Saturday 18.8: Death by clean & jerk (video)

Saturday. Clean technique. Rest 5 min. Death by clean & jerk (42.5kg). Total of 54 reps.

Today at the gym: Pauliina & Toni.

I began the day with clean technique. Today I finally figured it out! The recipe for understanding what it's all about hit me like a lightning. I've been trying to get the whole movement going on in one attempt instead of putting it to pieces. Those two parts I've had troubles in are the step where you bounce it up from the thighs and when you pull the bar up in correct position of hands, elbows and shoulders. I haven't been able to do both correctly which means it kind of collapses and I have to tear the bar up with my hands purely instead of utilizing the explosiveness and gravity. I was practicing it with 30 and 40kg and it rolled nicely. Let's see what happens next time when I add some kilos.

Today's workout was challenging. About a week ago I wrote I've been thinking about "death by" type of wods and today it was time for this one: death by clean & jerk with 42.5kg. You can take a look at how it should look like, here's 2009 Crossfit Games champion Mikko Salo doing the same wod, except he has 20kg more weight on the bar. Looks easy when he does it :)

I was wasted after 9 rounds but still almost made it to tenth round. Result was 9 completed rounds and 9 reps on the tenth round. Total of 54 reps. Here's a clip of the final round. Breathing was so heavy it was hard to get a gasp. Anyway, it was perfect workout, I'll definitely take another round of it in the future!

After finishing I took the same short workout as yesterday: 4 rounds of 5 pull-ups and 5 dips. Not much but but that's not the purpose of it anyway, the purpose is to keep pull-ups and dips on agenda all the time on a regular basis and hold the technique correct. Toni had another type of workout today due to his minor knee injury. His knee seems a bit stiff which prevents him doing strength training and workouts involving a lot of leg work. He found his way to get his body want to scream by completing a four round wod of rowing and push-ups:

• 500m row
• 20 hand release push-ups

I think his time was 10.26. His rowing slid in a smooth motion with 1.50-2.00 / 500m pace. The push-ups were hard at least towards the end. I was doing my clean & jerk at the same time of his first three rounds so I missed the effort he put on the wod. Toni's triceps went numb at the end so muscles have been in use! I could hear him breathing probably the hardest I've heard by far so I suppose the day was a success for both of us :)