Friday 1.11: Cleans, metcon of row, clean and jerk

Friday. Cleans for strength / technique. Metcon of row 1.000-800-600-400-200m, clean & jerk 2-4-6-8-10 (60kg). Time 18.04

Time to work on metabolic conditioning. I did some technical practice for cleans prior to the metcon. My elbows felt better so I had the chance to work on this movement. I was a bit afraid how they would react to cleans and clean&jerk but they managed well. No pain. The idea was to not be organized, just put some plates on the barbell and complete some beautiful squat cleans.

Technique. Squat clean. I believe I did a good job. My form stayed good when going under the bar. My intention was to bring the bar higher on my thighs, trying to keep hands straight for as long as possible. I've traditionally bent my arms quite early and thus the bar has bounced on approximately my mid-thighs. So I tried to keep arms more straight and this way bring the bar higher before the "pop".

Kept the bar rather light, @ 60-80kg. My position in the bottom position was good in my opinion. At some reps I stayed there for 1-2 seconds just to feel it. Sit there relaxed before coming up normally. All in all this was a good technique training. Didn't go heavy at all. Wanted to stay stylish with the barbell this time. And there was a lot of work ahead of me in the metcon.

Metcon. Time 18.04

• Row, 1.000-800-600-400-200m
• Clean & jerk, 2-4-6-8-10 (60kg)

Combination of rowing and clean & jerk, total of 3.000m row and 30 reps c&j @60kg. Rowing went on by descending ladder and c&j by ascending ladder. It's a nasty combo, now I can tell. It's not a pleasant thought of grabbing the barbell after rowing you ass off. Well okay, I didn't row that fast because I realized it's gonna make the bar work much more challenging.

Actually I took the rowing on very decent pace, the first kilometer was around 1.45+, from then on I stayed at maybe 1.50-1.55, the last 200, was probably at 2.00. However, on the clean & jerk I nailed the reps unbroken on the rounds of 2, 4, 6 and 8. On the last round I did 6 reps, brought the bar down, took some breath, released the tension in my forearms and finished the last 4 reps.

After the workout I knew it was a good decision not to rush on the rowing. It would have backfired in a big way. And the seconds won by rowing faster would not have been compensated by a quicker total time. That's because it would have turned in to longer rest periods between movements. This one resulted in a long metcon, about 18 min and a good number of reps + meters. I'm happy I did it!