im sorry, ok?!

I know.. I know.. 

I haven't updated my blog in what seems like an eternity (according to my friend Mike Gray).  He practically chewed my head off and then proceeded to force Round Table Pizza and Ben and Jerry's (cinnabun AND mint and chip) down my throat.  MESSED UP.  

Anywayssssss.. I've basically been running around like B Spears with her hair shaved off trying to persuade a million and four people that they should listen to me when I coach them in the oly lifts.  It's working out pretty well for me...until I make people drop and give me burpees.  That's when things really start to get interesting..

I just got back from a roadtrip to BFE (aka Fresno..aka a town built specifically off of U-turns..aka if my driving instincts weren't equivalent to that of a GPS, we would probably be in Tijuana ) where I taught the olympic lifting certification. We went to Crossfit FTF which was a frackin awesome box.  Check that shiza out if you're wanting to take a trip to Cali (I mean.. who wouldn't!?!?! minus the fact that there is SUV size rain drops falling from the sky right now) The group we taught was really talented and showed a lot of progress throughout the weekend.. but the whole point of this post is to talk about some of the common errors I am seeing at certifications.  

#1 Banging the bar off the thighs.  

If you were ever involved with a high school sport, you were most likely taught to make contact with that bar at the hip region by thrusting those hips horizontally.  NEGATIVE GHOSTRIDER!! The bar DOES want to stay in contact with your thighs as you pull the bar off the ground, but there should never be a banging/horizontal hip thrust as you go to jump that bar over your head.  The only contact there should be is a slight brush STRAIGHT up off the hips.  The hips moving vertically=the bar moving vertically. The hips moving horizontal/banging the bar=the bar shooting forward=ugly snatch.  See? simple physics..

#2 The bar pausing at the mid thigh region

Because these lifts are so technical, we teach them broken down into segments.  So, naturally, as you go to do an actual snatch or clean and jerk, you're going to be thinking about hitting each position that we teach. (below knee, mid-thigh, pockets, jump and shrug, elbows high and outside, aggressive turn over, stay tight.. aka CRAP LOAD of information) HOWEVAAHHH.. I need these movements to be fluid off the ground.  You want to make sure that you PASS through each position and never STOP.  If you stop, you're just taking away all the momentum that you've generated during previous positions.  So, if you pause at mid thigh, you're going to have to try to regenerate all the momentum that you've built up on that bar from floor-below the knee.  Only now, you are higher up on your thighs, so you don't have as much time and therefore wont be able to put as much speed on the bar.  Make sense? If it doesn't, keep re-reading it. 

So that's all the information I'm going to put out today.  Don't wanna turn this entry into a flippin Harry Potter novel.  Stay tuned...

keep it sassy