Finally!

I have been stuck at the same weight for my clean and jerk since March.  I made it such a big issue in my head that as soon as the bar weighed 37.5 kg I had butterflies and started to shake a little and each time I would fail and then get frustrated with this plateau I was on.

Lately, I have been finding the fun in the workouts again.  I was celebrating my little wins and having days where I wouldn't lift to my full capacity, I was trying to take the pressure off myself.  I was saying to my training partner that I was taking it all to seriously and I am doing this because I love moving my body, I love pushing myself but I know I'll never go off to competitions as I just don't have the skills nor do I have the time and that's okay because I compare myself to 10 years ago and I have grown both physically and mentally.

I have to admit that there was a sense of dread when I read that today's WOD was finding our 1RM for the clean and jerk.  That mental block started to set in and then I reminded myself that what will be, will be.  I said to myself that I didn't have to get a PB and there was no pressure to get it.

We started with hang cleans and they felt okay.  I got some great feedback from my coach with some advice on how to improve the lift.  We then moved to split jerks.  Again, I got a fair bit of coaching on what I could do better as well as what I was doing well.  One of the coaches also gave myself and my training partner some great tips on how to get the speed under the bar which was invaluable.

We then moved onto the clean and jerk.  I started at a lower weight and built up to 35 kg.  I started to revert to a power clean instead of a squat clean and my jerk became a push jerk instead of a split jerk.  It felt good so I went to 37.5 kg.  Again I power cleaned and push jerked it up and, again, it felt pretty good.  I ran out of time but I would have liked to have tried 40 kg but it was great to finally bust through that plateau and with relative ease.  Something for me to work on in the future is my squat clean and split jerk as I should be able to lift heavier when I do these movements and with practice it will come :-)