This August I was in Leogang, Austria for three days of riding as much as I could. I noticed at the end of each day that I was feeling completely hammered by the rather long descents.
Up until that point I had thought that Kettlebell swings and road riding were enough since my body held up just fine in parks with shorter descents (Sölden and SFL in Austria, Winterberg in Germany and Ferm Libert in Belgium).
Now that the season is slowly coming to an end I am back at the local big box gym. The staff does not really care, deadlifts are ok with them. And some of the people training there have a form that is scary to watch.
I love kettlebell swings simply for the speed and the ballistic movement but I think I give learning the Power Clean a try although I am a bit scared of the movement, although the book by Rippetoe and various videos are a good start I guess.
My swing technique is fine and I regularly do some snatch-grip high pulls as part of a warm up. I think that is a good start.
I have tweaked my back twice within the last 12 months, since I was too eager to do more than my body could do. This was a setback every time and pretty frustrating to say the least.
That is the reason why I am very careful with an increase in weight at the moment. And I still ride my bike a wee bit as well before winter might be here.
As an example I currently do double kb front squats with 48 kg (2x 24) for 5x5. The last two sets are quite challenging.
And my plan is to increase repetitions as soon as the last sets are not a challenge. So my plan is to be able to do 3x 10 smooth reps with 48 kg before I even try and go for a barbell squat. I maybe even think that two sets of 20 with 48 kg might be a good idea as a whole body preparation before I do barbell back squats, if you know what I mean.
So my first question regarding Power Cleans is how would you program with what weight to start and how to progress?
"You don't learn from experience. You learn from reflecting on the experience."
- Kristen Ulmer