The week that just passed has been about as up and down as a week can be, physically.
Monday was my most recent back squat max testing day. I went to the gym feeling pretty dejected; I had been sad leading up to my last deadlift max and I was pretty happy with that result, so I was hopeful that being miserable might lead to a good result this time, too. Going into Monday I'd already exceeded my previously tested max by a kilo the week before and it had been pretty easy. Another thing I had going for me was that it was a rare day completely free of SI pain. I can easily squat on a bad SI joint day -- walking out the weight is usually the worst part -- but it was nice not to have to worry about it.
Up through 85kg or so it was really no big thing. 89kg was hard, with a sticking point, but I managed. Now I had a dilemma: the next weight my trainer put on the bar was 91kg -- which was my goal for myself as well -- but 89kg had stuck badly enough that I wasn't sure the 2kg jump would work out for me. Nevertheless I got under it and...with a serious tilt to the left...got it up. 200 freaking pounds!
Unfortunately my week followed up that high point with a serious low, in the form of a 48 hour stomach flu (norovirus). 23andme tells me I'm somewhat resistant to the virus, which I'd believe based on the relative mildness of the symptoms, but it's still no picnic. Beside the illness itself, I apparently ended up short on magnesium and the fasciculations were pretty crazy for a couple of days.
Friday I was back up and about, and in the gym. Friday has been my power clean day in this cycle, and I've really struggled to figure out the movement, particularly pulling myself under the bar. The week before I failed to clean 40kg because I just couldn't figure out how to get under it. In the mean time I'd watched some super-slow video of Pyrros Dimas doing power cleans, so I was hopeful that that had helped.
My first warm-up attempts at hang cleans did not go well, I basically just forgot how to move. I was so disappointed. We moved on to cleaning from the floor and there too my first rep or two were unintentional muscle cleans, if not straight up reverse curls. Then somehow I got my head out of it and it just clicked. After a stop at 38, 40 just FLEW right up. I think I even said "wow it's light!". A few more doubles at 40 confirmed for me that I had finally figured out how to put the pieces together. I felt pretty confident that if time allowed I could've gone up another 10 kilos that session, but I still wasn't understanding the "quick elbows" cue.
I guess it's technically a new week, but this evening I spent a little time reading Greg's book, and it finally occurred to me that part of why my elbows are slow is because my shoulders are just kind of sitting there. I tried experimentally thrusting my elbows forward just in my kitchen with no bar, and it's so much faster and more decisive with a shrug as Greg describes. So now I'm looking forward to giving that a try for real, if I can do it without losing the plot completely. Woo!
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