Sometimes I don’t live up to my own expectations as a coach, as a fiance, as a son, etc.  That’s the way it goes and I try not to be hard on myself.  More than anything, it just kind of kicks my butt in gear when I have these little epiphanies, and I am perfectly happy with that.

Over the last few months we haven’t had too many new faces in the gym because we have hovered at or around capacity since October.  That is starting to change a bit as we have taken on a dozen or so new folks in the last month and what I have realized is that one area that I was kind of becoming complacent was with coaching.  We had all of you grizzled veterans in the gym who knew the drill and more often than I would like, I found myself kind of glossing over the instructional part of the classes, especially when we were doing the Wendler cycles.  I subconsciously was assuming that because everyone had a lot of experience in the gym, that some of the abc’s of weightlifting weren’t needed anymore.  In the last week, having to help new folks get up to speed on lifting, has helped me to realize that everyone still needs to get occasional refreshers on the basics.

Just today for example, I coached the push press and put a decent little chunk of time into going back through the basics and I was surprised to find, although I shouldn’t have been, that there were plenty of little nuances that people had either forgotten or had never learned in the first place, thus helping them to improve their lifts.

With that being said, I want to refocus my coaching and dive deeper into the instructional periods because the more solid the foundation of the pyramid, the bigger the pyramid that we can build.  I encourage everyone else to take this approach as well; if you have a question about something that may appear insignificant, feel free to ask us coaches, regardless of how long you have been crossfitting.  The more vested you are in improving, the more likely you are to improve.

 

On a completely unrelated side note – The 830 crew has been less than satisfied with my musical selection despite my insistance that they should be working hard enough to not even hear the music.  Came up with what I believe to be a great solution though…

I made Spotify playlists for time slots that we have a class.  They are all open to the public and are collaborative so share away.  If you come to a particular class, put your favorite wod tunes on there and we’ll get them played.  You’ll either need the Spotify program on your computer or do this on your phone/ipad if you want the link to work.

530am/630am

830am/930am

12p/4p

5p/6p/7p

Load em up! Otherwise you’ll get this…

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As many of you know, I went to the Outlaw camp in Atlanta this weekend. It was a fun time and I took away a few different ways of thinking about and describing the second pull of the snatch and clean as well as some surprisingly torturous warm-ups. Overall it was reassuring to note that we are doing the right stuff at Jai. We are emphasizing good movement patterns on a daily basis and not letting people hammer away with shitty mechanics, thus reinforcing and/or solidifying bad habits.  CrossFit is evolving and gone are the days, for the most part, of programming stupid things like Double-Murph, or even Murph for that matter. You don’t need to do that kind of stuff to be strong, in fact the elites of our sport don’t even come close to doing things like that in their training with rare exceptions.

Back to the point, Spencer Arnold was talking this weekend about the squat and was giving us his take on what seems a relatively benign movement, but in reality is one of the more controversial movements.  I won’t get into the details of the argument but if you have seen my squat, I try to stay as vertical as I can, allowing my knees to drive out over my toes and not letting my butt go way back.  The alternative to this would be a low-bar, butt out, chest down kind of squat.  This taller more vertical squat is useful because it is the catch position for the clean and snatch. Spencer was arguing that if your squat is bad, you HAVE to improve it. It is a must. If mobility is inhibiting you, work that as a priority before you ever worry about going heavy. In essence, he was saying that if the squat is bad, it shouldn’t really count as a rep and that you will never be good at something like CrossFit. (He also bluntly stated that you should play kickball if you aren’t willing to improve it).  For most of us, “being good” isn’t a priority in the competition sense, but it certainly is important in terms of safety and our ability to improve and get stronger.

http://spencergarnold.wordpress.com/2013/04/21/develop-the-squat-or-play-kickball/

 

I have worked with many of you on your squats because I too see it as a foundation for everything that we do but ultimately you, as the athlete, have to WANT to improve. Work on it every time that you are at the gym. Obviously we as coaches will help where we can but it will come down to each athlete in the end.

