The American Open Championship event is this December 2-4th, and the California Strength Team is well represented. We are sending Donny Shankle, Jon North, Kevin Cornell, Rob Blackwell, Lindsay Taylor, and of course Coach Glenn Pendlay is heading out as well.

We are told there will be a live webcast of the event here

http://weightlifting.sportzcast.tv/

Somewhere in here is an American record attempted barefoot and barely missed behind…

It’s over, and although it was fun, I couldn’t have taken much more! End results… Jon and Donny made the Pan-Am games team, Donny also made the the World Championship team. Kevin made huge PR lifts in both snatch and clean and jerk within 94kg weight class. Spencer took a very credible shot at a new American record 204kg clean and jerk. Jessica made competition PR’s in snatch, clean and jerks, and total. Jo Ann continues on her come-back from shoulder surgery. Even though you always want one more kilo, Realistically I couldnt ask for a better weekend or competition. Here are the National Champions themselves…

We are all in Iowa… the boys are sleeping. No pictures today but it should be an interesting day tomorrow.

yeah, some stuff has happened in the last few days. Want to again give a shout out to US Cryotherapy and Kelly Starrett for their HUGE support of us leading up to this years nationals…

Sneak peek of whats been going on, here is Jon snatching 161kg weighing about 93.5kg… and, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!!!

Unremarkable morning workout, then a fairly hard afternoon session. Only shot video of the snatches. Decent snatch workout considering all things… not shot was Donny absolutely murdering a 200 CJ, I do not think I have ever seen this weight done easier, it was scary…. then blowing up a 280kg squat.

Kelly Starrett is the real deal people… no doubt in my mind after seeing Donny move only one day after Kelly worked on him.

Here is the video of some of our snatches today…

Today was the first time I met this guy. I went to the city to see him and see if he could help out with Donny Shankles bum hip, which continues to flare up from time to time and interfere with his training. Now, Kelley proved to be one of the nicest and most down to earth guys I have met in a long time, a truly nice individual. But, plenty of nice people from MD’s to Chiropracters to massage therapists and others have tried to “cure” that hip, with little or no success. But, after an hour with Mr. Starrett, Donny’s asymmetries were noticeably minimized, his positions were noticeably improved, his pain level was down, and an hour later, when he got out of my truck, he commented that it was the first time he could ever remember jumping down out of my truck without hip pain.

We will see what he feels like when we train tomorrow, but, right now I am prepared to jump about the Kelly Starrett bandwagon and be a huge fan of his.

It was only right that we train, and train hard. In fact, it was only right that we take a day when most other people are off work, when many of our competitors are resting, to devote the entire day to training and recovery. Here are the boys, after the second workout…

Kind of a typical Friday. About 90% in the morning, then max out in the afternoon. Brian hit a PR clean and jerk of 145kg. Kevin did 145/175, not PR lifts but about what you would expect from how tired he is. Rob did 132 and 150, took a few real, real close shots with a 137kg snatch which would have been a PR. Spencer did 150/195. Jon did 152/180.

But Donny really stood out, hitting 3 snatches of 150, 155, 160, then some pulls with 170 and stopping the snatch session with no misses. He is READY to finally hit 170 in competition. He then ended his clean and jerks with 195, 205, and a clean and close jerk miss with 211. He didnt catch a bounce and just worked to hard on the clean recovery to jerk it. But, he is getting close to doing 210+ in competition, its gonna happen. Here is the 211 miss.

Yesterday, we had maybe the toughest day we have had this whole training cycle. It really beat the boys up a lot. but like the troopers they are, they showed up this morning and I challenged everyone to make over 90% of their best, a difficult proposition when they were all feeling like a truck just hit them. Kudos for Jon and Rob in particular for power cleaning like champions and actually going above what I had set as their goal.

With the training out of the way, we set off for Roseville, CA and US Cryotherapy. -173 degrees for 3 or 4 minutes, whole body in shorts and no shirt. Then, localized cold where the skin is taken to 27 or 28 degrees on your wrist, patellar tendon, calves, or whatever else is hurting. It makes the inflammation, and the pain, go away.

It works, and is money well spent. Money very well spent. Go there, and tell ‘em we sent ya and maybe they will give you a cool sweatband, lo.