Congrats to Jenna, who racked up a total of 110 burpees this month in the August Primal Challenge. Not only was she the only one who lasted the month in the challenge, she had to watch Drew as he fell of the wagon mid-month. Huge kudos to her for her tenacity and determination. What’s even better, we got to benefit as a gym from Jenna and Drew’s culinary ingenuity as they explored primal/paleo recipes this month. On a side note, 80 of Jenna’s burpees were as a result of this past weekend’s shenanigans so it’s worth noting she got through the majority of the month with just 3 gluten free cheats!

WOD 09.01.10

Snatch 1-1-1
Clean & Jerk 1-1-1

There are numerous progression lifts that assist in developing the snatch. The snatch deadlift reinforces proper set up and execution of the first pull (ground to mid-thigh). As with most things in life, problems can be traced back to the root of all things and in the snatch, a faulty start will almost always result in a failed lift.

In a typical deadlift set up, your grip is closer, your hips are higher, and the sole purpose is to move the barbell from ground to waist level:

However, with a snatch, your grip is wider and the end result requires you to keep the barbell close to your body for most of the lift. This is why we shove our knees way out and bring our hips lower in the snatch deadlift start:

Set Up:

1. Feet hip width apart, arms straight, turn elbows out, and chest up.
2. Your weight is on the middle of your foot and your knees are shoved out.
3. Your hips are slightly higher than your knees and your shoulders are in front of the bar.
4. Take the slack out of the bar, huge breath, and squeeze it off the floor as you shift your weight towards your heels.
5. Push your knees back and out of the way as your shoulders and hips rise at the same time.
6. Keep the bar against your body.
7. Finish tall at the top with your weight on your heels.
Check out this video from Catalyst Athletics for a good example of the lift.

WOD 08.24.10

Snatch Grip Deadlift 5×2 @ 110% 1RM

AMRAP 7
7 Deadlifts
Sprint (PU bars to roll up door and back)
14 Pistols
21 Double Unders
Sprint

For the deadlifts, go 80% of your last burn out set (or 60% of work set)
(modified from CF Games 2010)

Nice job, Jason! Head through the window!

A while ago, Sean posted about jerk mechanics from beginning to end. It’s been a while since we’ve worked on these (unless you count the fast and furious “Grace” from Big Girls Don’t Cry), so here are a few things to keep in mind for the sets today:

1. Pausing in the Dip: Ever try to bounce a basketball that’s on the floor? No bueno right? If you pause at the bottom of the dip, you’re essentially stalling your power from the drive. Think of a hot potato at that bottom and drive the hell out of the dip!

2. Leaning forward in Dip/Catch: If you don’t keep the bar over your center of gravity during the dip and catch, it’ll pull you forward on your toes in the dip or make you dump the bar in the catch.

3. Shorting the Extension: Sometimes you get so caught up in getting under the bar that you don’t extend your hips and knees fully, which means the bar won’t get as high as it can get.

4. Overgripping: In order for you to transfer the momentum from the drive phase to the bar, the bar has to be in solid contact with your shoulders. If you dip and drive while supporting the weight with your arms, like the press, your arms will actually act as shock absorbers and significantly lessen the transfer of force from the dip and drive to the bar.”

5. Elbows not Locked: Whether it’s from lack of speed getting under the bar or from a natural fear of a heavy ass bar over your head, sometimes people will fail to lock out their arms at the catch and try to finish the movement by pressing the bar up. Not only is that ridiculously hard, it’s tantamount to kicking up to a handstand with bent arms. Bad juju.

I know there’s lots to think about during the jerk, but the short and sweet of it is to make the bar go up just enough to drive yourself under it and lock those arms out. It’s still my favorite lift!

WOD 06.25.10

Jerk 1-1-1-1-1

3 rounds:
AMRAP 5
20 Dubs
10 KBS
5 Burpees

Rest 1 minute between rounds

Avelyne, Sandi, & Jose at Stagecoach

A couple weeks ago I posted on Beginning the Jerk, so today I’d like to discuss how we complete the lift after the dip and drive. After the drive portion of the Jerk the bar should have some upward momentum which you’ll use to your advantage to lock out your arms with the bar overhead. First, don’t think about using your arms to press the bar overhead. Instead think about pushing yourself under the bar.
Let’s talk about 2 different ways we can catch the bar after the drive phase. The rack position, dip phase, and drive phase is the same for both, the only difference is what the feet do in order to catch and stabilize the weight overhead. The first is known as the push jerk, or power jerk.

Push Jerk

You’ll notice that the feet only move laterally from an under the hips, or jumping, stance to a little wider than shoulder-width, or squatting, stance. Although our feet are in a squatting position, we only want to drop low enough to allow our arms to lock the weight out overhead. Once the bar is stable overhead, we stand so our knees and hips are fully extended.

The second position is known as the split jerk or the split stance.