From a coaching perspective, I’m not certain what path I will take for here on out. On one side, I can go down the tough love route, not giving reps for high squats or bad ones, not giving a C&J rep to a jerk caught with bent elbows, etc. you can argue that for the sake of respecting the disciplines within which we work (gymnastics, weightlifting), it is worth putting in the time to do it correctly.  Our goal is to avoid making a gymnast/weightlifter throw up in their mouth when they see us perform something they do.  This is how we garner and maintain respect for what we do.  This element is very important to me as an affiliate owner. On the other side, we have been more mellow about it in the past. Giving more gentle/less confrontational cues about chest up, knees out, etc but maybe that doesn’t do justice to the amount of attention that this should get.

 

So squat, and squat well. Take the time to ask questions about your technique. The coaches will miss things occasionally, ask them to watch a lift if you’re curious. Take videos of your own lifts so that you can study them. I take a lot of pride in my technique and study A LOT! Ask Lindsay, I’m constantly watching the best in the country on FB or YouTube.  Consequently, I’m proud of the fact that both Rudy and Spencer approached me this weekend asking me if I was a trained weightlifter. Both were surprised that I am essentially self-taught.  Work your mobility! Do it all the time! At work, at home, at Jai – if you need it, do it. Eventually you will reach a point where it isn’t necessary all the time, but you have to get there first.

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Nutrition is one of those funny things for me. I know that it is an absolutely necessary part of my training but at the same time (unfortunately), I’m not drawn to broccoli and Kale as I should be. I enjoy some of the finer things in life and always have.

My parents tell 2 stories about me that will give you further insight into my psyche. 1)They used to keep cookies/treats on top of our refrigerator in Oklahoma. I was kind of a wild one when I was little, as evidenced by the 5 or 6 ER worthy scars that I have on my head/face, and I would climb up onto the fridge as a 4 year old by using a very complicated tiered drawer system that I had designed. I would follow this sugar binge by jumping, unannounced, onto my unsuspecting father as he walked past. 2)I once told my grandmother, or somebody in my family/can’t remember now, that if I were to be anything in the world besides a little boy, I would be a chocolate bar. Nuff said, I like my treats.

So anyways, I’ve kind of always grown up enjoying that stuff and now my take on nutrition has been completely flipped on it’s head since I began to care enough to investigate it further. Due to the changes I have implemented I am the healthiest that I have probably ever been but it still isn’t easy to turn down my weaknesses in terms of food.

So Linds and I find ourselves in the throes of another sugar detox. We are on day 6. We had a good time in CR and decided it was time to buckle down upon our return. Now, I have done 5 or 6 paleo challenges/sugar detoxes and I do have to say that they have gotten easier each time but the part that I struggle with is that they are so extreme. Literally, it feels like someone is telling you to eat kale and chicken breasts every meal of the day, I realize it isn’t that dramatic but it feels that way sometimes! Last night Linds and I both felt like we were struggling just a week into the detox. We went to the movie theater aka “TJ’s House of Pain during Detox” and of course we caved, buying a small bag of random treats that you can put together yourself. Nothing crazy, your typical…peanut M&M’s, choc covered gummy bears, chocolate peanuts, etc but still, we folded like a cheap suit.

Afterwards we started talking about how we had to get back on the wagon the next day and continue to eat clean. I realized that I think that this is the way I would prefer it to be all the time. Go 4 or 5 days clean (listen to me, I sound like a heroin addict) and then splurge a bit (with heroin of course), get back on the wagon and continue. I know full well that I feel the best when I eat clean but all too often I just fall apart for weeks at a time until it affects workouts, stress, etc.

Ken and I have chatted about food a few times and then I listened to his talk about food a couple of months ago and I really appreciate his take on it – although he seems impervious to everything bad except dark chocolate and (boatloads of) coffee! Come on, chocolate and coffee?!? Don’t ridiculous amounts of ice cream call to you? Ken’s whole thing though is that you shouldn’t necessarily do what I do, cleanse and binge, cleanse and binge. Slowly start to create new ways of thinking about food, essentially stop seeing all of that shit as food altogether and its appeal begins to loosen its grip on you.

