Merriment and happiness are in the air as winter has finally brought it's festive charm to our door steps! Always a nice time of year, when I curse the onset of winter (which I dislike greatly mind you!) despite loving the absolute lack of work/worry.
It is also a time, in between the jolly celebrations, to look back on your year and see what you have accomplished. As befits this goal, I have decided to undertake the task of creating this post!
I would like to preface this by saying that my weightlifting goals this year were thoroughly not met! I somewhat over estimated myself, and under estimated the barbell...But more so than that, I underestimated the absurdity of Mechanical Engineering 1B which totally ruined my day!
Either way, this was still a successful year of accomplishment for yours truly in the realm of weightlifting. Why, I believe this is the year that I learned how to Snatch / Clean and Jerk. Having started in November 2012, I spent the first at least two months simply trying to obtain the required flexibility for an Overhead squat (something I am still somewhat lacking in!). With that in mind, true technical training I felt began January. And the first co op term of 2013 (Jan-April) was an amazing time for me. Much progress was made, more of it being in movement and mindset than weight on the bar. Strength increased significantly throughout, and flexibility just got better and better. More than anything, body awareness improved drastically.
Just when things were set for me to burst from my suckyness in an explosion of awesomeness...1B Mech. Engineering slapped my face in to the ground with ruthless abandon. Unfortunately, I was simply unprepared for how little and inconsistently I would actually get to train this term. It took a big toll on moral! However, there were definite improvements made from when I did train. The main thing to improve here was the ability to pull under the bar without delay.
Finally, the third term of the year and my second co op term. I had really high hopes coming in to this one, and even ended up starting up this blog in eager anticipation. Unfortunately, early injury took a toll on not only moral but progress! Unfortunately, at least 2 out of 4 months were spent simply coping/ trying to figure out positioning and fixing imbalances caused by the injury (A lot of which still need fixing :( ). That being said, decent progress was made and things have definitely got better.
So, I ended the term/year with numbers significantly less than what I had hoped for. My excuses can be found above. However, it would be foolish to lose hope here. Progress is progress, and that alone is all important. I have learned a lot this year. The most important of which is that I can not trust Engineering to give me time to get strong!
Anyway, now that this training cycle is over it is time to look forward. Immediately, for this next school term, I will be putting the classical lifts aside. Instead, I will try my best to focus on strength. Namely squat/pulling. At the same time, I hope to work towards correcting some of those imbalances that have been bugging me.
The main reason for this is that I have less time to train during the school term, and focusing on strength requires less frequency/commitment I believe than trying to keep up with something as movement oriented as the Classicals. It is also beneficial. The idea being to increase classical weights not now, but in the future.
With that being said, this term starts with Smolov Jr. I will be running the famous program for Back Squats for the 2 weeks of winter break and the first week of 2A. After that, a reassessment will determine the next best path!
To cap off this long winded and lame post, here is a video of some Clean and Jerk PR's from the last day of the cycle. Unfortunately, having not snatched heavy for a month, I was not as successful in the other lift. But the potential is definitely there.
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