I Printed My Competition Plan. Then Changed It.

Posted by

Russ

22 June 2026

On 22 June 2026

Have you ever been in the situation where you formulate your plan, are convinced it’s the best approach, only to mull it over in your subconscious and wake up with a new one?

Yep, me, too.

And I even printed my 5.5 week plan out, on A3 to hang in pride of place on my wall…

…and then changed it again!

I know they say no plan survives first contact, but I was hoping for a little more. 😀

Ah well, such is life.

Today’s Double Half-Snatch session was 2 x 8kg bells (again), and was planned as 1 minute work followed by 1 minute rest. My goal was 12 reps per minute (rpm).

Of course, in the competition, it’s straight through with no rest, but ‘slowing down’ so to speak, isn’t a good tactic. Sure, you can rest in the rack position but unlike Long Cycle or Jerks, in DHS, because you have the momentum from the drop from overhead fixation, it pays to continue that momentum from the rack position to the drop and backswing, and take it through for the hip hinge and thrust to begin the next rep. If you tried to slow it down to 5 seconds per rep, it’d be a killer!

As such, for me, at a 12 rpm pace, my method is 2 x 6 rep blocks, with time to catch my breath and compose myself in between.

First set – 17-18 seconds

I timed myself on some of these sets and the first set of 6 took about 17-18 seconds. This enabled me to catch 10 seconds breath, before beginning the next set at the 30 second point.

Second set 18-20 seconds

The second set of 6 was a little slower at 18-20 seconds, but again gave me a 10-second breath before the next minute would start.

This has to be the pace for me.

To reiterate from a previous post, I need an average of 13 rpm over 10-minutes to get the required 130 reps for Rank I.

That’ll likely be 7 reps for set 1 and 6 reps for set 2 for the first 6 or 7 sets. And I then hope to have enough in the tank to push faster in sets 7 and 8, and then finally no rest in sets 9 and 10.

Again, that’s the plan and ever mindul of that not surviving first contact and how hard this is..all we can do is work towards it and see*.

I already competed in the 5-minutes Double Half-Snatch competition with 2 x 12 kg bells in April 2026. With this one, I’d also injured my back so wasn’t 100% and managed 73 reps in the 5 minutes. I had nothing–NOTHING–left in the tank going into the 5th minute. I was blown and know what a challenge it is.