Today's Workout: 010914

BARBELL BETTYS II STARTS TONIGHT!
Squat Clean-Thruster 5-5-5-5-5
Then:
Five rounds for time of:
Row 400 meters
50 pound Dumbbell Clean & Jerk, 21 reps
Yesterday, Kathleen made it to 100k on the rower. It took her eight days out of a possible 30. Wow. Who will be next: Erin Banton’s over 70k, and Vance is at 80. Will one of them hit the summit today?
Linking a massive compound movement like a squat clean-thruster is tough. The eccentric portion (lowering the weight back to the start) is almost as important as doing the movement itself. Dropping the bar on every rep, resetting your position, and executing another safe squat clean takes awhile, and opens up a mental gap where you’ll be tempted to stop entirely. Don’t.
Choose a weight at which you can link 5 reps without taking your hands off the bar.
Conversely, in the METCON portion, you won’t likely be able to make it through all 5 rounds of 21 reps without stopping. The row can be aerobic, depending on your pace, but your heart rate will still rise rapidly on the clean and jerk. The sheer metabolic demand will require increased delivery of energy and removal of waste, sure. But the Valsalva maneuver (holding your breath at the bottom of every rep) will also create a big vacuum effect, spiking your HR further. Worse, as waste builds up in your extremities (forearms, anyone?) your heart rate will elevate to move waste quickly away, even if other muscles are doing okay.
Moving back and forth from lower-to-higher heart rates serves our purposes by: a) keeping energy expenditure high, much higher than an equivalent amount of time running or rowing at a steady heart rate; b) triggering the metabolism of fat instead of just muscle glycogen and blood sugar, as you would on a treadmill or elliptical trainer (steady-state aerobics, or LSD.)
When we say, ‘our fun is not fun,’ this is the type of workout we’re talking about. It’s certainly fun to have survived: almost like parachuting with 10 of your friends, landing safely, and then finding them all on the ground. That euphoric sense that “we DID it!” is overwhelming. Without challenge, there’s none of that. Enjoy.