Sorry for the No post last Monday, I was traveling and the blogger website doesn't play well with Safari I suppose. Anyways, moving on.
Today I am going to be blatantly lazy and direct you to someone else's page. The page is Wil Fleming's. He writes links articles/videos from Eric Cressey who is a pretty renowned shoulder guy. So read the words and more importantly watch the videos and determine if you can even train over head yet, and if not, what to do to fix it (hint: mobility work).
Strength Wod 10/24/13
Power Clean and Jerk 5x2 @ 75%
Squats 3x8 AHAP
Clean 1st Pull (same as snatch last week) AHAP
Mobility work as deemed necessary from the Cressey videos.
Hola my iron friends. Today we will get our next strength workout and post an analysis of a new C&J pr I got yesterday. It could have been prettier. The because of the problems I had in the jerk, we will go over some jerk problems and fixes. So here we go.
C&J analysis.
The most common problem you see in the jerk is exactly what just happened in the video above. Most people tend to miss jerks forward. This is either because they have never felt a proper overhead position and have just conditioned themselves to catch the bar a little bit forward, or because you lack the should mobility to put your arms over your head in a good position.
Luckily both can be fixed.
1st, you need to work on the dip and drive. It needs to be on the heels and through a vertical plane.
I made and incredibly detailed painting on the subject.
You should look like the guy on the left, not the guy on the right.
Second, you need to start practicing some BTN Jerks. But Jason WTF is a BTN Jerk? Well I am glad you asked. It is a Behind the Neck Jerk. You start with the bar sitting on your neck (like a high bar squat), and you do the exact same jerk dip and drive to finish the jerk. The advantage is the bar doesn't have to move around your big head. It naturally puts the bar behind your head which is where you want it to be for a regular jerk as well. Do this for a couple warm ups and it will start to "grease the groove" as to where a jerk should finish. Also if you want to do this as an overload workout, most people can go over their max jerk weight with a btn jerk. Here is a video explaining the movement. You can skip the recovery drill at the 2nd half of the video.
Finally if your problem is mobility then K starr to the rescue.
The key to the above stretch is that you don't hyper extend the back. He keeps talking about the rib cage, but really he is meaning don't let the back extend, because that is keeping the tension off the system you are trying to stretch. Keep the torso rigid (just like of you were dipping and driving.... oh shit, you mean all of this is connected somehow..... mind=blown).
Another good one
Same thing don't hyper extend the back, the stretch should be through the lats.
Alright, this should be enough material to improve your jerk for a little while. Onto your 1st strength wod for the week.
Snatch Complex, 1 rep = 1 power snatch, 3 behind the neck push press. (3 reps AHAP)
Behind the neck jerk (from rack or jerk blocks): 3x3 @ 80% of max jerk. (looking for technique and good overhead position).
Squats: 3x8 AHAP
Snatch Lift off: 3x8 AHAP (see video for snatch 1st pull).
Do not let the hips rise faster than the shoulders in the snatch lift off!.
Go out and lift things over you heads my friends.
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Howdy. Not much to talk about today. A few things that I think are very important to weightlifting. Consistancy, wearing a belt helped teach me how to squat properly, taking the belt off helped build "the core", "the core" can't be strong enough, Squats, Mobility. That is about it.
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Strength Wod
power snatch: 3x3 as heavy as possible (ahap) unbroken.
power clean and push press 3x2 ahap
squats 3x8 ahap
Strict pull ups 3x10
Be very snappy with all of the movements. No press outs (except push press obviously). In fact never again press out a lift. If you press it out, it doesn't count. For the next couple of weeks we will be doing lots of power movements while building a strength base, so get ready for some squatting and pulling.
Today the workout inspired my to post yet again on squats. But there is more than just me on my soapbox box jump. I am also gonna try a little something that will have you seeing many more posts here, but a lot less content per post. Many people have asked me about strength classes and a strength schedule or program. I will post 2x per week a strength workout that you can do during open gym or any other time you might have bumper plates available to you.
