instagram, etc., you already know that
for the past 9 weeks I’ve been doing an Olympic lifting cycle at my box. Some
of you might even be sick of hearing about it. ;o)
When I first started
the cycle I was definitely struggling with my percentage work because I had
taken a month off prior due to a foot injury. For the first few weeks I had to
scale my back squat, snatch and strict press percentages down so I could
actually keep up with the programming. I’m thankful that I did & I’m glad I
actually listened to my body instead of trying to just push through &
potentially cause an injury.
Week after
week I was a different kind of sore; Olympic lifting soreness and crossfit
soreness are not one in the same - if I had to choose between one or the other
I’d pick the Olympic lifting soreness. It definitely doesn’t feel as painful;
you know it’s there but it doesn’t affect you like crossfit soreness does, at
least not for me.
So this past Friday
we were scheduled to max out on our snatch & clean & jerk lifts. As
soon as I woke up that morning I was thinking about maxing out. I’ve always
been more confident in my clean & jerk lift than my snatch. Snatching is
just more technical and actually one of the hardest lifts in crossfit. It’s
always made me more nervous, especially when it’s programmed to be heavy. When
I arrived at my box that night I was still feeling nervous but a little more mentally
ready. I just kept reminding myself that this is all supposed to be fun and
that if I happen to not hit a PR that’s perfectly fine; if it didn’t happen
that day then maybe another day. One of my coaches once told me that if you hit
90 to 95% of your PR on any given day, you should consider that a good day. That’s
been my thinking since he shared that with me.
For the
longest time I felt like I was stuck at 135# for my snatch. A lot of this was
mental, psyching myself out each time I would try to move past it. So on Friday
I planned to hit the following weights: 120#, 130#, 145# and possibly 150#
depending on how things went. I can usually tell how things are going to go
after my first lift, whether it’s going to be a good day or a bad day. Thankfully,
120# and 130# felt pretty easy so I was feeling confident. Here’s a video of my
145# snatch, which is a 10# PR for me:
Naturally,
since that was a successful lift and felt pretty good, I decided to jump up to
150#. Here’s a video of my 3 lifts at 150#:
Sorry Mom &
Dad, I didn’t mean to scare you on that last one! If I had only hit that second
lift that would’ve been perfect (sigh). Instead, I ended up tweaking my left
ankle trying to get out from under the bar on that last lift (bittersweet). Dammit,
just dammit. Typically my fails on snatches are losing the bar in front of me
and falling forward with the weight, never behind me. On that last attempt all
I was thinking was get my head out of the bar path so it didn’t fall on me, but
for some reason my hands didn’t want to let go of the bar. It wasn’t until it
was sliding down my back that I decided to let go (shaking my head). I did get
some scrapes on my back from the knurling on the bar, but nothing serious.
Needless to
say, I didn’t attempt anymore lifts after that last ugly attempt at 150#. Like
I said above, I was supposed to max out on my clean & jerk as well but
after some moving around and stretching, my ankle didn’t feel 100% so I decided
to not try and save it for another day.
The shitty
part of my ankle injury this past weekend is the fact that I’m signed up for a
crossfit competition in DC this coming Saturday. I know, perfect timing right. Sadly
I’ve had to find someone to take my spot so I won’t be competing. In the past I
would’ve just pushed through it and ultimately ended the competition with
another injury on top of a tweaked ankle. I’m now a little older and a little wiser
so I’m not going to push it. I’ll be in DC this weekend cheering on my
teammates though. Fingers are crossed for
a speedy recovery!