This is the place that I would like to come to. I feel like I’m getting there slowly but surely and maybe I will have to continue these radical cleanses until I get there but I know it’s worth it in the end. The juice is worth the squeeze. (but really, don’t drink juice, just eat the fruit as the glycemic index of juice blah blah blah…..

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Boba is paleo right?  I’m pretty sure that tapioca is good to go….now, the syrupy red bean deliciousness that constitutes 90% of the drink, not sure about that but whatever…Linds and I went to pho last night for dinner with Claire-bear and Bean Stalk because it was cold, my thighs were tender from 150 wall balls, and we felt like it.  I most definitely replenished my glycogen stores between the rice noodles and 1000 calorie balls of boba.  While we were eating we were talking CrossFit, which tends to dominate our dinner discussions.  It got me thinking about our tribe, so to speak.

We are a tribe of very capable people, I like to think that we are the select few who are capable of great things in life – both physically and mentally in our daily tasks, jobs, and relationships.  We know what strife is.  We reach the precipice regularly; sometimes getting so damn close that we don’t know if we are going to make it.  We always do.  Sometimes we go over head first and we fail, but the consequences of that failure are determined solely by what we allow our egos to make of it.  Mostly, we get back up and dust ourselves off; heading back to the gym the next day for fresh start and a better outcome.  We experience this same cycle outside of the gym, but we are prepared.

Physically, we are doing amazing things.  CrossFit tends to have this fucked up scale of perceived strength or weakness.  You are strong, you are doing harder things than 90% of the country, hell the world.  Within that 10%, there are some that are exceptional and you will realize how soft we really are compared to them.  Unfortunately, or fortunately (however you look at it), Annie/Rich/Julie/Christmas/Neil/Jason/etc are all outliers.  They are the 99th percentile of that 10%.  Remember that just by showing up, you are doing amazing things regardless of what you write down as your “number”.

I am a better man because of CrossFit.  I accept my weaknesses, knowing that they obviously exist, but am confident in my strengths, knowing full well that they exist too.  I find that the strife that I encounter in the gym helps me to confront difficult scenarios in life.  ”I have done harder things than this and can tackle this challenge adequately”.  I am a work in progress, forever.  There is no point where I will have arrived, I can always work, always improve.

People think of us as a cult.  Fanatics.  Perhaps that is true for some.  What I see, is a collection of people that are happy with the lives they are leading.  We are healthy, we worry about the health of those around us.  We acknowledge our weaknesses, tackling them with more readiness than most.  Don’t piss on our flowers just because you are unhappy with your state of being, do something about it; join us.  We will support you through every step of the way, we have been there.  We have been the new person that can’t remember the names of the lifts, we have been the person getting worked by the medicine ball, we have all been the person to drop the empty bar and receive TJ’s wrath.  We have been there.  Once your with us, once you’ve suffered with us, we will do anything for you.  Name it, we may end up being more reliable than those you previously leaned on.  We’ll help you in your time of need, lend an ear when it is required.  Our tribe is select and we are of the few.

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So many of you have probably seen the post that the games website put out about disqualifying one of the world record performances for 13.2. If you haven’t seen it, here it is:

While avoiding talking shit, which everyone is doing right now, it is pretty apparent that this guy did not care too much to think about his range of motion. I believe he is/was a Games competitor and must have known what was actually expected of him.

I have watched a lot of people move in the last year and a half. I can pretty easily spot good range of motion and partial range of motion and it is one of those dilemmas that I have as a coach. I am certain that my range of motion was lacking when I first started CrossFitting, if not for simply not realizing then most definitely for lack of mobility/ability. Generally speaking I try not to be a super hard ass about range of motion because that isn’t really the agro vibe that I am trying to foster at Jai. I tend to err on the side of constant reminders “Nice work, go deeper, keep it up, go deeper, deeper…deeper…”, knowing that people will get better with time. That has always been my style and I feel like it is fine for our purposes. I also feel like when people are cranking in a wod and don’t quite lock their elbows out, no biggie. They are working hard, they are getting fit, and things will continue to improve for them.

