Fitness - Thruster & Muscle Up Technuque 8/13

Today was exactly what I needed, a little active rest and a very light workout. We took a break this morning and didn't have a WOD, per say. All we did was work on thruster and muscle up technique.

Thrusters are one of those exercises that make me cringe a little when I see them on the white board. I'm strong enough to grind them out but they drain every ounce of energy I have. I was looking forward to see how I could maximize my effort with them in this morning's class.

My training with Dave has greatly improved every aspect of my fitness, especially in the area of technique. Today we broke down the progression of movements for thrusters and it proved to be extremely helpful. Overall Dave was happy with my form but pointed out that my timing was a little off. After a little work with light weight and low reps, I started to lock in the timing of each stage of the thruster and it made a dramatic difference when I started to put weight on. A huge difference, It was a crazy feeling.

Once I got everything firing at the right time it felt like nothing, like I could throw it through the ceiling on my ascent. I was cranking out reps with much less effort and they seemed way more fluid. It was a good feeling.

For the second part of the class we workd on muscle ups. I was the only one in the class who had them down so after a little warm up I stepped up and got on the rings. I cranked out 5 in a row without reseting my false grip. That's the most i've gotten in one take. My preveous record was 3. I did this set of 5 with a kip movement and have been wanting to try them from a dead hang. After a few pointers from Dave, I gave it a try and got two in a row. I was very pleased.

Controling it on the way down as to not get any swing was crucial for dead hang MU's(and quite a bit more taxing).

After this bit of work I set up my own little station with the rings and a bar for thrusters and just did (focusing on technique, un-timed) 3 rounds of:
5 thrusters - 115#
3 muscle ups

Calories burned (during entire class): 408

All in all, I was stoked when I left the gym today. It was a very productive day and we got some much needed rest.