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It’s hard to start this post… without resorting to impolite expletives! This weekend’s weightlifting competition went about as wrong as it could have done, short of bombing (failing to get any lifts).

I could wax lyrical about my failures, but can’t quite face it to be honest. It was a shambles that’s soonest forgotten. The short version is, I got only 2 of my 6 lifts: 70kg Snatch and 95kg Clean & Jerk, for a 165 total. A mile away from the 182 total I was hoping for. Here’s the high def video, in all its embarrassing glory:

The day I’ve been waiting 2 months for has finally arrived – the Northern Open Olympic Weightlifting competition, held in Mytholmrod, West Yorkshire (England that is).

First the important stuff: I made the weight. For the last 5 days I’ve been at or under my target weight, which is the upper limit of the 77kg weight category (169 lbs, or 12 stone 1 in old money). On my more accurate scales, this morning, I weighed 76.5kg (168.8 lbs), happy days! Although not happy enough for me to be able to have any breakfast or indeed drink much in the next 4 hours till the official weigh in. See my previous post for how I tweaked the zone diet to loose the weight I needed in just 3 weeks. The zone diet comes through for me again. Here’s my weightloss graph for the last 3 weeks:

I was asked yesterday if I was ready. The answer is: I’m never ready! Well I never feel ready anyway. On the face of it that sounds bad, but think about it for a moment. If I felt ready, that is comfortably ready with the knowledge that I was perfectly able to lift the weight I wanted to, then wouldn’t I be trying below my potential? I don’t know, but I do know that I’m relying on that bit of adrenaline to out perform my previous best ever lifts, either in competition or training.

I’ve been nominally following a Hungarian weightlifting program, set weekly by my coach at Crossfit Manchester. It will be interesting to see whether I’ve progressed in the 2 months I’ve been doing it. I certainly think I have, but whether I can translate that into performance on the day, we’ll see.

Just to recap, the purpose of this comp is to qualify for the European Masters Weightlifting Championships in 2010. I’ve already qualified for the 2010 BWLA British Masters Championships. For this I need to improve on my current personal best total of 177kg, and lift the qualifying weight of 182 total. Here’s the game plan (and anyone who knows me, knows that A LOT of thought has gone into the following):

Snatch: Warm up to 70kg. Open with 75, then 78, and then 80. Current PB is 77, but I’ve only ever lifted over 75 twice ever. To be honest, opening with 75 is the big risk, just 2kg below my PB and whilst I know I can do it, I’ve not been consistent in training, dropping four 70kg snatches in a row only last week for example! There’s a significant chance I will bomb at 75 (fail to get any lifts).

Clean and Jerk: If I make the 80kg snatch, then I open with 97kg (current PB is 100), then I get 2 cracks at 102 which would give me the 182 total I need. If I get the 102, then 105 will be just for fun.

However if I get the 78kg snatch, then I’ll be starting the C&Js having just dropped a lift, so will start at a confidence building 95, then 100, and finish with 104 for my 182 total. There’s a temptation here to start higher, at 100 say, and potentially get 2 goes at 104. That will depend on how the C&J warm up has gone and how comfortable I feel.

If I only get the 75 snatch, I’m in real trouble and will need a massive PB increase; starting with 97, then 102, then the big 107.

Either way it’s PB territory or bust today! Now to stay busy and forget about my empty belly…

Frisky cat climbs on cops head:

Seesaw face plant, wait for it…

This doesn’t go quite as anticipated:

And finally, this kid learns the hard way that most famous of Newton’s physical laws: “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

With a few weeks to go before the competition, it was time to focus on some full Olympic lifts and see how the last 2 months of focus on weightlifting. 2 weeks ago I decided to see if I could pull off any new personal best lifts.

