Strength comp!

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gweneddk
gweneddk Posts: 183 Member
I’m really happy with how my competition went Saturday! It was a combo Oly/PL meet where you got 5 min (Oly) or 4 min (PL) on the clock for each lift. Whatever your best attempt in that time was your score. I managed 4 or 5 attempts for each which was actually better than I thought I would do. There was about an hour in between each lift to rest and warm up for the next one.

Snatch 115 (10# PR)
C&J 140 (5# PR)
Squat 250 (5# meet PR)
Bench 175 (5# PR)
Deadlift 330 (30# PR!)


I struggled with my jerks; I had been avoiding them to rest up my shoulder and then ended up aggravating it again in my first missed jerk. I realized afterwards that I've never missed a jerk before so I didn't know how to safely bail and ended up hanging on way too long. I've really only done heavy jerks twice before the comp so that will come with more training. I will spend the next few weeks doing a lot of shoulder stability work.

Bench was a true max attempt, definitely a grinder. Squat and DL both probably could have done more on; I exceeded my expectations for my planned out attempts and ended up taking relatively small jumps for my final attempts but both of them were really solid so I probably could have done a bit more. For example, my DL was: 295, 305, 315, 325, 330. All in 4 minutes! So I think I could have gotten 340+ if I had planned it out a bit better!

Still, the goal was to beat my previous best lifts and have fun so I don’t have any regrets there :)

Replies

  • Wronkletoad
    Wronkletoad Posts: 368 Member
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    sweet! congrats. that's awesome work! yay!

    take care of your shoulder - that's a good lesson for the rest of us - properly bailing on a jerk or other overhead movements.
  • bostonwolf
    bostonwolf Posts: 3,038 Member
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    Good job. I usually bail by essentially pushing the bar forward as I step back. I've never failed backwards so I'm not sure how that would go.
  • jedwards213
    jedwards213 Posts: 24 Member
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    Those are some serious numbers! All in one day?!?! That's amazing!
  • gweneddk
    gweneddk Posts: 183 Member
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    Thanks for all the kind words!
    bostonwolf wrote: »
    Good job. I usually bail by essentially pushing the bar forward as I step back. I've never failed backwards so I'm not sure how that would go.

    I think I actually should have failed backwards at least on my first miss; my husband said my upper/mid back was arched back pretty far as I struggled to correct my position so I could step my feet together.

    Those are some serious numbers! All in one day?!?! That's amazing!

    Yeah it was a long day! It was supposed to be an hour and 20 minutes between each lift but was actually a little bit less. There was so much adrenaline in my system though I couldn't even sleep until midnight that night.

    My old trainer (who I was training with until I started CF in July) was amazed at how I was able to PR in all those lifts under the circumstances... to be honest even I was surprised how well I did considering I haven't been running a strength program; just doing strength and metcons as scheduled in normal classes 3x/week, one Oly class every week, and generally a technique session once a week where I worked on 1-2 of the 5 lifts at 80-85% of 1RM.

    I guess what is weird to me is that in 3 months of CF, I haven't *really* felt like my conditioning has improved that much (although I know it has; I just haven't repeated any of the same workouts to be able to prove it numerically), but my strength (which was already good) seems to be getting better, even though I'm not doing that much strength. I wish I could explain it!
  • ashlando
    ashlando Posts: 125 Member
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    Those are insane numbers. Congratulations!!!
  • jedwards213
    jedwards213 Posts: 24 Member
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    gweneddk wrote: »

    I guess what is weird to me is that in 3 months of CF, I haven't *really* felt like my conditioning has improved that much (although I know it has; I just haven't repeated any of the same workouts to be able to prove it numerically), but my strength (which was already good) seems to be getting better, even though I'm not doing that much strength. I wish I could explain it!

    No need to explain to this group. It's the non-CrossFitters who can't figure it out. Good job!
  • kelly_e_montana
    kelly_e_montana Posts: 1,999 Member
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    Wow, great numbers! Congrats. Awesome deadlift. Now I need to tie you. ;)
  • bostonwolf
    bostonwolf Posts: 3,038 Member
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    No kidding, that deadlift beats me by a lot but my deadlifts have always lagged for some reason. I think I need to cut back to a lower number and start working 5x5 and fix form then slowly ramp it up.
  • gweneddk
    gweneddk Posts: 183 Member
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    @bostonwolf For what it's worth, I've gotten my DL this high without doing much rep work above 2-3 rep sets. If you're going to do multiple reps, I would definitely recommend dropping the bar and resetting at the bottom on each rep. What is your best back squat?

    Originally my coaches wanted me to set up my clean and DL differently, but eventually we discovered that I do better at DL with slightly lower hips (not as low as my clean setup, but not as high as we were originally trying). The other difference is that my weight is more back on my heels at the start of a DL vs. a clean. I seriously believe most of my gains in the past 2 months have been form related, as I don't think my strength has increased so much to increase from 285-330 in that time!
  • bostonwolf
    bostonwolf Posts: 3,038 Member
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    Best back squat is about 345, and I had a bit more in me but we ran out of time. I also have super tight hamstrings, which I'm sure play a limiting factor.

    I bought Rippetoe's Starting Strength and got some great tips out of it, particularly for deadlift. Lent it to a friend, but asked him to return it so i could review the deadlift portion again.