First day of Intermediate Olympic Lifting class. We did some talking about goals and then worked on full squat snatches. 55 felt good, as did 65. I got 1 or 2 at 70 and then missed out front 3 times at 75. Need to focus on a. speed during second pull, b. layback, and c. being tight at bottom of snatch.

I then did 5 sets of about 30 seconds of belly-to-the-wall handstand "running" as part of my HSPU/overhead work for the month. Being flipped around took some getting used to, but I got pretty comfortable pretty quickly. I'm going to work on this just a few times a week (3 times, max) and see if I can't work my way up toward doing it for 5 minutes straight.

Tonight's WOD was

Front Squat 5x3 (105-115-125-135-115)

Then

3 rounds

50 double unders

15 ring dips (first just black band, then black and red)

15 DB swings (45 lb)

12:54

Started to cantilever forward a bit on the 135 front squat, but I was happy to be able to do it at all! Met con sucked, mostly because of the ring dips.

Friday was a work day, Saturday was an extra rest day, and Sunday I did

5 rounds

5 power cleans (105 lb)

10 pullups

15 box jumps

14:06

Power cleans took some time as I was dropping the bar every time, but I was able to keep a decent rhythm on them and they felt relatively good, especially when I caught the bar a little lower. Looking forward to the day when I can cycle my pullups better - once that happens, I could finish a WOD like this a good 2-3 minutes faster or be able to up the weight on the cleans without going grossly over on time. Box jumps are nothing else but a gut check, as always.

Today was graduation day for Oly Lifting Foundations. We worked toward 1 RM snatch and 1RM clean and jerk. For the snatch, I managed to stick 70, and failed at 75 a number of times. All of my problems can be traced back to f-ing up the first pull and me getting in my own head. The clean and jerk portion of the evening went much better - I got one at 115, and caught 120 but couldn't get it out of the bottom of my squat. I'll get it next time, though!

Today was

Push Press 5x3 (85-95-105-110f-105[2])

Then

30-20-10

DB snatch (30 lb)

Situps

Box jumps

7:45

Push presses felt ok - I worked a lot on keeping a good "porch" so the bar didn't slide on me. Erika gave me a good cue about pushing my knees out that I think will help keep my torso more upright. My limiting factor during the metcon was the quart of milk I drank at about noon today. Ew.

In the interest of not overdoing it (given my crappy sleep on Sunday night), I decided to only do the Oly lifting class tonight. We worked on the split, which previously has terrified me but is now less scary. I then did a handful of a few clean and split jerks at pretty light weights and then 95 lbs, and they all went up easy!

Once home I did another 5 rounds of Death By Handstand Pushup.

Monday was a rest day due to an extreme lack of sleep the night before. I think I jinxed myself by bringing gym clothes with me on my Sunday shift, in the hopes that I could just go straight to the box after work...