To do this, I needed to get up to a top weight pretty quick, without tiring myself out. So here’s how it went, Snatch (current PB = 77kg) on one day, Clean and Jerk (current PB = 100kg) on the other:

Day 1 – Snatch: 3×40, 2×50, 60, 65, 70, 75. Then I failed at 77.5 five times in a row.
Day 2 – C&J: 3×50, 2×60, 70, 80, 90, 95, 100. Then I failed to clean 102.5 four times in a row.

On the one hand, I lifted pretty well, getting up to either very close to, or equal to my PBs quickly. On the other hand, I failed to improve, which was disappointing. This week, I worked on high % reps in final prep for the Northern Open next week.

Day 1 – Snatch: 3×40, 2×50, 60, 65, 70, 3×75. This went well, 3 good lifts at 75kg all felt hard but comfortable.

Day 2 – Snatch: 3×40, 2×50, 60, 65, 70. The 70 felt wobbly, so I thought I’d try it again before moving up. That’s when it all went wrong. I dropped the 2nd 70. Then dropped the 3rd, 4th and 5th! What was going on? I was bombing badly on what should have been a warm up lift. When this happens, it’s sooo demoralising.

Day 3 – C&J: 3×50, 2×60, 70, 80, 90, 95, 95, 95, 95(F), 95. There were several days between Day 2 and 3 to get my head back in gear. 4 out of 5 lifts at 95kg was a good day.

So there we have it. 7 days to see if I can pull off 2 new PBs and qualify for the European Masters and to see if the last 2 months have all be worth the effort. There’s also the small matter of whether I can make the weight, but that’s looking doable now:

Three videos this week showing a cool underwater phenomenon: bubble rings. They are a bit like smoke rings, but hold their shape for an amazingly long period of time.

This first video shows Beluga Whales playing. Start from around 0:30s till about 1:40:

It’s not just Beluga Whales that are clearly very intelligent animals. Dolphins are even more amazing in their bubble ring play:

Lastly, at first I didn’t even believe that this was an air bubble, but it is:

So this time last week, I had 1/2 stone (7 lbs or 3 kg) to lose in order to get down to my required weight for the Yorkshire Open weightlifting competition on 21st Nov. I’m lifting in the 77kg (169 lb or 12 stone 1) category, but was tipping the scales at 80kg (176 lbs or 12 stone 8). 1/2 stone in 3 weeks seemed like it was doable so I wasn’t too worried.

Last week started well and I lost 3 lbs from Mon to Friday (mostly water I imagine) leaving just 4 lbs over 2 weeks. However a combination of a fireworks party at home on Friday, followed by a night on the razz in Manchester with the boys from Crossfit Manchester, and I put that 3 lbs straight back on. It doesn’t sound too bad, until you see the graph:

That’s not good! So for the next 12 days I’m zoning for all I’m worth. I’m also reducing my fat intake to about a half, dropping the pint of milk I normally drink each day, and cutting my intake to 12 zone blocks per day. Hopefully, that should do it. We’ll see…

3 videos for you this week. The first is a hilarious Dilbert cartoon sketch, especially funny given that I’m a Chartered Engineer!

Given that it was Halloween last week, it seemed only appropriate to show a Halloween related video. Here’s what happens when you drop some thermite in a pumpkin, with a few other pumpkin incidents too:

I’ve saved the best till last though, the quality Go For an English sketch from Goodness Gracious Me:

I didn’t get round to posting what I did last week, which was week 7 of the program. Because of holiday I only managed to get to the gym twice, and was recovering from the back niggle from the previous week, so took it easier that I perhaps should:

Day 1

• Snatch – singles up to 75%: I started with trebles, then doubles, then did singles up to 65kg.
• Clean & Jerk – singles up to 75%: I started with doubles, then did singles up to 85kg.
• Front Squat – 3 x 5 reps up to 75%: I did the 3 sets at 70, 80 and 90 kg.