Spoiler Alert: Every workout will include the snatch, clean and jerk (or some variation) and squats (or some variation) plus some accessory work.
Okay onto the squat. Or more specifically, the "butt wink". Butt wink? I thought this was supposed to be SFW (safe for work, c'mon keep up). Butt wink simply put is allowing to let the pelvis tuck underneath you during the squat. Picture a dog tucking his tail in between his legs. It is a weak position and definitely one you don't want when you have gravity trying to pull a heavy weight to the ground while resting on your back. If it was a strong position then a dog wouldn't do it when he as in trouble and submitting to you. I was trying to find some good pictures of butt wink, but Google and I have different opinions on what butt wink is.
This is what your buttwink looks like to me.
What causes it?
There are a few culprits when a butt wink squat is present. It could be one or all of them combined.
Culprit 1: Tight upper hamstrings.
Where the butt meets the posterior upper thigh is the upper hamstring. For most people this is the sole muscle preventing you from having a beautiful neutral spine squat. Roll the bejeezus out of these, followed by some targeted stretching. Oh you don't know any upper hamstring stretches? Well that is why they are tighter than sin. Use google and some common sense and you should be fine. Even with just google and no common sense you will survive.
Culprit 2: Knees are caving in, foot arches collapsing, weak external hip rotators, whatever, they are all the same thing. When you squat, the torso/pelvis doesn't move once you set them. You simply move them down in between the knees/thighs. To do this, your weight needs to be on the outside of the foot, with the knees tracking outside the foot. If you allow the knees to move to the inside of the foot, the weight will shift to the arch and the femur will track out front instead of outside. This will force you to butt wink if you try to go anywhere below parallel. The fix? keep your knees outside your feet. How many times have I said it? at least 1 million. But here is 1,000,001. Keep your knees outside of your feet.
Knees are inside, weight is on the foot arch. Bad squat. If I ever say "collapsed arch"or "collapsed knees", this is what I am talking about)
Knees outside the foot, weight on the outside of the foot. Notice the easily seen arch in the foot. Upright torso, excellent squat.
So those are the two main culprits of the butt wink. Tight upper hammies and bad knee/foot positioning. Never ever ever let yourself squat with "collapsed knees/arches" again. It is something that you must be consciously aware of every time you squat until it is 2nd nature. I will leave this topic alone with a 7 minute video on a cool trick to diagnose if you are butt winking.
Hey there my fellow weightlifters, crossfitters, and general barbell enthusiasts.
In case you didn't know the biggest weightlifting meet in Colorado (and one of the biggest in the country) is coming up on November 9th and 10th. It is at Skip's place (frontrangecrossfit.com). I will be competing in the 94 (206#) class. I have had many members ask me about weightlifting programs in the past and I thought I would share with you my exact training schedule for the next 7 weeks in preparation for the meet. So here you go.
4 days a week of nothing but lifting weights (my dream come true). Rest days can be "active" but no wods (with the exception of tough pumpkin of course.... and to my teammates I apologize for any lacking cardio skills in the competition).
That is it. Lots of reps and squats. The percentages are based on "supercompensation" meaning beat yourself up one week, give yourself some rest, then beat your self up at a higher percentage, then get more rest, then keep repeating this process until you peak at the meet week.
For Nutrition I am looking to cut back a few lbs, so I will be switching to paleo + whole milk as a post workout supplement. It has worked wonders for me in the past. I feel strong and light. A good combination in weightlifting.
I hope this answers some questions you guys might have in the weightlifting program process. Hope to see you guys at the meet in November. and hopefully I will see you guys on the podium.
Have your lifts stalled? Do you have a weak link in your chain somewhere? Well here is a short and sweet talk about some accessory lifts for you to improve performance.
Romanian Dead Lift:
This one will light up the hamstrings. And lets be honest with the high bar back squat, front squat, snatch, and clean and jerk being the quad dominating lifts they are, your hamstrings might have been left behind somewhere. Time for you to catch up. Just once a week do 3x5 of these as heavy as possible (preferably around 100% of your max clean weight).
