Yesterday Clayton worked on the holding the bottom position of the squat, and the full lock-out of the arms overhead. What did that mean? Today’s Strength workout would focus on the Snatch Balance lift! After some handstand work (again, really focusing on maintaining the active shoulder) we made our way to the rack and got right to it.
Since this drill is still relatively new, I only wanted him to work on jumping that bar off of his back and landing in as close to a full squat position as possible. Clayton is getting stronger all the time, and as the video shows, he has a solid landing at the bottom with the weight. The big thing for him to work on in this particular clip is ensuring that he gets full extension of his hips before dropping down. That will provide much more power, and in the Snatch lift, power is key! The other things are little nit-picky items that he often perfects. The full hip extension, though… critical!
Workout of the Day:
3 Rounds for time of-
300 meter row / 100 Single Jumps / 15 Knees to Elbows
The kip that Clayton is starting to develop for his Knees to Elbows will translate beautiful as we continue to improve his kipping pull-ups!
Athlete Results:
Clayton- Snatch Balance technique work 95lbs
WOD- 18:18
Clayton the Crusher came in tonight, and given that it was the day after Christmas, I was really impressed with the workout he put together!
For his skill work tonight we did some air squat holds and pull-up bar dead-hangs. Holding an air squat in the bottom position really lets the athlete focus on some of the key points of the movement: Weight on the heels, chest high, knees out, lumbar curve… The purpose of the dead hang was to really drill in the concept of the active shoulder. Anytime we go overhead (Snatch, Overhead Squat, Press/Jerk) it’s critical to ensure that our arms are simply a connected piece to that super tight core, creating that straight line from our heels up through our hands. Holding the hanging position allows you to get really comfortable with your arms fully extended overhead.
After skill work we did a TIME TRIAL!!! Today’s beast: a 1000 meter row, for time. Clayton does this thing where when you think he’s going to get tired and slow down, he switches into this 6th gear of intensity. As he reached the end of his row, instead of slowing down like most people, he held the final 75 meters or so at a pace faster than 1:40 per 500. That is fast. Great finish!
After a short recovery, I explained to Clayton that he would be completing another CrossFit “Hero” WOD tonight. “DT” is a workout “in honor of USAF SSgt Timothy P. Davis, 28, who was killed on Feburary, 20 2009 supporting operations in OEF when his vehicle was struck by an IED. Timothy is survived by his wife Megan and one-year old son T.J.” (CrossFit.com)
This workout consists of 12 Deadlifts, 9 Hang Power Cleans, and 6 Push Jerks, only you do that 5 times through. It’s definitely a grip crusher. We decided that the goal tonight was to try and do the sets unbroken, or without needing to break up each lift. After the clock counted down the 3, 2, 1… GO, he was off. Clayton didn’t break the plan once, and actually finished his entire last round in under 90 seconds!
First off, I hope everyone had an amazing Christmas weekend! Hopefully you were able to spend time with loved ones, family and friends.
As we shift our minds back into CrossFit mode, let’s talk again about where we want to take ourselves in the coming months/years. In order to get there, we will need to create a plan, and then execute it. The good news, is that we don’t have to do it alone, and best of all, it can (should!) be FUN to get better!
There is so much amazing footage out there of incredible athletes doing awesome things, and doing them right. Today I’ll be sharing a video of some very strong weight lifters. These guys have near-perfect form, their lifts are efficient and powerful, and the numbers they put up seem almost super-human. I’ll tell you what, though… these athletes are very much human.
Like anything else in life, to continue to improve you need to do one thing; Put in the time and practice required so that good habits become second-nature to your body and your mind.
So as we prepare to enter yet another calendar year, ask yourself what it will take for you to get stronger, thinner, healthier, faster. Think about what you will need to put forth in order to have more energy and be more productive in your day to day activities. Create a plan for how to achieve your “attainable goals”, and stick to it.
In CrossFit, and in life.
I’m sharing this video today just to provide some visual examples of some of the things we talk about every day at class. Little details that translate into a made lift, or a miss. Small cues that can help simplify even the most complex movements. Look for them in these attempts, and hopefully seeing them will help you continue to improve, as well.
Here are some of those cues!
Chest high / Weight in the heels / Knees out / Tight core / Active shoulder
For me, the holidays are about spending time with family and friends, and being thankful for all that we have in this world. Hopefully health is one of those things that you can celebrate!
So whether you don’t get the gift you wanted:
If you get exactly what you wanted:
Or if you get more than you could have ever asked for:
The Holidays are upon us, and that means people working late, people getting sick, and people leaving town to visit family. What it also means, is smaller class sizes, and a greater chance of athletes getting 1 on 1 coaching. Tonight’s winner: Jamie!
Jamie is still relatively new to CrossFit, so tonight was a perfect opportunity for him to get a personalized introduction to one of the most complicated movements in all of weight lifting, the Squat Snatch.
Most of our time was spend on just learning the form using a PVC pipe, and after skill work, and many progressions, Jamie was already consistent enough in his form to increase the weight. For a 30 minute session, you picked up the movement very well, sir!
After that, we completed a quick little lung-burner of a workout, and I sent him out the door for an awesome Christmas with his family!
Workout of the Day:
As Many Rounds as Possible in 6 minutes of-
3 Pull-Ups / 6 Hand-Release Push-Ups / 9 Air Squats
Full range of motion on every rep!
Athlete Results:
Jamie (UNassisted Pull-Ups!)- 7 full rounds
Jamie was at 6 full rounds at 5:15. After a lot of yelling and loud music, he turned on the after-burners and crushed that final round, finishing his last Air Squat with only 1 second left. What a great way to start vacation!
