Shoutout to Zacky Pants

I would like to dedicate this blog post to the man who not only puts up with my shiz-nit on a regular basis, but is responsible for making me "Crazy Strong"...the one and only, Zacky Pants aka Zach Thiel.

I started Zach's olympic weight lifting class in May when I realized that in order for me to get stronger, I needed to work on technique. For those who may not know, the Olympic Lifts consist of the Snatch and Clean & Jerk (click on the lifts for a video demo). They are the most difficult and technical lifts in CrossFit (in my opinion), as well as the most fun.

Before joining oly lifting, my Clean and Jerk was non-existent. I had never performed the lift before, and my clean (the first part of the lift without the jerk overhead) was barley 125#. My Clean and Jerk max is now 145# (about 125% of my bodyweight). The snatch on the other hand was a lift that I was familiar with, but struggled with. Before 2011 South Central Regionals in June, my max was 95#. Last Wednesday, I crushed that with 110# PR (personal record) and in that same week on Friday I PR'd again with 120#.

So, Thank You Zack for being patient and believing in me. I have a long way to go to get where I want to be but it's only UP from here! You have helped me see my true potential in an area of CrossFit that I thought would be my weakness. I will no longer use my size as an excuse or a disadvantage when it comes to lifting heavy shit or competing.

Now let's go crush some Oly Lifting Competitions!