Over the past several episodes of the Crossfit Journal, there's been video of Coach Burgener teaching Pat the Snatch. I also had the opportunity to go up to Portland and visit crosfithel to spend a few hours trying to improve my Olympic lifts.
I learned really quickly that theres a better way to lift then the way that I've (and probably you) been doing it your entire life. It takes a bit more patience, but it pays off.
The way we've always done it is to get under the bar, throw some plates on and LIFT! If you're forms not quite right, take a plate or two off, or maybe put some more on there. A few years later you're saying, "Wow, my form isn't improving."
The problem is your body and brain need to learn what to keep tight, what to move at what point, how to get full range and use the full scope of your muscles. The bar on you is holding back your chances of your getting the lift right.
The solution. Work with no weight. Squat with bodyweight until you get it right. Clean, Press, Deadlift the pvc pipe until your body learns the movement. Here we can see and feel our weaknesses, AND we can improve them. Our body can learn how to do the movement correctly.
Then we put some weight on and/or ramp up the intensity, and pretty soon the heavy bar and intensity shows our weaknesses. Take it back down to the pvc pipe and fix those weaknesses and then ramp it back up.
Here's a quick video of me failing on the squat and the shoulder press.
They both show my weaknesses in the lifts. Can you see them?
And now that I see them, I'm going to be focusing on these with the pvc pipe and certain exercises in my warmups so that next time I'll hit that weight with perfect form!
I learned really quickly that theres a better way to lift then the way that I've (and probably you) been doing it your entire life. It takes a bit more patience, but it pays off.
The way we've always done it is to get under the bar, throw some plates on and LIFT! If you're forms not quite right, take a plate or two off, or maybe put some more on there. A few years later you're saying, "Wow, my form isn't improving."
The problem is your body and brain need to learn what to keep tight, what to move at what point, how to get full range and use the full scope of your muscles. The bar on you is holding back your chances of your getting the lift right.
The solution. Work with no weight. Squat with bodyweight until you get it right. Clean, Press, Deadlift the pvc pipe until your body learns the movement. Here we can see and feel our weaknesses, AND we can improve them. Our body can learn how to do the movement correctly.
Then we put some weight on and/or ramp up the intensity, and pretty soon the heavy bar and intensity shows our weaknesses. Take it back down to the pvc pipe and fix those weaknesses and then ramp it back up.
Here's a quick video of me failing on the squat and the shoulder press.
They both show my weaknesses in the lifts. Can you see them?
And now that I see them, I'm going to be focusing on these with the pvc pipe and certain exercises in my warmups so that next time I'll hit that weight with perfect form!
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