I fully realize that for some people, the outdoor track and field season got underway a couple weeks ago now. In fact, we had the first big relay meet of the year last weekend (Florida Relays; no disrespect to meets like the Raleigh Relays) and the Texas Relays take place this weekend. Unfortunately I won’t be able to head down to Austin to check them out though. In any case, my situation has been a little bit different. Thanks to some odd weather in the DC area, I had what felt like the first true workout of the outdoor season just this past Wednesday. The weatherman stopped predicting snow and hail and we were able to do a full jumping workout outside. Now I can say that I really feel like the outdoor track season, the TRUE track season, has arrived; just in time too since I’ll be opening up my season next weekend in El Paso at the UTEP Invitational. Besides, I know you had to have been tired of seeing videos with the same George Mason wall painting in the background from the indoor track.

As far as Wednesday’s workout is concerned, it went pretty well in my opinion. Check out the video below of my “cleanest” run through and a short approach jump of the session. For some reason my timing and posture were a bit off as far as my jump phase is concerned so my landing wasn’t as crisp as usual and I kept robbing myself of a couple feet. Don’t laugh at how I ended up sprawled out in the pit. 2 out of 3 phases isn’t bad though especially considering that this is only our second “true jumping” workout of the year and my hop-step is what I have been really working to get down so far. Of course. as always, there’s still room to improve in the hop-step transition and I’m still getting used to this technique change from a month or so ago.

Finally, last week we did some weight room and jump testing. I was slacking a bit and didn’t get any video but here are the results.

• Weight Room
  • Bench Press (arms to 90 degrees) – 315 lbs/143 kgs
  • Power Clean – 320 lbs/145 kgs
  • Power Snatch – 221 lbs/100 kgs
  • Hang Snatch – 208 lbs/94 kgs
  • Deadlift – 408 lbs/185 kgs
• Jump Tests
  • 4 Hops (Right) – 75’9″/23.08m *personal best*
  • 4 Hops (Left) – 73’0″/22.25m
  • 2 Hops-2 Steps (LLRL) – 74’7″/22.73m *personal best*
  • 4 Steps (RLRL) – 75’7″/23.04m *personal best*