The place where I tend to draw the line is with competition or with max reps. If you are going to claim that something is a 1 rep max, it damn well better be the full movement. Otherwise, masquerading as a 300# squatter without approaching below parallel is just untrue. Many times, hell every time, the full range is absolutely harder than a partial range movement. These are the times that I try to be pretty blunt with people “the squat looked good but it was NOT below parallel.” Competition works along the same lines. One aspect of the Open that I dislike (and there are many that I DO like) is the speed over form thing that starts to happen. The one piece that helps me sleep at night is that this just lasts for 5 weeks and then we go back to a tighter ship so to speak.

As an athlete, this is one area that I have always really prided myself. I am not the biggest, fastest, or strongest by any means (even owning a gym doesn’t guarantee this) but you bet your ass that my reps will look good and I will make my judge’s job pretty straight forward. I think Mike no-repped me a couple of times on 13.2 because I fell off the box before standing up but beyond that I can say with reasonable certainty that there were very few questionable reps. It’s this attention to detail that slows me down (along with my terrible cardio but keeps me from reinforcing bad habits for the sake of a time or weight during ONE wod, of MANY wods to come.

The Open lasts for 5 weeks. Enjoy it, revel in the fact that you will get after it (and Haven will provide the celebratory whiskey afterwards and you will be better for having wodded with that fire in your belly but when it’s done, remember that fitness is a long road and you shouldn’t sacrifice that journey for numbers in the short-run.

The best don’t take the short-cut.

TJ

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Here’s Dave, he’s a swell guy and is the member of the month.  Get to know a little bit about him so you can say hi next time.

New goal – to have 1 member of the month every month.  That gives us like 100 months worth of videos

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I subscribe to the Performance Menu from Catalyst Athletics and each month they send out a newsletter with primarily weightlifting/training articles.

This month had an interesting article about the average ratios in Snatch and C&J weights.  It was interesting to note that over several thousand weightlifters, whose maximal lifts were used, that their Snatch was about 79% of their Clean and Jerk.  This worked nearly perfectly for men, while women could generally use a percentage somewhere between 77%-79%.

So my max snatch is 195#.  My max clean and jerk is technically 240# but last week I should have easily had #250 so we’ll split the difference and call it #245.

195/245 = .7959

So I fit right into the model if using that theoretical C&J weight (which is pretty reliable).

This may not seem all that interesting on the surface but it does give us a more or less reasonable expectation of what our lifts should be based on a huge sampling of professional lifters.  Now, say we have a big disparity and one lift is much stronger or weaker in comparison to the other.  What can we derive from that information?  Well, you can start to figure out where you are having your breakdowns in your lifts.  For many of us, we can start with technique.  If you are better technique-wise at the C&J than the Snatch, then you will lift comparatively heavier weights.  But say for example you are essentially equally proficient with both lifts and your snatch is 85% of your clean and jerk; one can start to draw some conclusions from this.  Maybe your front squat is terribly weak and that is why you struggle in the clean and jerk.  Maybe your overhead position in the snatch is comparatively stronger than your front squat.  OR the opposite scenario, your snatch is 70% of your clean and jerk; maybe your overhead position needs to be worked on and you should add some OH squats or snatch balances.

I like to look at this stuff because it tells you where you “should” be but doesn’t assign a weight to that valuation.  All of us are working with different sets of cards; I’ve talked to some of you about your body types and how they can be more or less beneficial to the O-lifts.  Some people are fast and consequently are explosive, other people are slow and will forever struggle to generate force on the bar through the 2nd pull.  These are just the facts of life but assuming that genetic limitations affect the O-lifts similarly, we can start to figure out where we stand with one lift compared to the other.