Really squeeze the Lats back while doing this lift to keep the weight close. If done correctly the next day you hamstrings and lats should be pretty angry with you. That means you are doing it right. Again 1 time a week at your 1rm clean weight for 3x5.
Front Squats:
Front squats are an awesome way to develop the mid to upper back and core. Make sure to do these without a belt for maximum accessory muscle development. Make sure to keep the reps low in front squat work. Never more than 5 reps at a time. Fatigue breaks down form very quickly. My favorite is 2 or 3 rep sets for 3-5 sets. (3x3 or 5x2). Keep the weight in the 85-90% range.
Pendlay Rows:
What better person to teach you the Pendlay Row than Glen Pendlay. Just skip ahead to about 2:20 and he finally makes the lifter do the stupid lift. The first 2:20 he is talking about the name and other nonsense that doesn't really matter when lifting stuff off the ground.
Anyways, onto programming these. keep it to 3-5 sets of 5 reps. Keep it as heavy as possible (here on out referred to as AHAP). Awesome full back exercise. Make sure not to cheat it and increase the back angle.
You should stay parallel to the ground through whole exercise.
The GHD (glute ham developer):
If this machine doesn't create that little sick feeling in the bottom of your stomach when thinking about it then you have
a: never used it or
b: never used it correctly
And in case you don't know it is those two machines in the corner of the gym that most people stay away from because us "functional exercisers" are too good for a stupid exercise machine. (In truth you probably just don't know how to use it and are scared of embarrassing yourself).
There are three awesome exercises for developing your "core".
1. Sit ups. Go through a full range of motion. Go slow. Do not cheat kip this machine.
2. back extensions: think of this as the opposite of a sit up. You are intentionally bring the back down into full flexion, then raising it into full extension. again no cheating kipping or swinging. Any time you are intentionally flexing/extending the spinal erectors you don't want to overload them. Here is Matt Chan doing an awesome demo
So just do what he does.
3. Finally hip extensions: With these you are keeping the spine stable (not flexing like with the back extension) and bending at the waist. Then you are extending at the hips to bring the back angle above parallel. Here you go, the video explains it better than me. The first half of the video is sit ups, the second half is hip extensions.
With all three exercises on the GHD keep it around 3 sets of 10 reps. (3x10). Do it after your main work for the day.
Okay Jason, all of these exercises are awesome, but when do I do them? How do I program them into my already awesome routine?
Well I am glad you asked. There are two ways you can do accessory lifts. You can do one or two after your main workout, or you can dedicate 1 day/week to doing only accessory lifts.
Option 1:
Day 1: snatch, Jerk from blocks, Squats, RDL, pendlay row
Day 2: Clean, push press, Squats. GHD work
Day 3: snatch, Clean and Jerk, Front squat.
Option 2:
Day 1: Snatch, Clean and jerk, Squats
Day 2: Snatch Clean and Jerk, Squats
Day 3: RDL, GHD, Front Squats, Pendlay Row.
Either way is about the same amount of volume. If you consistently go heavy on your accessory work I guarantee gains in the next few weeks. Never stop training the technique but never forget to go heavy too.
I will leave you with some runner up exercises that are also awesome for lifting or just being awesome in general.:
Weighted Strict pull ups.
Snatch and Clean 1st pulls
snatch and clean from blocks (above and below the knee)
weighted box jumps (this isn't your rapid fire crossfit box jump either, step down damnit). Alright, you have been on the internet long enough today. Go outside and lift something over your head.
(please note that I just posted a very similar subject on the facebook page from fitbird.com. This is a good supplement to their post).
Through my short time in the fitness community I have both seen and been told that for 1 rm maxes you have to "grind it out". That for heavy singles it is okay to let the form break because it is so heavy that you have to lift it mentally. I have even posted some 1 rep maxes that people in various online communities (I am looking at you reddit) said "you have a lot more in you. your form didn't even break down". At first I look at my videos and think to myself "yeah I should have gone for more, I made those look easy". But then after some actual thought I realized that I can lift the weight BECAUSE I have good form. Every squat that I perform from an empty bar, to my max weight should look identical. I might be faster lifting 45# vs 440# but the technique should look identical.
