Hang squat cleans and some thoughts on the end of the year...

Ah... yes... some hang squat cleans. My favorite! Well sort of.... :) I'm a big fan of push presses too. :) Anyhoo... even though the neck is still giving me lots of grief, I made it to the Blue Room this am. We hit some hang squat cleans to warm up with before we hit the WOD. I love hang cleans. They are one of my favorites. They weren't always so. When we started working the cleans a lot in March, mine sucked. So for those of you who feel like you can't master this move, yes you can. There are before and after videos of me... hang on while I find them. Ah yes... here we go. This is mid-March to the beginning of May. When I first started I was jumping back instead of just going vertical and going in a jump to land stance. Now, I have a pretty efficient movement. I've continued to work on my form since that video, but I think it's pretty awesome what happens when something clicks. It just takes off. Today we were working more on form and reps of lower weight than on working up heavy. So today my hang squat clean maxed at 85. They didn't feel great though, which kinda bummed me out. But before I get off on a tangent... here's what the fun today looked like.

Warm-up
9 reps of weight
35
45
55
65
75
85

WOD
10 rounds or 20 minutes
18 Push-ups (I did 9 thanks to my twinges)
15 Jumping pull-ups
30 Squats

I got through 8 rounds of this in the 20 minutes and it didn't feel too bad. The push-ups were hard because my shoulder and neck were tweaky. It's weird. This whole week has just sort of felt off. Jerry keeps telling me that CrossFit works like a ratchet (did I spell that right?) Sometimes we need to go backwards a bit and seem to plateau before we can move forward and continue to get stronger, faster, etc. I feel like I'm a bit stuck right now. I haven't PR'd in a few weeks, and I just don't feel on or smooth. I hope that right now this is just a result of the ratcheting back and the end of the year. The end of the school year, while it means that teachers finally get to kick back a bit, also means that we begin to crash down from all the testing stress and all the stress of the kids behaviors at the end of the year. When you are at the end of your leash for so long, when the leash is finally loosened, you realized just how zapped you've been. It's a weird thing. You would think it would be the other way around. So, anyway, I'm hoping that all this is just a result of school stress and it will be done next week and I can focus.

As an aside though, if you are reading and you happen to be a parent, as you wind down your school year, please remember to thank your child's/childrens' teacher/s. I don't necessarily mean go out and buy them something, although we certainly do appreciate gift cards and small gifts. It's just that they're not really necessary. We really don't need more little trinkets and gifts, although like I said we do like them, but when kids or parents write a note or make a card, it means a lot to us. It lets us know that people do appreciate what we do and that we've done a good job. Trust me when I tell you that very often we question that. We get flack from students, parents, administration, colleagues. It's hard to always keep perspective. Sometimes those notes during teacher appreciate week or the end of the year are the validation we need. Teachers do a ton of behind the scenes work that you never see, and while you may from time to time get angry with us because we don't do what you would like us to do, please remember that we are typically busting our butts for 20+ kids and we try to keep everyone's best interests at heart. We do tons of things like grade papers until late, make lesson plans, make tests, copy papers, write evaluations, write referrals, and yes, spend tons of our own money on things for our own classrooms. I know sometimes you may feel like we don't care about your children, but we do. And we wouldn't spend our money and time if we didn't. So please, please, please... be sure to thank a teacher as the next few weeks come to a close. It really means a lot... probably more than you know.

*Katie steps down from her soapbox*

So, I'm hoping that as these next few days draw to a close my ratchet will swing back forward, and I'm hoping that I will continue to see some improvements. BTW, if you haven't checked out my poll this week... do so... and if you don't know what the "Ass Whooping Chronicles" are, check them out on the main site, then vote.... ;)