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[/caption] This past week has been an awesome collection of accomplishments. It started on Sunday with Olympic lifting. Mike was away working at the Arnold Sports Festival, so I was alone. I hauled my bumper plates to the gym and decided I would just do some “light” technique work. I started with hang squat cleans and then progressed to full squat cleans. Everything was feeling really light and smooth so I started adding weight. After I hit 145 lb. and everything was still so easy, I thought, “What the hell? Let’s add another 10 lb. and see what happens.” 155lb. went up so easy I shocked myself! It was technically perfect, I just felt it. I added 5 lb. more and caught 160lb. in the bottom but couldn’t stand up with it! I can front squat 185 lb., but I need to work on my depth in the squats to help me with the cleans. I’m thinking this Sunday I should try 160 lb. or maybe even 165lb. for a new record. I also worked on muscle-up transitions and push- jerk technique. Monday I did 5 rounds of max low-bar back-squats at 135lb., and max push-ups. I gamed this one a bit to make sure I could get consistent numbers in each round. There was two minutes of rest between each round. I got 15 back squats a round and 20 push-ups a round. My posterior chain was fried. It’s amazing how high-bar and low-bar will work completely different muscles. At the IG Throwdown I did 115 95-lb. back squats and my quads were fried for a week. The loads were almost the same, over 10,000 lb., and I rested more for the low-bar, but I recovered after one day! I finished with abs and stretching. Tuesday I did a 1K row followed by 3 rounds of 20 wall-balls, 20 GHDs and 10 power cleans at 125 lb. Power cleans are only banned on Oly day, so I was able to do them for the wod. The row was 3:53, and the WOD was 14:59. I took my time on the GHDs because I have been nursing my back for a few weeks. I hurt it doing jerks, so I’ve been careful to rest it up for the Functional Fitness Open. Wednesday was rest, and Thursday I went to Freak Fitness to check out the facility where I’ll be doing most of the Open WODs. I joined them for their bootcamp, and while I was there something really cool happened: I can do muscle-ups! Real muscle-ups! In warm-up I hopped on the rings with a false grip, locked out my arms, kipped hard and I was over the rings. It was pretty cool. The WOD was 2 muscle-ups, 4 HSPUs, 6 KB swings (1.5 pood) and 8 deadlifts (115 lb.) I did one RX’d muscle-up in the first round, then I scaled to a box, and I did HSPUs from about 2 inches off the floor, kipping. The first round I got all 4 reps, but after that there were some missed reps.  The WOD was super challenging and there was great energy from the coaches and other athletes. It’s been a great week and I’m looking forward to starting the 6-week Open next weekend!