Surprising myself

2/9 lift power clean 1x230 deadlift 1x395 plus inclines 6x70, 75 and 80lb dumbells.

I figure I will list my full weights out just for fun:

Power clean: 5x145, 4x155, 3x165, 2x185, 1x230 fail, 1x230 success!
Deadlift 5x255, 4x295, 3x345, 2x365, 1x395 new PR post back-injury!

Now, as you can see, we need to bring up some of higher rep sets.  We've gotten a little lazy on our early sets for both of these exercises.  I'm thinking for power cleans 155, 170, 185, 200, 230 and deadlifts 275, 315, 345, 365 and on up.  Now to comment on each lift:

Power clean:
Since I started training for the run, I've lost some explosiveness in my lower body and the pain in my knees keeps me from popping my feet out like I should on each rep.  Well, today I worked hard on getting my form right on every rep.  Things were going well until I tried my single and I, once again, tried to do a split clean by stepping my right foot back.  I was nowhere close to getting under the bar.  I refocused mentally and practiced the movement a few times.  This time I did it!  I finally got both my feet moving again.  They popped out and I got under the bar.  I came under a little crooked but it was a clean rep!  Finally!  This just reinforces the need for perfect form on every rep of the power clean.  I've been reluctant to move my legs due to the pain in my knees and have been doing my sets stiff legged as a result.  I have to stop doing this now!

Deadlift:
Today was a PR for me post back injury.  Last time we had singles week, I got sick from that damn agave syrup and threw up in the bathroom all day instead of hitting my single.  Today was all about redemption.  My back felt good and I pulled the weight without too much trouble, although I'm still not bending my knees and getting my hips back like I should at the start.  I can't believe I'm almost back to 405 again.  It's a great accomplishment but also depressing to think it's taken me almost a full year to regain my previous strength, as I think I originally hurt my back in April of '10.

Incline Dumbell Presses:
These were all about not aggravating my injured left shoulder.  I would only go down about half way on my left side while doing the full movement on my right, which added a new element of difficulty but kept my left out of the pain zone.  My shoulder actually felt better on the last set and I went a little deeper on the left side.  Overall not too bad for the amount of pain I was in just the day before.  It's funny how you can wake up in the morning and look at a workout as being insurmountable, but come out on the other side accomplishing things you wouldn't have expected.