Here’s some inspiration…These folks are fast…and strong…

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Supplements:

It’s been a while since I have spoken about supplements, some folks got a brief chat about them during their elements class but it seems like a good time to re-hash the topic as my thoughts evolve.  In truth, I am pretty skeptical of the supplement industry because of the ease in which you can make supplements.  There is very little oversight in the industry and you could literally make them in your kitchen with no training.  There is a good movie about steroids that talks about this issue.

So needless to say, kinda scary stuff.  At this point, I won’t ever be recommending that you take anything crazy – you can qualify crazy by the title generally speaking

For example:

-Animal Stack

-Assault

-Con-Cret

-Opti-men

-Xplode 2.0

-Animal Pak

-BSN Hyper Shred

 

Anyways, you get the idea.  There’s some weird shit out there.  My general rule of thumb is that if you can narrow it down to 1 product (whey protein, fish oil, vitamin xyz, etc) you are better off.  Not a huge fan of those giant bottles of random concoctions.  I wanted to take a minute to talk about the 3 that I carry at the gym and explain the positives and negatives to each of those and why we use them.

 

1)Fish oil:  This is a pretty straight-forward product and fits the above rule.  The big reason that we are supplementing with some sort of Omega 3 fatty acids (aka fish oil) is that our diet is so ridiculously high in Omega 6s.  Omega 6s are generally inflammatory and while they are absolutely necessary, we don’t need the quantity that we currently receive.  In theory our O6:O3 ratio should be about 1:1 or maybe 2:1.  Typically speaking, the average American has a ratio of about 15:1 in favor of the 6s.  But I don’t have a typical diet you say, what gives?  Well unfortunately you could be 100% paleo and probably still have an excess of 6s in your diet.  The source from these 6s is surprising; restaurants using crappy vegetable oils in their cooking, conventionally raised sources of meat are very high in 6s, or eating nuts like it’s going out of style.  So, sometimes, despite our best efforts we need to supplement with Omega 3s to counteract what is going on in other areas of our diet.

There are a couple of ways to do this.  Your most ideal/perfect scenario is to eat lots of wild caught fish, free range chicken eggs, grass-fed beef, etc.  These animals are raised in the way that they were intended to live and their meat/eggs are much healthier.  Unfortunately the prospect of eating wild caught salmon 3 nights a week can become a pricy option.  You would also want to avoid eating out where you generally can’t guarantee the quality of the fats that your food is cooked in.  Herein lies our second option, that is to supplement with Omega 3s – as I said, you need omega 6s but your don’t need excess, you would use the 3s to supplement and even out the ratio a bit.  Fish oil is the most efficient option but I understand that some folks are opposed to consuming things that come from animal products.  This leads us to other sources of Omega 3s like algae and flax seed oils.  These are fine, don’t involve the moral issues, but unfortunately the process for converting ALA (the omega 3 found in those products) to EPA/DHA (the useble Omega 3 found in fish/fish oil) is very inefficient.  Therefore you would have to supplement with a LOT of flax seed oil or algae oil to equal what you can get in a typical dose of fish oil.

 

I recently chose PurePharma fish oil because I believe that they provide a good, clean product that is financially feasible.  Assuming you can use a good quality product, I find that fish oil is pretty benign and the down sides are minimal.

http://us.purepharma.com/products_o3d3.php

 

2)Protein:  We use these protein powders for recovery purposes in order to help damaged muscle tissue to repair itself.  Obviously this process is important for getting stronger but also allows you to perform at higher levels in the gym day in an day out.  I kind of look at protein powders as if choosing the best of all of the evils.  Most of them are sweetened, some with really bad artificial sweeteners.  Again, just like fish oil, your best option is to eat real food after you work out.  Unfortunately this isn’t always possible with busy lives, kids, jobs, etc.  Beyond just eating, you need to be sure to eat the right quantities of protein and carbs after a hard workout.  Many times it is simply easier and more convenient to throw some water in a blender bottle with some protein.  Like I said, less than ideal but most of you probably don’t work out for a living and have a lot going on.

