Thursday 2.10: Power clean, Row and C2B

Thursday. Strength / Technique, power clean (max 90kg). Metcon, 5rds of: 500m row, 10 c2b. Time 15.30. Mobility.

Today was easier day, between Smolov days. I had thought about doing clean and jerks or some sort of complex regarding them but at the gym I realized my body was bruised up and so it was only natural to take it a notch easier. Decided to focus on clean technique but accidentally I climbed up to 90kg power cleans. Metcon consisted of rowing and chest-to-bars.

Barbell.

• Power clean
• 5x40, 60kg
• 3x70, 80, 85, 90kg

Toni has coached me on my cleans and and given tips on how to make it more efficient. Then, last weekend I worked out with m big bro and he also had his view on my starting position. These are all good advice on how to improve my technique, and thus allowing to add more weight on the barbell. Since last weekend I had thought about the starting position and looked a lot of videos. This resulted in me finally understanding the importance of the form before the actual lift.

I had to lower my but and engage my upper back, lats and traps even better before moving the bar at all. By starting lower my legs will get more involved in the lift. Then again, focusing on getting my shoulder blades as tightly together as possible the bar will hit higher on my quads before making the "bounce". All this also resulted in me not bending my arms that much, and therefore using the entire body more effectively.

I was just playing around with 40kg, then 60kg. At some point I realized there's a bit more stuff on the bar. It felt good all the time so I just kept adding weight until I reached 90kg. I believe these were close to best cleans I've ever done if you think about the "correct" way of doing them. I need to work more on this technique and starting position in order to get used to it and thus getting the most benefits out of it.

Power cleans

Metcon. Time, 15.30

• 5 rounds of:
• 500m row
• 10 chest-to-bar pull-ups

Somewhere I saw a workout of 30min amrap with this same rep scheme. That was a little too much for me. I didn't want to burn my legs totally because I need them tomorrow again for squats, no surprise there! So I took the rowing part with modest pace, didn't rush at all in any stage. It was around 1.55 / 500m each round. It didn't burn that much because the pace wasn't that fast but surely it made me breath nicely.

It was good to have c2b's in this one too. Haven't done them lately at all so I felt satisfied to have them. I didn't get them unbroken. Instead, they were basically 6-4 all the way. It took me 3min to finish first round, same with the second round. The 3rd and 4th rounds were 3+ and the 5th and last round was just shy of 3min. At some point it took me some time as I needed to wait to hop on the pull-up bar because there was someone standing and doing nothing right there. Luckily I got a chance to finish the workout without much interruptions.

I've concentrated more on mobility recently because I wanna keep my legs ready and fresh for squats. Today was no exception, I stayed for quite a long time and just stretched my hip flexors and did some mobility drills and utilized the rubber band assisted moves too.