A Little Update 03/07/2011
 Well, my frustration hit a tipping point when I failed to put enough thought into my last post and wrote it directy into the blog page rather than Word. Yep, as you can figure, the one time I do that in the last two months the whole damn thing gets lost. Bummer. So, now that that's lost, I'll postpone my next insightful post till tomorrow when I am a bit more chill towards writing. This post will be a bit about my workouts this week. Today I had some solid barbell work with power snatches and deadlifts. I pulled up 160# with relative ease, then just got stuck with 185#. I wanted so badly to just squat under it but I needed to struggle through the mechanics of this move and allow my legs to learn how to take control. In the end, I missed 6 attempts despite getting the weight well over my head. I finished with 5 smooth reps at 135#. I then moved on to deadlifts and was able to get 425# for 3 pretty comfortably. I am sure I would have broken my form unnecessarily if I went heavier. I then stretched a little and prepared for my group coming in. I opted out of a metcon in the evening as my energy levels were real low and I am planning on a fun day tomorrow. Some gymnastics work in the morning for a solid 30 minutes along with some unilateral, core stabilization. Then, after a baseball game in Half Moon Bay I will be at the track! The rest of the week has me cleaning, jerking, front squatting and conditioning on Wednesday; swim workout on Thursday; snatch balance, max verticals and a super heavy metcon Friday. Looking forward to it all! Never Stop, GET FIT. Josh Courage Add Comment Strength Gains 12/13/2010
  Had a good bit more progress today on the platform and am happy with how things are rolling along. With an insane week staring me in the face, I got myself prepped for some snatch work, snatch pulls, 5x5 back squats and a pretty tiring looking metcon. With the snatches, I was still struggling with my typical issues of spreading the feet wide on the catch, and having my knees shift forward at the bottom of the squat. But, I was getting under the bar quickly and sticking the weight over my head very well. I generally fall forward with the oly lifts, but today I was sitting back and was able to get 175# with hardly any issues at all. For my second session of serious snatching, I am very happy to know that I am WAY further along then I thought I would be. With my goal of 210# loomng all the way in March, I am feeling confident I can blow that number out of the water. The snatch pulls felt strong, just tried to stay quick and solid throughout, worked up to 235#. Then, I went on an increasing set of 5x5 on the squats, working up to 305# and getting those last five with ease. Very happy with the depth and control of all those. Finally, after a few minute break I hit the metcon (I noticed a typo of 4 rounds on "My Workout" over there to the right of the blog, that would have been brutal!). 3 rounds of: 400 meter sprint, 30 GHD sit ups, 20 KB swings (44#) and 12 pull ups. This was not overly demanding at all, and I was able to get everything unbroken. It was just tiring, the hips were pretty fatigued from the days session. I finished up at 11:23 and feel like that is a decent time. I am sure a sub-10 is possible with this one, just didn't have the amount of intensity in me I guess. I realized that I sometimes struggle, without even noticing it as I train, with not having someone to compete against. Doing benchmark workouts is one way to go about making sure I am going at proper intensity, besides that, all I can do is go all out every time. I figure that at this point, I should know what a workout should feel like afterward, and if I don;t feel that way, I didn't go heavy or fast enough. Simple as that! Check out the video from Saturday's Strong Man fun! Have a double-whammy ready tomorrow, should be a good one! Never Stop, GET FIT. Josh Courage Snatching 11/29/2010
  Today marked day one of my official 2011 CrossFit Games training program (explained in detail in yesterdays post), and it started off with a bang. I haven't worked the full snatch, seriously, in about a year and a half and, needless to say, I was just a hair nervous about how I would perform. As posted yesterday, my goal is to get a 210# snatch by March, and out of all my goals, this one I am most uncertain of; mostly because I don't really now where I stand with the lift, but also because I struggle with the movement so much. I started very deliberately, getting form work in with the PVC and an empty bar, then started off my 5, 5, 5, 3, 3, 3 progression with just 85#. I felt very smooth and strong with it all the way through, and was able to finish with 3 slightly sloppy reps at 160#. So excited to be able to pull this weight after practically zero work on the lift! I am feeling a LOT more confident that with a little technique and mobility work, I will get my goal weight here. I then moved on to the biggest struggle of the day: a single snatch balance to 3 overhead squats for 4 rounds. I obviously expected to get a good deal more weight on this than with the snatch, but I lost focus and for some reason could not get a proper lock-out at 175#. I opted to move down a bit in weight, ultimately working up to 155#. I realized my struggle with this movement, and what will be the toughest part of my progress with the snatch, is getting under the bar quickly. I want to muscle the bar up, then sink into the overhead squat, and this will just get more and more impossible the heavier the bar gets. This stems from my lack of confidence in my shoulders, and it is so clear to me that I just need to get these movements in more often if i ever expect to overcome that fear. My challenge for the day was inspired from the 2010 Games, just a whole bunch of pressured weakness work for me: For Time Do: 10 muscle ups then 3 rounds of: 3 power cleans 205# 4 HSPU I got 5 unbroken muscle ups, then 2, then 1 and 1. Missed none, very happy with that. On to the heavy cleans and HSPU's, I got the cleans no problem, and stayed very deliberate with the HSPU's. My first round I got 3 unbroken, yet another PR on those, and in all I missed 3 reps. Still very weak, but I am seeing HUGE improvements with that move. With the amount I am programming them in over the coming months, I expect to see some pretty impressive gains. I finished in 6:28 and was very happy with that score. In other news, I got a hair cut today, and dropped about 5 pounds in total thanks to that. I'll miss my crazy bushy, long hair, but it was just getting to much to handle with my activity level. So, back to the shortness! Never Stop, GET FIT. Josh Courage | ArchivesMay 2012  
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