Had the honor of meeting and working with so many more athletes
Competed in 3 more CrossFit events, and helped convince others to compete in their first!
Learned a lot more about training, the human body, nutrition and CrossFit in general
My goal of maintaining this site is to make this blog fun and entertaining, but most importantly, a USEFUL resource for all of you. Hopefully with your continued help and input, this blog will continue to grow into site you visit daily!
For today’s Moment of Awesomeness:
CrossFit outlines The 10 General Physical Skills of human performance to be:
1. Cardiovascular/Respiratory Endurance- The ability of the body systems to gather, process, and transport oxygen. 2. Stamina- The ability of the body to process, store, deliver, and utilize energy. 3. Strength- The ability of a muscular unit, or combo of muscular units to apply force. 4. Flexibility- The ability of maximizing range of motion at a given joint. 5. Power- The ability of a muscular unit, or combo of muscular units to apply maximum force in minimum time. 6. Speed- The ability to minimize the time cycle of a repeated movement. 7. Coordination- The ability to combine several distinct movement patterns into a singular distinct movement. 8. Agility- The ability to minimize transition time between one movement pattern to another. 9. Accuracy- The ability to control movement in a given direction or at a given intensity. 10. Balance- The ability to control the placement of the bodies’ center of gravity in relation to its’ support base.
Tell me one of those skills that the guy in the video does NOT utilize to control his body and bike like that! So cool.
THANK YOU ALL for your support. It means the world to me.
It’s the last week before Christmas, and Kristin and Clayton showed up on Sunday ready to go! For the strength portion of the workout, we did sets of 5 of Overhead Squats. The main workout for tonight was a slight modification one of the classic CrossFit Hero WODs, Murph. The full workout as prescribed is: 1 Mile Run / 100 Pull-Ups / 200 Push-Ups / 300 Air Squats / 1 Mile Run. For tonight, we did half of that.
Workout of the Day:
1/2 Murph-
800m Run / 50 Pull-Ups / 100 Push-Ups / 15 Air Squats / 800m Run
What’s cool about this workout, is the middle three exercises (pull-ups, push-ups and air squats) can be broken up however the athlete chooses. If someone wants to do all 50 in a row, then all 100, etc, they can. If they want to break the reps up into 10 sets of 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, 15 air squats (like Clayton did), they can.
100 Push-Ups with perfect lock-out
Kristin was out of the gate fast with her running (her strong point) and went straight to the bar to bust out her 50 pull-ups. After they were done, she broke down the push-ups and squats on her own before finishing out with the run. Clayton’s goal during the pull-ups was to not drop at all during each set of 5, no matter how tired he was. Once we get him kipping, pull-ups are going to be a breeze for him!
As the year 2010 comes to a close, that means one thing:
Many people are already thinking of their “New Year’s Resolutions” that they’ll usually say out loud at night on December 31st. Most of the time, our motivation and desire to reach these goals will be honest and heartfelt. Many people will start out the new year right on schedule, too. Yet after a few days… weeks… months… these resolutions become just words we spoke in the past.
We realize that these goals we set:
are too time-consuming
require too much time and effort
won’t always be fun
are simply too challenging
may not come true the way we had planned
Some of us won’t even make “resolutions” because we’ve experience the above pattern too many times before. So why would this year be any different, right? So are we not reaching these goals because we’re not willing to put in the work to reach them? Or are we afraid of not reaching them?
Are you afraid of failure? Not are you worried about failing… do you literally fear failure? We’ve addressed this theme a few times, and I wanted to discuss it again.
If you watched the video on my Brain Power post from 12/12/10, and if you read the comments from Derek Sivers, himself (along with some great feedback from a friend of mine, Yen), you can see that “talking” about goals is simply not enough. The whole point of sharing goals or resolutions should be to motivate us, but often the satisfaction we get from people “congratulating” us from just SETTING the goals, de-motivates us from actually working towards the goals themselves. Sounds crazy, but it’s true. We already feel some pay-off for saying that we want to do something, and seeing how proud it makes other people.
I want to share a few things that I hope will serve as inspiration to us all as we make these new promises to ourselves.
– The quote below comes from Kelly Brown, of CrossFit Agoge. The day I read it, I retyped it and posted it on the wall of my office at work, and on my white board at home: “We will succeed because we are not so paralyzed by fear of failure that we fail to try.”
– This video is a scene from the movie Coach Carter, stating the same message:
That’s just the touchy-feely stuff, right? Now how about the truth. Many of us have “Hopes and Dreams”. Instead of calling them by that name, let’s call them “attainable goals”. They already sound more realistic, right? It’s critical that we realize that these goals will require work, and we need to be excited to put in that time!
This last video is a segment from Kevin Spacey talking about that work.
The best part of my job, as a trainer, is seeing and hearing about how my athletes and friends reach (and often times surpass) the “attainable goals” that they set for themselves. But it took planning and hard work to get there.
Holiday Project:
IF you are someone who likes sharing your goals, share one of them with me. You can do it in the comments section of this post or you can email it to me at tomashbytraining@gmail.com.
What I will then do is will reply to you and together we will devise a PLAN for reaching that goal. You can say “I want to lose 10 pounds” a million times, but without a plan to get there, and without putting in the time, they’re just words. I will help you with the plan, and you need to put in the work. I don’t care if your goal is fitness related or not.
There’s no reason to wait until January 1st, 2011 to do make these commitments to ourselves. We can get one step closer today. We can start right now. Ready, go.
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