CrossFit DC Olympic Lifting Review – Round 2
This Sunday was the second in a two-part Olympic lifting series presided over by Coach Mike Choi focusing on the clean and jerk. After a thorough warm-up, the class was again split into two groups. Last week’s attendees warmed-up to the split-jerk with sets of strict- and push-presses while Coach Mike reviewed the fundamentals of the clean with those who were new to the movement. For a good review of the clean, check out yesterday’s post.
A few things to remember when performing the jerk: from the rack position, dip smoothly (knees driving forward slightly) before driving back up aggressively to initiate the bar’s lift. As the bar leaves the shoulders, drive your arms against the bar and push your body down and under the bar. Lastly, when performing the split jerk, remember that the width of your feet should be nearly the same as the width of your feet in your squat stance. Maintain that width, and you maintain lateral stability – land with your feet too narrow, and you’ll compromise that stability. (nods to Coach Mike Choi and Greg Everett’s “Olympic Weightlifting”)
After a long hour of technical work, it was time to relax the mind and tax the body, and after the recent onslaught of burpees, something else was called for: Death by Box Jumps. Starting with 2 box jumps, we added two more box jumps at the top of each minute. The cutoff was set at 10 rounds (20 box jumps), though there were a few hardcores clamoring for more.
A lot of great work today. Post your loads and rounds to comments, and be sure to thank Mike for two awesome classes. Alex is back to cover class Tuesday night, so come prepared!
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0 Comments
Seriously? No comments people??? I know you all read the blog!
Chris, You are doing an awesome job with the Blog. I love all the great pictures.
Much thanks to Mike for all your coaching.
Great work to everyone. I hope I get to join you again soon. I was given the go ahead to add bodyweight exercises back into my workouts. YAY I can do squats again!!!!
Oh I forgot I had something I wanted to share. My PT shared this video link with me and I thought it would be nice to share since we have had a lot of injuries over the past few months.
Using Crossfit for Recovery:
http://vimeo.com/7002313
Finally commenting after a slack-tastic day!!
Oh, and “thorough warm-up” is the understatement of the day. For me anyway. Damn rowing…
Jerks! I did a lot of jerks @ 75# (think it was 7 or 8 sets of 2). Happy to hear from Mike that the bar path is pretty much straight, I’m just not punching out the weight once I get under it. I managed to do it a couple of times and it felt awkward. Also got a pointer from Salty about the rear foot positioning which was also awkward. I can’t wait until things stop feeling awkward!
For the lung-burner I used the standard ladies’ box (20″?) and managed to survive the entire 10 rounds. I subbed jumps with step-ups for the last 8 reps on the last 2 rounds, and I nearly wiped out twice!
Thanks for another awesome class and thanks Mike for your tips as always! And I’ll see if I can squeeze in a comp sometime in the near future! 🙂
Lastly, that’s great news Sara!!! 😀 I’m off to go watch the vid you linked!
I just finished watching the video and I’d highly recommend everyone else watch it too.
A few thoughts that came up while viewing it – yeah I know only 3 other ppl will read this but I don’t give a flying fack:
When I took my break from the CF community there were a lot of things that I realized were really dumb. One is how every workout is treated like “game day.” We have great trainers but it’s not their responsibility to repeatedly tell me which sessions I need to chill out on. I just need to be better about doing scheduled or forced scaled-back sessions. It’s really, REALLY hard but I rather be the loser for the day instead of an injured person for months on end because I was doing too much too frequently. Hope I’m not alone in regards to this.
Another thing actually came up in class – the whole “our warm-up is your workout.” When I started CFDC I thought it was super awesome and made me feel special but I’ve haven’t been too keen on embracing that whole mentality the last year or so. My own warm-ups either involve dynamic stretching, some bodyweight movements, or light jogging/rowing (or simply walking to the gym from Georgetown), but rarely a workout-esque warm-up like I use to do. In fact I’d like to do the kind of warm-ups I see Mike Choi do before he trains but I’m always rushed for time!!
Last thing…in the video around the 3:55 min mark you see that particular affiliate has a list of what I assume are important things for trainees to remember:
(1) Full Range of Motion
(2) Proper Technique
(3) Time
This bothered the hell out of me. Unless this was ordered alphabetically how could ROM be of more importance than proper technique? I’m reading too much into this but really I say forget ROM if your technique is shit. Work on technique and then work up to range of motion.
And that’s it. Again, good video. Gave me lots to think about. Now I’m off to explore the interwebs to find some celeb to whack off to. Good night~!
Seriously, I’m commenting from Mongolia, get with it slackers. Didnt see the vid, but proper technique encompasses full ROM. get the technique proficient and everything can develop.
As for the “game day” mentality, i think this is why we see a lot of burnout in young hyper-competitive types. Look at Andrew from Gtown and some of the guys doing wods on their own. the “score at all costs” mentality actually slows progress past the initial part, and leads to a quick shutdown. Notice, pro atheletes etc dont train all out all the time, in fact far from it.
Back this weekend to jump back into things, keep up the hard work!
wow, beat to the punch by a man on the other side of the world. demoralizing.
I would like to think that most people would equate full ROM to proper technique. That being said, I can think of at least one movement (DL) where proper technique is more important than full ROM; however, that’s just one movement though out of many. It’s not that I would say ‘don’t read too much into it,’ instead, I think I would want everyone to concentrate on the overall msg that they’re pushing: faster time/bigger weight/more reps are fine, but attention to form is paramount. And I honestly believe that pushing this type of message would actually cause athletes to listen to their own bodies, and thereby avoid the burnout. If, on a given day, your struggling to hit 70% of your max (whether it be 1rep, Fran time, Tabata score, whatever), its an indication that your body is tired. Whether you heed that indication or not depends on what sort of message has been impressed on you as an athlete: push hard but with good form, or go-for-broke-24/7.
Now, having said all that, I actually wasn’t so cool with her statement that she actually feels better when she isn’t resting (~3:30 – “I think most people are afraid to work out when they’re injured, I think they think that rest is actually going to make it better…”) I’d like to think this is tied to the fact that, due to her back injury, it’s uncomfortable to sit for long periods of time, which she did talk about. But making a statement like that, implied or explicit, especially as an owner of a box, could be really deleterious to the health of her athletes. Of course, maybe now I’m the one reading too much into it.
After thinking about it I can see that for most of the movements there’s no strong distinction between technique and full ROM – the only exception I can think of off the top of my head are KB swings and GHB Sit-ups & extensions. I guess it depends on flexibility too. Anyway, at CFDC I know good form is drilled repeatedly as well as full ROM, so I think it’s a safe to say most CFDCers know the importance of proper technique and do equate full ROM with it.
I second listening to your body. I use to hear about a back-off week every 4 to 6 weeks or so. On one hand I think this is a great idea but on the other hand if you have the “every day is game day” mentality I still think you’ll get injured at some point in between those back-off weeks. So yeah, hear hear to listening to your body! The possibility that there may be affiliate trainers who encourage ppl to go for broke every session is pretty scary.
In re to her comment on rest, I thought she just phrased it poorly, or at least I hope so, but I can’t remember everything she said because I was a bit preoccupied with her training prior to her injury (and now I’m at work, so I cannot watch the vid). From what I picked up I thought she was referring to injuries that are more localized and less serious. An example – I tweaked my right shoulder a while back doing back squats. I just laid off the upper body pressing movements, back squats, and overhead squats but I kept going to the gym. Tweak was gone within a week. But that quote really doesn’t mesh with what I thought to be honest…That’s a pretty reckless thing to say especially as an affiliate owner. Clearly I was reading too much into the wrong part of the video! Hah!