Why is this? Somewhere down the line, weightlifting (or lifting weights in general) got a macho reputation. I can see why. It is a pretty badass thing to take the heaviest barbell you can and pick it up off the ground or squat it or put it over your head. If you get on youtube and look at professional lifters squatting or benching you will see a lot of "grinding it out". Basically the barbell slows down to a crawl and the lifter must keep the barbell headed in the right direction. It seems to take forever but eventually they get through the sticking point and successfully complete the rep. It is inspiring to watch and makes you wanna go throw weights around. But what most people aren't paying attention to is that their form never gets out of whack. Ever. When squatting or benching 3x your body weight, if form slips at all it is a failed lift or an injury. There is no "ugly grind". It doesn't happen. But most amateur weightlifters don't see this. They only see " the grind". They think that for all maximal weights it is okay to break form a bit and grind it out.
I am not sure when this became the cultural norm when lifting anything heavy but get online and look at and strong individual lifting heavy weights. Their form doesn't change just because the weight gets heavy. It just doesn't happen. Lets look at some videos.
I would like you to point out the time where Misha's form breaks down after 3 reps at 880lbs. Oh you can't do it because it didn't happen? Not even on the 3rd rep where he had to "grind"? Weird. That must be a fluke.
Here is another one where he slows down significantly in the last couple reps. Yes his chest starts to slightly point down a little bit by the last rep, but this is 528lbs on his back. Do you think he could do this by letting his chest drop and knees cave and lower back rounded just because it was heavy? I think not.
So back to my original and final point. These guys can lift heavy weight because their form is perfect. Not because of some magical intangible mental toughness. They lift heavy because they lift perfect with every single rep from the empty bar to the 1 rep max.
If you still don't believe me, here is a video with a bunch people having to "grind it out" with significantly less weights. You don't look nearly as cool as you thought you did when grinding out heavy weight with shitty form. (especially with yakkity sacks playing in the background).
Hello fellow lifters. Hope it has been a good month for you. Couple of things to talk about. 1st is a program review. This is a new section that I will be doing. Every time I complete a program that is related to weightlifting, I will update how it was over all, how hard it was to complete, how successful was it, etc.
Next we will be talking about mobility and you (or really more about how you suck at it and what you should do about it).
Finally we will be finishing up with a decent program that you should be doing in preparation for your next competition (ahem..., Colorado Open sept 14th, and the Masters in October).
So on to the good stuff.
"I must Break You" or Smolov Jr. for Squats program Review):
The Russians are known for being generally hard people. Their weightlifters are no exception. There is a program called Smolov and Smolov Jr. that is known for increasing base strength (squat bench deadlift). It works by doing what is officially known as a "shit ton" of whatever movement you are trying to improve. I will break it down for you:
Week 1:
Day 1: 6x6 @ 70%, Day 2: 7x5 @ 75%, Day 3: 8x4 @ 80%, day 4: 10x3@ 85%
Week 2: same as week 1 but increase weight 5 to 10 lbs each day.
Week 3: add 5-10 more lbs from week 2.
Week 4: rest
Note, this is Smolov Jr. I wouldn't want to try the big boy version.
So for those of you who like math, lets plug my numbers into the formula above and each week I squatted over 130 reps over 300#. That means each week I squatted over 50,000 lbs. That is a lot of squats.
So did it work?
Yes. My 1rm went form 425 to 440. Anytime you can add 15lbs to a 1rm in 4 weeks you are doing something right. The downside however is squatting under heavy load 130 times per week breaks you down in a big way. I have never had such anxiety about squat day before. When I realized the cycle was over I felt like a stress had been lifted from my life. It was a hard program. It will be a long time before I attempt something like this again. My Olympic lifting still has not recovered from the cycle. I will be taking another week off this week to attempt to let my body recuperate a little more. Hopefully the stronger "base" will translate into bigger snatch and clean and jerks.
