All About Oly
The Olympics are in full swing, and that means you can actually watch Olympic Weightlifting being broadcast for once! (Well, in theory one could. I’m not sure how TV works these days.) A quick google search shows that there are events at 9am, 11:30am, 2:30pm, and 6pm on Tuesday – and a bunch more every day for the next few weeks.
Olympic Weightlifting is enjoying a huge surge in popularity due in no small part to the enthusiasm of CrossFitters like yourself. We employ the Olympic lifts to help train explosiveness, power, coordination, agility, speed, and balance – and it’s a blast to watch people who absolutely get it right doing it at the world-class level. I’m sure I’ll be watching slow-mo videos from Rio for many months to come…
Our Wednesday night weightlifting session at 7pm is a great chance to dig in to the technical details on your lifts, to work on establishing good form and habits, and start the process of converting your raw CrossFit-forged hip-opening power into finely tuned Olympic lifts. We also do specific strength building accessory exercises there – like the Clean Pull we’re doing today in class – to help refine your movement and reinforce the weak points in your movement. The technical agility, flexibility, and coordination demands of the Oly lifts really highlight where we need to do more work.
If you’re interested, just come on in! It counts as one of your regular classes for the week, and you’re all eligible to spend an hour with me working on your goats and trying some oly-focused programming. It’s a really fun time, and surprisingly exhausting work. What’s on the menu for this Wednesday?
1) Warmup
2) Clean: 50% x 5, 60% x 5, 70% x 5, 75% x 5 reps x 2 sets, 70% x 5
3) Jerk Balances: 50% x 3, 60% x 3, 70% x 3 x 3, 60% x 3
4) Shoulder mobility drills for Snatch Receiving position
Never done a Jerk Balance? No problem. I’ll be there teaching the exercises, giving you corrective drills, and getting your lifts on track.
If you’d like even more instruction, look into our upcoming Seminar with Diane Fu! Diane Fu is an old friend of Kirstie’s from CF San Francisco, and she’ll be in town coaching an all-day workshop on the Snatch and Clean&Jerk from 9-4 on October 1. We’re thrilled to be hosting Diane Fu, and I’m excited for the seminar!
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Clean Pulls from above the knee, with a pause, is one that all of your coaches did together last week to get a good feel for the work and our intentions. The goal here is to get comfortable with holding midline tension with the hip somewhat closed and then while explosively opening it. In addition, this can iron out undue “swing” in your Clean, and help keep the bar closer to your body. Done well, this can help bulletproof your spinal column. (In short, today is Ab Day.)
The WOD features a new spin on the Box Jump: we’re starting from the top. Spend as little time as you can in contact with the floor before rebounding right back up to the top, and you’ll be putting that bracing and power to good use. And when you’re done, you might as well stay up on top of that box to get a new perspective on your air squats…
Strength:
Hang Clean Pulls
3-3-3-3-3
(3 sec pause at the hang position)
WOD:
AMRAP 10
5 Toes-to-Bar
10 rebounded box jumps (20″) (start from top)
15 air squats
