Sunday 23.11: Cleans, Snatches, Burpees

Sunday. Emom, 1 hang squat clean + 1 squat clean. Start at 80, add 2.5kg per min. Result (100kg). Metcon, 17min amrap of: burpees and snatches. Result, 150 reps.

Now this was a good day. Back on track! I took on cleans for barbell work, always a sure bet. I love the movement. You need to be fast to get them going. Well I'm not that fast but it felt great to get under the barbell with heavy load. I had plenty of options for metcon, all kinds of benchmark workouts came to my mind yesterday evening. Finally I ended up doing 2013 open workout of snatches and burpees, modified so that I could keep up the intensity all the way. Great workout!

Barbell.

• Every minute on the minute
• 1 hang squat clean + 1 squat clean from ground
• Start at 80, add 2.5kg per minute
• Go for as long as possible
• Result, 100kg

This was exactly what I needed. Complex style work with cleans. It was allowed to drop the barbell, no need to do them touch'n'go style. Actually mostly they were singles. The loads were rather big for me so t'n'g was out of question. I had hoped for reaching 100kg which is somewhat a benchmark weight for me from hang position. No prob if taken from floor but hang is a different game. Plus the intensity got higher because of short recovery time.

I took warm-up sets at 40-60-70kg before starting the workout. Felt great all the way! One rep at a time.  The reps were short and quick naturally as they were singles but I took some time between the hang and floor position snatches so it was probably something like 30 seconds that it allowed me to change weights and recover. Towards the end it got shorter and shorter. I was just able to nail 100kg in the time frame.

As I look at the reps on video afterwards, the reps regardless of the weight look pretty similar to my eye. I ain't a professional so there might be a lot of variance but to me they look like a solid effort. I'd like to see my lifts look consistent, no matter if it's warm-up or PR attempt.

1 hang clean + 1 clean

The bar got high enough for me to catch it in high position and then travel it down to deep squat. This kind of squat is what I'm looking for in the snatch too. My mobility now allows me to front squat and back squat as low as I could possibly get physically but overhead squat / squat snatch is still shallow. There's only one option: to fix it. I'm very happy on today's lifts, no doubt about it.

Metcon. Result, 150 reps

• 17 min amrap of:
• 40 burpee
• 30 snatch, 40kg
• 30 burpee
• 30 snatch, 50kg
• 20 burpee
• As many reps as possible in the remaining time of snatch, 60kg

This was a journey back to 2013 CF Open. The first workout that year was 17min amrap of: snatches and burpees, the difference was on the weights. That year the first set of snatches was 35kg and the second 60kg. That day I nailed my Personal Record on snatch about one and a half years ago, to 60kg. Same happened with my training partner Toni.

Still, my snatch is not on a huge level so knocking 30 light snatches (35kg) and then struggle with 60kg snatches for the remaining time was not something I was looking for. I wanted more intensity so that's the reason behind this decision on weights. If 60kg would be lighter for me, this workout would have rocked as rx'd.

It started with 40 burpees, always a pleasure in a workout =) I took my time with these, did them in 20-10-10 with just short breathing before hitting chest to deck again. I learned my lesson from yesterday's Fran of not running through the gates at 3-2-1-go. Burpees started to feel in my shoulders. They were warm to say the least.

Breathing was under control at this point because it was the first element, 40 reps done. There was 40kg bar waiting to be lifted. 30 snatches @ 40kg. Took 'em in sets of 6 reps, total of 5 sets. Had no idea how this would turn out but at the first sets I decided to go be feeling. Took 6 reps and thought this might be okay set. Didn't wanna make a stupidities by gassing too much. I believe these reps were perfectly fine for me at this weight.

After snatches had been done it was time for more burpees. By the way, I guess these were done on a 15cm target above the athlete's max height when he has his arms straight overhead. Today I did regular burpees anyway. That brought me enough intensity anyway. I did the set of 30 burpees in 20-10 reps, inhaling couple of times between sets. It didn't help so I figured going down again.

At this point I changed the plates on the bar and started lifting 50kg snatches. My shoulders were a bit afraid how that bar would feel like as they were getting fatigued. After first snatch I realized there's no need to stress about. It was definitely heavier than the 40kg bar but totally manageable. I had no misses at any point of the workout. The sets were 5 in the beginning, then a 4, and triples all the way from there on.

I felt like a winner after having completed all the snatches. Secretly I had wanted to finish them and I would have been pleased. Hadn't calculated how far I would be able to go but mentally I just wanted to get these done. There were still some tens of seconds to go so I started moving up and down on the burpees, 20 reps was ahead. At this point I must say they were not pleasant stuff but there was only one thing to do, move the body. After getting the final rep done there was 10 seconds left in the clock. Next station would have been 60kg snatches and I still had 50kg on the bar so no way I could have changed the loading.

Recap of metcon

This was an awesome metcon and a training day in general. Couldn't be more satisfied on my crossfit needs. Below you'll find out how Fran is done Games Athlete style =)