Day 2

• Power Snatch Doubles up to 85%: I did 40, 50, 55, 60, 62.5, 65kg
• Power Clean Doubles up to 90%: I did 40, 60, 60, 70, 75, 80, 85, 90(F2), 90(F2) which means I failed on the second lift.

This week (Week 8), as it’s getting close to the competition, I decided to see if I could set any new records. If you remember, my aim is to lift a total of 182kg (80 Snatch and 102 C&J say) to qualify for the European Masters championships in 2010.

However, I also need to lose some weight, as my weight has crept up over the last few months, mostly due to too many sweeties (shock horror!), not helped by Halloween I can tell you! So I actually started the week with a Crossfit style workout, to get the ol’ heart rate up and to burn a few extra calories.

Day 1
10 minutes of 1 minute rounds, each consisting of:

• 15 squats
• 10 sit ups
• 5 push ups

In hindsight, this was a bad idea. I should have known better than to do expect no after effects from doing my first Crossfit workout in 2 months! Over the last 2 days, I’ve had significant DOMS (Delayed Onset of Muscle Soreness) in my pecks and thighs. Not great to have when going for a new PB. :-S

Day 2

• Snatch singles for max: 3×40, 2×50, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75, then I failed 77.5kg (170 lbs and PB attempt) five times before giving up. Same old problem: losing it forward at the bottom.

Day 3

• Clean and Jerk singles for max: 3×50, 2×60, 70, 80, 85, 90, 95, 100, then I failed 102.5kg (225 lbs and a PB attempt) four times before giving up. Actually I failed to clean the 102.5, which was a blow. I was getting under it, but again, losing it forward i.e. it was rolling off my shoulders at the bottom of the clean.

All in all, not what I was hoping for. However the 75 snatch was just off my record of 77 and the 100 clean & jerk was an equal personal best, so it’s far from discouraging. I’m hoping the adrenaline of the competition will carry the day, as has happened before. No more PB attempts before the comp now.

Had 2 weeks off holiday, which was great. Got to spend some quality time with the family, going to sea side resorts, the zoo, stroking deer, watching otters, going down caves, playing games, buying fireworks, doing the whole Trick or Treat thing, going out for meals, eating too many sweeties, reading books, karate gradings, buying and playing Wii games… etc etc. It was all good. (It was also why I forgot the weekly Friday Fun post last week, doh!)

Speaking of fireworks. I have once again spent far too much money on top quality fireworks this year. I get all my fireworks from Quick Silver in Denton. Here’s this years stash, which I am very much looking forward to setting off this weekend:

A day at Blackpool saw an extremely happy Jadzia hit the jackpot on a sweetie machine. If I’d realised that was all it took to make her happy, I’d have gone sooner! But then, when the boz of chocolates is the size of your head, I suppose that’s something to get excited about… when you’re 8. 😉

That reminds me, this is a great photo of Jadzia at @Bristol:

Weightlifting wise, it’s time to knuckle down as the weight lifting competition is only 19 days away. More alarming is I’m 1/2 stone over weight (7 lbs / 3 kg) , so strict adherence to the zone is required for the next 2.5 weeks. Not helped by a night out that’s planned for this weekend, ho hum.

Training has been sporadic too; I only managed to go twice last week. This week I’m planning on at least 3 trips to the gym. But more to the point, I need to see if the focus on the weight lifting has paid off, so this week I’ll be going for max lifts at both the Snatch (Tuesday) and Clean & Jerk (Wednesday).

To get my body back in the mindset, I did a short 10 minute Crossfit style workout at my Newport digs today:

• 10 x one minute rounds of:
• 15 squats
• 10 sit ups
• 5 press ups

It wasn’t too strenuous, which was the point, but it got things moving and a good stretch session should sort me out for max snatches tomorrow. Really I need to be lifting 75kg (165 lbs) comfortably, as I’m thinking of opening with that on the 21st. Then I’ll be aiming for 100kg on the C&J on Wednesday, which is what I also want to open at (or maybe 95). Fingers crossed!