Monday, February 9, 2009

An Accidental Jerk PR

Have really been fighting the training blahs lately.  Even with the Arnold looming in the near future, my motivation has been low.  I think part of it is doing he same workout for the past 3 months.  Also working long timed sets hurts and it gets hard to motivate knowing the pain that is coming.  Today, I was really dragging.  Not motivated.  Decided to have a bit of a coffee jolt and then hit the bells.  Warmed up, back was feeling good.  Set the GymBoss for 7 minutes and started on my 8 rpm jerk pace.  Today was the first day that I actually rested in the rack.  I focused on keeping my elbows close to my belly button and was really able to rest the entire weight on my pelvis (axial skeleton).  I have also totally given up on the "false grip".  I have been keeping my hands open in the overhead lockout and in the rack I am overlapping handles and then my fingers.  This has really made a HUGE improvement in my previous hand/wrist/forearm fatigue with long sets.  The combination of these two technique improvements truly allowed me to rest in the rack for the first time......what a pleasure!!!  The GymBoss buzzed at the 7 minute mark and I decided to do 8 minutes, still feeling good 60 seconds later so I went for 9 minutes, beginning to fatigue, but what the heck, what is one more minute.......so I pushed on and finished the full 10 minutes at 8 rpm.  I truly think I could have done more!!

Jerk(16kg) 15
Jerk(20kg) 10
Jerk(24kg) 8 rpm x 10 minutes = 80 reps
Swing(24kg) 20/20 no rest between hands x 2 sets (used 24kg instead of 32 as I wanted to rest my back 1 more day)
Pushups 15 x 3 sets

For me, finding peace in the rack, I truly believe is the key to my improved jerk.  Now, with 4 weeks to go prior to the Arnold, I need to consider my strategy.....should I just focus on the 10 minute set at 8 rpm, or should I keep pushing and see if I can prepare for a 10 minute 10 rpm set?

3 comments:

Aaron Friday said...

Excellent. Going for 10 must have felt great.

Jon Alford said...

Nice job. I need to read up on the GS so I know the lingo. If you want that picture (plain) for anything I'll email it to you. I'm making a business card with it. Did you get From the Ground Up yet?

MKSchinabeck said...

Thanks Aaron.

Jon, nice to hear from you. No I haven't gotten the new DVD. Have you? It looks interesting. Seems like you are starting to build a client base and people are seeing good results.