Fitness Log 2013-07-13: Snatch, Clean

Snatch

• 45 lbs x 5 OHS
• 65 x 1 snatch + 3 OHS
• 75 x 1 snatch + 2 OHS
• 85 x 1 power snatch + 1 OHS
• 95 x 1 power snatch
• 105 x 1 power snatch
• 115 x 1 power snatch
• 125 x 1 power snatch (almost a muscle snatch)
• 125 x 1 hang power snatch
• 135 x 0

The knee pain from the other day really affected the snatch particularly at the setup position and when overhead squatting.  I cut over to power snatches without overhead squats because of this and eventually did the hangs because of the pain in the setup position.

Clean

• 135 x 1 power clean + 1 front squat + 1 clean
• 165 x 1 clean
• 185 x 1 clean
• 195x x clean x X
• 205 x clean x X

This went about as bad as it looks.

Thoughts

This was probably my worst training day in a long long time.  Knees are pretty important and the knee pain interfered with everything.

I’m wondering how much the knee pain can be blamed on the 40 reps @ 80% from the Bas’ Barbell 6 Weeks To A Bigger Squat program that I started this week.  After all, it seems logical that 40 relatively heavy reps will gradually fatigue the prime movers resulting in the later reps pressuring secondary muscle systems which often results in improper loading of things like knee joints.  On the other hand, I did not start feeling the knee pain until a couple of days after the squats.  I’d think the knee pain would’ve come around much sooner than that if it directly resulted from the squats.

The snatch deadlifts/pulls were the only other lower body movement involving the knees that I did in the days before the knee pain began.  Could these have caused the knee pain?  It doesn’t seem like a movement that would have anything to do with that but I noticed that the knee pain was the worst this week while doing the snatches today.  They didn’t hurt during heavy back squats the other day.  So if they didn’t hurt doing back squats but did hurt doing snatches then logically it seems like the snatch variation could be the culprit?  I don’t know!

Another thing — I used my weightlifting shoes for squats this week when I’ve normally used flat Minimus shoes in the past.  That could certainly change the form a bit and cause weirdness.

The plan going forward this week will be to see how I handle the squat program’s whopping 60 reps on Monday.  I may experiment with knee wraps.  They seem to help when wrapped properly.  Also, I think I will go back to the Minimus shoes.