CrossFit DC Olympic Lifting Review – Round 1

This Sunday marked the first of two Olympic Lifting Sessions with coach Mike Choi focusing on the clean & jerk. The first Sunday zeroed in on the clean portion of the movement.

After a quick warm-up, the class was split into two groups. Each group had a chance to work with Mike on the fundamentals of the clean. A few pointers to remember during the clean: hips begin lower than they would on a deadlift, really emphasize the shoulder shrug before attempting to pull up on the bar, and whip the elbows around in front of the bar when you receive the weight so you can control the bar, and thus the weight. Additionally, front squats can be an invaluable tool in strengthening your cleans – holding the bar with a clean grip and training deep front squats is a great way to improve your clean and clean and jerk.

For a quick finisher, each group was put through a blitz of a met-con utilizing ‘infinity sprints.’ The gist – odd number groups of people set up so as to continuously run short distance sprints in a quick run-rest fashion. We don’t often feature sprints in our workouts, but they are great for pushing your body to max speed in conjunction with coordinated rest periods.

All that was left after that was a little fun with the tires.

Great work by all who attended. Coach Mike will follow up this week’s session with a second class next Sunday rounding out the rest of the clean and jerk movement. In the meantime, get your workout on with an old favorite instructor and a new face or two this week.