 

I have chosen Progenex as the protein at Jai and I have been happy with the product thus far.  It is a simple whey protein that doesn’t contain creatine, etc.  It is a hydrosolate meaning that the amino acid chains have been broken down already and are in the most useable forms by the body.  This differs from many of your typical protein drinks that are not hydrosolates, and consequently don’t absorb as easily and cause other unfortunate side effects (bloating, gas, etc).

 

Progenex is sweetened with fructose (sugar from fruit) and sucralose (splenda).  This is the part that I am not a huge fan of, although it is the last ingredient meaning it is the lowest amount.  As we’ve seen from our sugar detox – sugar, while necessary in extreme moderation, is not necessary in the quantity that we typically consume.  With something like Progenex, you just want to make sure that you don’t drink a shake, then go eat a banana, and drink a mocha with breakfast after the fact.  Factor the sugar from this into your diet and know that you should keep an eye on it.  If weight-loss is your goal, I recommend trying to avoid protein powder all together.

 

 

3)Vemma:  This is a line of products that Lindsay works with and both her and I use.  Vemma stands for “vitamins, essential minerals, mangosteen, and aloe – all are contained in the liquid vitamin).  They have a decent range of products from a liquid vitamin (their main product) to energy drinks, weight management lines, protein powder, and the cleanse which we used for the beginning of our nutritional challenge.

The main claim to fame of the Vemma liquid vitamin is the amount of antioxidants that it contains.  The fruit from which the antioxidants are derived is called the Mangosteen and comes form SE Asia.  Antioxidants are important because they help to limit the damage from oxidative stress.  2 questions: how do we build up oxidative stress and how do we deal with it through antioxidant consumption?  This kind of stress is built up through a myriad of ways; pollution, poor diet, over-exercise, poor sleep, life stress, etc.  Your body acts similarly with oxidative stress as it does to a poor diet (weight gain, fatigue, adrenal fatigue, etc).  You are encouraged to eat a lot of foods that are high in antioxidants to avoid potential problems with this kind of stress.  Again eating quality foods are your best bet here, you can generally find lots of antioxidants in brightly colored foods, cocoa, wine, etc.  Vemma comes in where your diet leaves off, it gives you a ton of antioxidants in one shot a day, along with a blend of other trace minerals and vitamins.  I like the liquid form, the fewer pills the better in my mind.

 

I don’t carry the Vemma products in the gym for space reasons.  Here’s the website where you can find out more of the details, click on products on the top. http://www.lindsayguzman.vemma.com/

 

Hope this helps, let me know if you have questions regarding supplements.  Glad to give you my 2 cents.

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Photo courtesy of Hookgrip – they have an awesome fb page with tons of good photos to analyze (for hours at a time while your fiancé waits patiently https://www.facebook.com/hookgripdotcom?fref=t

I’ve been seeing a lot of presses lately with Wendler going on and it made me want to write a post about some of the common issues that we see as coaches relating to the Split Jerk.

I am of the school of thinking that your presses should all look the same in your setup position.  That goes for strict press, push press, power jerk, split jerk.  The reason that I want to see this is for the sake of consistency.  If you do it (correctly) the same way every time, you can start to build muscle memory that will allow you to think about fewer parts to any given lift (ie. I set up the exact same way so I can think more about my dip position, split, recovery, etc).

Regarding that set up, I have heard two camps with different thoughts.  The first camp is a higher elbow position, much like the front rack position for the front squat.  The nice part about this position is that the risk of the bar sliding down your chest during the dip is pretty minimal.  The down side, as I see it, is that it isn’t an optimal pressing position which is obviously one part of the lift.  Coach Mike prefers this style and there are some strong ass people in the world doing it like this.  Chad Vaughn is an olympian that uses this technique, he talks about the two styles in this article. http://library.crossfit.com/free/pdf/CFJ_Jerk_Vaughn_FINAL.pdf

Here’s a video of Vaughn using this technique.  His triceps are pretty much parallel to the ground before starting his jerk.