Would I recommend this program? It all depends on who you are. I would say it is definitely for an advanced lifter. It is a lot of volume and you definitely want the ligaments and tendons well conditioned for high volumes of squats. It is also a little too specialized for my liking. For a power lifter trying to peak for a meet, it is a perfect program to boost the numbers. For the average competitive exerciser? I would say it takes up too many of your precious calories and time. If you have questions about it or want to know more about squat (or any) cycles let me know and I am happy to talk.
You suck at squats Part Deaux:
Okay. I have touched on this subject before, but it is always good to have a reminder. You suck at mobility. Unless you look like Ilya when squatting, you need to spend some time on mobilitywod.com.
Hint: you don't.
Becoming more flexible is a little painful, but it takes up almost no time during your day, it can be done on rest days, and it requires almost no equipment. I am going to post a video about a guy who has decided to make mobility a priority. He has a 14 part series on youtube called "Broken Leopard". He goes through everything he is doing to become more supple. You should too. Mobility isn't something that is going to be fixed over night. Or even in a week. For some maybe even a year, but please make this a priority. Your longevity in picking things up and putting them down ( and life in general) will depend on it.
I will say this about mobility. It is painful. If it feels good, then you are doing it wrong. If it only kind of hurts, then you are probably doing it wrong. You are forcing your body to bend and stretch in ways that it has been trying to not do for the last 20+ years. You have a lot of work cut out for you. Go to a yoga workout (they are called YWOD on the mind body site for you CFJ'ers). You will learn exactly how inflexible you really are. Protect your back and your knees and learn how to move your body properly. I am not asking, I am telling. If you ignore mobility and hurt yourself, it is not crossfits fault, it is not weightlifting's fault, it is not your coaches or the program's fault. It is your fault.
This is how you should be reading my blog.
Finally for the competitor in you:
Some of us are trying to be the best at exercise:
But not Kenny Powers
I have been to a few CrossFit Exercise competitions and the one thing that I have noticed is that the strong people win. Every single time. I am not saying that strength is the only thing you need, but it is the most important. Here is how your program should break down:
Strength > Cardio > skills > med ball cleans
Strength is the basis for everything. So with that in mind I am gonna lay out a strength biased program for the nest few months to keep in mind any upcoming competitions you might have. This takes into account that you need a good engine (cardio) in these competitions too, so it doesn't ignore that.
Key:
AxB = A sets of B
WOD = Wod posted daily at your gym
RDL= Romanian Deadlift
AHAP = As heavy as possible
Month 1:
Day 1: Squats 3x8 ahap / WOD
Day 2: WOD
Day 3: Rest
Day 4: Squats 3x8 ahap / WOD
Day 5: WOD
Day 6 : Rest or Front Squats 3x3 and RDL 3x5 AHAP
Day 7: rest
Repeat this cycle the whole month
Month 2:
Day 1: Squats 3x5 ahap (heavier than 3x8s) / WOD
Day 2: WOD
Day 3: rest
Day 4: Squat 3x5 ahap/ WOD
Day 5: Wod
Day 6: rest or Dead lift (regular) 3x3 and Front Squat 3x3 ahap
Day 7 rest
Repeat for whole month
Same pattern ffor month 3 (if there is one),just replace 3x5 with 3x3.
Two weeks before competition taper off squatting to about 65% of what you were doing the 3x3 sets at.
1 week out don't do any heavy squatting.
That is about it. That will increase your general strength faster than you would realize. Make sure to really increase the protein calories (this is not the time to try and lose weight). Also mobility before and after the workouts is extremely important. Adding a lot of volume to your program puts you at increased risk of injury. If you are feeling crappy, sore joints, high resting heart rate, etc, take a few days off. No sense in getting an over training injury and not being able to compete.
Next time I will talk about what to do come game day. Want a little sneak preview? (spoiler alert)