Split Jerk

This position is a shallow lunge position that gives the lifter more balance because they can not only balance side to side, but front to back as well. Let’s discuss how to get into a good split stance. First, get into a deep lunge position with your dominant leg forward and back knee on the ground. Make sure your front knee is directly over the associated heel then raise up about 6 inches staying in a lunge position. This is approximately the depth at which you’ll want to receive the weight after the drive and push under. Make sure your feet are about shoulder width apart in the lunge and not directly in line. This gives you the lateral balance you’ll need to stabilize the weight.
To get to the finish position with knees and hips fully extended you’ll need to recover from the shallow lunge position.  The order you move your feet can make or break the entire lift.  Bring your front foot back underneath your hips first. Moving your back foot first is tricky with a heavy weight overhead because as the weight is taken off of the back foot, the body leans forward and makes it more difficult to keep the weight supported overhead. It is not uncommon to see people dump the weight because it gets too far away from their mid-line when they recover with their back foot first. 

You have the preference to choose between the two stances in your jerks today.  However, it is typical to see the split stance used with heavier weights and the push jerk stance used in higher rep workouts where time is of the essence because it takes less time to stand and recover each rep than the split jerk.

WOD 04.28.10

Jerk 3×3

5 Rounds
5 Deadlift (65-70% of DL Workset)
10 Burpees

Cash-out: 3-5 Skin the Cats

I weighed-in in the 94 kg weight class and topped out at 210 lbs in the snatch (a new PR!) and 265 lbs in the Clean and Jerk.  Here’s my first snatch of the day at 175 lbs.

Ruth was in the 69 kg weight class and threw up 113 lbs in her best snatch of the day and 163 lbs in the Clean and Jerk.  Below is Ruth’s best snatch of the day at 113 lbs.

Although we were no where near our peak yesterday due to soreness, Ruth came within 34 lbs of a total weight that would qualify her for Nationals! Videos of our Clean and Jerk will be added soon.

REST DAY 04.25.10

Today, we’ll be revisiting the Bear Complex with a twist. Since this month’s challenge forces us all to work on the Overhead Squat, we’ll be doing an overhead variation of the grizzly wod. So, this is also a good time to talk about what may be preventing you from improving your squat.

One of the factors that make the OHS the weak link is tight ankles and calves, which can cause your heels to come up and/or ankles to roll in.  One test is to do a squat with your heels on 1″ plates to see if you can get to the bottom comfortably.  If so, chances are your ankles/calves need some attention and extra stretching.   Take a look at Kelly Starrett’s article for some great stretches!

I suppose now will be a good time to formally announce the April Cup Challenge (albeit halfway through the month), since all sandbaggers have done the benchmark at last! The benchmark lift consisted of 5 sets of 3 reps, increasing in weight. At the end of the month, athletes will use the weight they achieved on the last set of the benchmark and see how many consecutive reps they can squat out. Highest reps wins. (Note: Bar must be locked out overhead for the reps to count as continuous).

WOD 04.16.10
Overhead Bear

5 sets of 7 reps:
Power Snatch
Overhead Squat
High Bar Back Squat
Snatch Grip Push Press

1. Perform 7 reps of the complex without resting on the floor per set. Touch and go only for the Power Snatch.
3. Rest as needed between sets.
4. Penalty for a bar touching the ground is 5 burpees per violation post-WOD.

In pulling lifts like the Snatch, Clean, and Deadlift our grip is the means by which we transfer the force generated by our muscles to the bar.  If our grip fails, the lift fails.  That’s pretty cut and dry, but as many of us may have encountered our grip is often times our weakest link.  During a long met-con and on heavy lifts we need a consistent way to ensure our forearm muscles don’t fatigue as quickly while still hanging onto the bar through your sets.  Enter the hook grip.

Ruth has eluded to the hook grip in her posts on the Clean and Snatch, but for those new to the gym and for those just staying up with the blog I’ll cover what it is, how to do it, and some advantages over the regular grip and the alternating grip often used for deadlifts.  The hook grip is a tried and true technique used athletes ranging from young children to world class lifters to perform any type of pulling lift.

Here’s how to do it. 

Courtesy of Caleb Lee

The hook grip has several advantages.  The most important is the grip itself and stronger so it allows you to pull more weight off the floor.  Coach Rippatoe himself stated that our brain senses when our grip fatigues and as a self-defense mechanism will not allow maximum motor neuron activation during the concentric phase (lifting the weight off the ground).  Since the traditional grip is not as strong and fatigues much quicker than the hook grip, it only makes sense to start making the hook grip your preferred grip.  At CF Intrepid we use the hook grip on all Olympic lifts (clean and snatch) no matter how much weight is on the bar, just to build good habits.  A hook grip with the Olympic lifts is damn near essential since they are so explosive and so much force and transferred very quickly through our grip.  I don’t want to be the poor soul to lose my grip while cleaning or snatching a heavy weight, and I know you don’t either. 

