O-lifting

In Scott's class today I worked on the full snatch from the floor to a low catch position. I finally started making progress on getting all parts of the move down a bit better in the past couple of sessions after feeling way behind for a while. It's fun to start to feel the sensation of rotating myself into position under the bar instead of trying to throw the bar overhead. You elevate the bar during the pulls and then take advantage of its height to drop under it for the overhead catch. How high it gets depends on the power of the pull and the weight of the bar. The heavier it gets the, less high it flies. By the time you're dropping under it, you're no longer lifting/throwing/elevating it--your hands are rotating around the bar to get you under it in that instant. The heavier it is, the lower you have to catch it. The weight I've been working with is still light enough for me to not have to drop very far. Catching it in a relatively high position is a power snatch. Rather than continuing to power snatch the weight today, Scott told me to catch it low. This challenged my stability in the catch but happily I started to improve on that part of the skill enough to work up to 31 kilos. I did lots and lots of sets of three at each weight. When that started to fall apart a little, I worked on barbell presses, and worked up to two singles at 38 kilos. I think I could have done more but I didn't want to risk failing. There is something nasty-feeling about failing at a press. So I'm going slowly. My goal, hopefully in the next two weeks, is a 40-kg single. I never stop appreciating how good it feels to be able to do this stuff! To make progress on explosive overhead lifts, as someone who was never exposed to weight training or even rigorous workouts until my late 30s, feels fantastic. Working up very slowly is fine because so far I've avoided injuries. My cautiousness makes me not a competitor but a safe and healthy athletic person. My goal is to last a long, long time at this.