The second camp is more of the elbows down, shoulders forward camp.  Many of you have heard me talk about this position.  I like this position because the bar is still resting on my anterior deltoid so it won’t slide down my chest, my elbows are pointed in the line action that bar should take as it moves slightly backwards from the front side of my body to the back side (at the end of the lift), and it is a more optimal pressing position.  I would say some of the negatives to this position is the tendency to press the bar in front of you and sometimes newer athletes struggle to get their shoulders to come forward and/or simply don’t have very big shoulders to work with.  Again, lots of strong people out there using this position.

Here’s a video of Kendrick Farris using this technique, his elbows are more pointed down at about a 45 degree angle.  Note that he does a squat power jerk ultimately instead of the split jerk, this is just the way he has always done it, he’s strong as shit

 

Now, beyond the starting position we have quite a few other areas where we can find issues with our Jerk.  Mostly, these issues come back to one thing: balance.  If you can find balance in your jerk across the board, you are unlikely to be successful.

The dip – many lifters dip into their toes.  This will cause the weight of the bar to pull you forward and consequently press the bar farther in front of you.  If you are strong or the weight is comparatively light for you, you may be able to dive your chest forward and save the lift but ultimately this will come back to bite you with maximal loads.

The drive – again balance here is key.  If you’ve dipped onto your toes, you will drive from your toes at too early a stage in the movement, this will cause you to press the bar forward as previously mentioned.  If you stay in your heels during the dip and through most of the drive (only coming up onto your toes at the very end), you will have balance in your lift and will likely be able to get the bar behind your head into a good position in the posterior plane of your body.  Think ‘pressing the floor away from you’ through your heels.

The split – when your feet move into your split stance, it is important that you are balanced here as well.  Too much weight in either foot can cause issues.  The back leg is bent, although to what degree is dependent upon the lifter.  You will see people with nearly straight back legs and you will also see people with a pretty deep lunge position in their split jerk.  I am of the mindset that if you want to get low/get under a weight that you can’t push press, then you better get that back leg bent so that you are physically shorter than when you started.

The recovery – because of the position that you are in once splitting, you need to recover with your front foot first to keep your balance.  If you are heavy in that front foot and your hips aren’t distributing the weight evenly, this will be difficult.  You can tell from my failed lift at 250# below, that I had too much weight in that front foot and so I had to step with my back foot first.  That pushed the barbell forward towards the frontal plane of my body and I couldn’t stabilize the bar overhead.

Here are two of my lifts from yesterday.  The first was successful due to good balance in the jerk, the second was not successful and you can see where my balance was lacking.  I did an analysis of the lifts with coach’s eye so that you can have a little bit of insight into what I am thinking about while I watch your lifts.  I obviously can’t catch all of this from one glimpse but these are the sorts of things we are looking for…

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Hey guys and gals, a couple of things:

-Please don’t break things. Use common sense. When you do break something, please tell a coach and don’t just leave it or worse yet, put it back with other functioning equipment. Quit standing on jump rope cables while attempting to swing the rope with all of your might – this generally is a bad policy while attempting a double under and does not lead to success.

-Please try to keep the kitchen area clean. I’m constantly putting peoples dishes away, throwing away cups and trash. You work out here, we work out here, respect the space. We are not your mothers – dirty tissues on the floor, countertops, in the hand towel bin, gum in the handle of the trash can. That shit is gross, stop it.

-If you owe money for tape, Progenex, etc. Pay it – we are not in the business of borrowing things.

-I have seen a lot of folks go behind the desk for pens, calculators, etc. Let’s try to avoid that as I have people’s information, private emails, etc. I will put the pens and calculator someplace more accessible so that you can use them.

-Please don’t use other people’s things (shoes, wraps, tape, etc) unless you have permission.

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