The hook grip is also very useful for the deadlift.  At CF Intrepid we like to use the deadlift and a grip strengthener so we tell our athletes to use a regular grip until they reach a weight that they begin to feel their grip slipping.  At this point, you have two options:  an alternating grip (one hand palm facing back, one hand palm facing front) or the hook grip.  We allow athletes to choose between the two, but I will make a case to stick with the hook grip even with heavy deadlifts.  The hook grip allows equal muscular development and some believe it better balances the load on your back.  You don’t want to have one trap noticeably larger than the other do you?  In my opinion, balance is the name of the game, and the hook grip allows you to bear the load in a more balanced way for the deadlift.

I sure have talked up the hook grip so far, haven’t I?  The one drawback to the hook grip is overcome with practice and some time.  The hook grip can be an uncomfortable position as we start working with it.  It puts more pressure than we’re used to on our thumbs and the skin on the inside portion of the thumb tends to get raw from the knurling on the bar.  I promise you that if you stick with it you will be able to grip heavy loads and do grip intensive met-cons with such ease that you’ll not want to go back to a regular grip unless it is to specifically build your grip strength.  Also with some time the skin on your thumbs will adapt and get thicker in a way similar to how calluses form on our palms.

Give the hook grip a shoot and when you get past the initial discomfort you won’t be disappointed.

WOD 04.14.10

Back Squat 3×5

AMRAP 7
7 Hang Power Cleans
7 Burpees

Elbows High, Bar Resting on Deltoids in the Rack Position

As we prepare to jerk, we transition from the front squat rack position and flare the arms out slightly while still keeping the weight supported on our shoulders and not the wrists.  You may feel your arms bear more weight than before but the bar should still be planted firmly on your deltoids and maybe a bit on your collar bones.  Now we’re ready to dip and drive the bar up to begin the jerk.  During the dip ensure your dip is straight down then up almost as if you were performing the movement on a wall (which is great practice to learn the movement and keep from leaning the torso forward in the dip phase).

Flared Elbows, Bar on Shoulders, Textbook Dip Position

The drive phase should be explosive and there should be as little pause as possible in the transition from the dip to the drive.  Also ensure you stay on your heels throughout the entire dip and drive until you reach triple extension (extension of the ankles, knees, and hips) where the feet tend to come off ground from the explosivity of the drive (think jumping the weight up).

Drive w/ Triple Extension

In order to transfer the momentum of the drive phase to the bar, the bar has to be in solid contact with your shoulders.  If you dip and drive while supporting the weight with your arms, like the press, your arms will actually act as shock absorbers and significantly lessen the transfer of force from the dip and drive to the bar.  A good rule of thumb is to drive with enough force to at least get the bar to your forehead.  We’ll finish discussing the jerk in a future post but for now practice what we explained here and you should feel like your using more of your legs to thrust the bar overhead and your wrists, elbows, and shoulders will thank you.

WOD 04.07.10

Back Squat 3×5

500m Row
30 Burpees
10 Shoulders to Overhead

Quads of Steel

You’ve heard us throw around the term ‘posterior chain’ and talk of its importance in strength development as well as overall health, but CrossFitters as a whole tend to neglect its counterpart: the anterior chain. Yes, the CrossFit booty is quite a nice byproduct of posterior chain work, but those looking to improve olympic lifts (and their OHS for the April Challenge), will want to give the quads, iliopsoas and abs some love too.

Greg Everett wrote an article called  The Prodigal Chain, that talks about this deficiency and how it affects our lifts. Before we go further, though, it’s important to breeze through an (over)simplified breakdown of the back squat vs the front squat.

Back Squat (low bar)

• forward torso lean
• greater hip flexion
• posterior chain (hamstrings, glutes and spinal erectors)

Front Squat

• upright torso
• greater knee flexion
• anterior chain (quads, iliopsoas, abs)

So, because of the difference in body angles, different muscle groups are recruited to execute the lift.  Ever wonder why your hams and glutes are sore after back squats while your quads are fried after front squats?  If this is the case, then you are more than likely doing the lifts correctly.  However, since we’ve been focusing on a linear progression for the last few months, some of us (including me) have developed a dominant pos chain. So when we get stuck in a front squat, we end up recruiting the stronger muscles and inadvertently dump the weight because our hams and glutes shoot our hips up first.

So, unless you’re training specifically as an Oly Lifter (anterior dominant) or Powerlifter (posterior dominant), we will be striving for a delicate balance between the two.

WOD 04.06.10

Bench Press 3×5
then,
rds:
4 rds:
5 Thrusters
10 Good Mornings
100m Sprint

Please note — there will be no 7am class on Monday, March 29th!

WOD 03.27.10

Run for the Hills
8×150m Hill Sprint
2 min rest between sets

then:
3×10 Toes to Bar
calf and glute stretches