Strive to be fergilicious

In case you missed it via facebook, twitter or 5 oclock news

2011-09-24T21:50:00.000-07:00

10 things to do to improve your clean and jerk.. from start to finish

#1: Discontinue your day job at the strip club…you’re better than that. (Shoulders, hips, and bar move up together off the ground).

#2: God gave you lats to activate. Do NOT disappoint him (Set your lats before the bar leaves the ground,or you WILL pull with your arms)

#3: The bar’s main goal in life is to pull you forward and down. CRUSH that bar’s dreams (Shift to your heels IMMEDIATELY off the floor)

#4: On a hot day, milk is a bad choice, but using your legs is ALWAYS a good choice even on non climatically- perfect days. (Jump HARD)

#5: A wise woman once said, “My hips don’t lie”(Your hips must move UP and DOWN in a matter of milliseconds. Slow hips=slow bar)

#6: You’re not on the dance floor. “Dropping it like it’s hot” is not recommended. (Do not dive or drop. PULL yourself under the bar)

#7: 99% of the population has suffered from the deadly disease MonoSyphiSlowElbow. Will you be one the them?(Fast elbows=brownie points)

#8: Favorite alliteration: Petunia Practiced Perfect Posture… On Her Jerk…wait… (The jerk dip: chest up, toes out, weight on heels)

#9: Chewing gum instead of brushing your teeth counts for nothing, but jumping up and punching down on the jerk, counts for a lot.

#10: Weight on your hips doesn’t always mean you have love handles (Receive your jerk with ALL the weight centered on your hips)

I've been stranded

2011-09-06T20:52:00.000-07:00

I've been stranded in the middle of the desert with no food, water, or internet.

Of course that's not true, but because I haven't updated my blog in forever, that's the story I'm going with.

Let's talk turnovers (unfortunately, I am not talking about apple turnovers because that would make this post WAY more appealing)...
I've been in this weird mood the past couple weeks. It's the kind of mood where I just don't really feel like turning the bar over aggressively in the snatch. I tried blaming it on my experimentation with just letting things happen and not trying to control people, places, or things in my life, but that worked for about .5 seconds until I missed my snatch at 60 kilos and then missed it again.. and then missed it 6 more times after that.

And all my misses have been in the exact same place... at the bottom of my snatch, and in front of me.
Of course I'm not going to ever be satisfied snatching anything less than my brother Casey (best snatch was 400lbs), so I know I need to get a move on this minor set back. Aka.. I need to fix my turnover.. NOW (I'd be happy if I fix it within the next 3 months) before I get all old and wrinkly and too jacked up to even lift my ice cream scooper.

So, what am I going to do?

I am going to work my muscle snatches and snatch balance.

Muscle Snatch:
Muscle snatching is going to help me strengthen my external rotation. It takes my legs out of the equation and forces me actually use my shoulder muscles to get that barbell back behind my ears. By the time I get to add my legs into the equation, the bar will be FLYING through that turn over!

The other GREAT thing about muscle snatching is that it forces me to pay attention to the path of the barbell. I can't muscle snatch anything unless that barbell is moving straight up my body and staying as close to me as possible. Because I can't move the bar as fast with my arms as I can with my legs, slowing down the movement really reinforces how it feels when the bar moves right... which is great for when you start moving fast again.

Snatch Balance:
Yes, I admit, I'll be doing more snatch balances because I love them with all my heart, but it's also because when I have an unaggressive turnover, the bar never gets back in the "slot" (right behind the ears where our whole body is supporting the weight rather than our arms and shoulders). When we snatch balance, the bar is behind our neck at the start, so it only has one way to go... and that is STRAIGHT UP into our slot (of course, that's only if we actually do it correctly). Not having the pressure of having to get around my face and back behind my ears really helps me to feel the proper bar position overhead. That way, when I snatch, I'll have a reference point as to where the bar is supposed to end.

Make sense?

So, If you're like me, and you miss every single important lift of your life out in front because you have commitment issues and won't get the barbell back behind your ears, do muscle snatches and snatch balance.

If you're the person that misses the barbell behind you a lot, stay tuned... Definitely within the next seven years when I decide I want to write another blog post, I will teach you guys some exercises that can fix that!

BORRRINGGGGG

2011-08-29T14:27:00.000-07:00

I've decided to limit my blog posts. Updating every day get's boring and monotonous! So, I think I'll fill you in on what's going on with my "iron pumping sessions" in the next couple days.

Until then, I'll leave you with this...

Quote of the day-
"After twelve years of therapy my psychiatrist said something that brought tears to my eyes. He said, "No hablo ingles." - anonymous

Photo of the day-

"When it comes to family, trust no one"

over and out

Burgeners and our smelly farts (applies to boys only)

2011-08-25T19:59:00.000-07:00

Confessions:

#1: I have been POUNDING the whipped coconut milk. The reason I'm confessing is because it's high in fat and calories and won't make me skinny, but I don't care.

#2: I took an unscheduled rest day yesterday (someone chopped my legs up with a meat tenderizer)

#3. Next week I will be visiting my best friend and she will make gluten free creme brulee and I will eat it. I will eat the S*&t out of that creme brulee

Anyways, now that I have that off my chest, let's get to the good stuff.

Workout:

3 Position Cleans: 65%x3x5

Clean Pull: 90%x3x2

Clean deadlift: 100%x3x2

Rack Jerk: Work up to a heavy single

Row Sprints: 30 sec. on 30 sec rest for 6 sets.

Things I focused on:

Today was definitely not a favorite because every time I see a clean I want to punch it in the face. I've always been an early arm-bender and a weak squatter and those two things together make for an atrocious clean.
So, today, on my 3 position cleans, I focused on keeping it light and re-training my old habits.
To fix my early arm bend, I over exaggerated keeping my lats locked in tight. That inhibited the bar from pulling me forward and allowed me to keep the weight back on my heels without having to pull it back with my arms.
Also,I power cleaned, so I didn't have to work on coming out of the squat, but I did have to focus on NOT throwing my feet out too wide JUST because I was power cleaning. MEANING, I have to remind myself that I have all the way until a 90 degree squat for a lift to still be considered "power". So, instead of throwing my feet out wide to get depth as I pull myself under the bar, I focused on meeting it in a lower position, because thats where it travels to anyway when it gets heavier! However, despite my good intentions, I did look like this a couple of times:

On the clean pull and clean deadlift, I focused on the same thing I focused on with the snatch pull and snatch deadlift on Monday: shifting my weight to my heels immediately off the floor. How SUCKY is it when the bar leaves the ground and it feels SO HEAVY that you're sure someone waterlogged the weights?! When you have that sensation, it is typically because the weight pulled you to your toes off the ground. STAY BACK!!

On the rack jerk I didn't focus on much because I AM REALLY FREAKING GOOD AT JERKS. Allow me to toot my own horn here for a second. Being a Burgener typically means that you will come out of the womb being able to jerk AT LEAST 100kg. We have weak legs, pug noses, and smelly farts (just the boys, of course), but man can we jerk. And I love to remind myself of this because I'm trying to be nice to myself, remember? Sometimes I get so caught up in feeling like I'm not cut out to be a weightlifter. The ideal weightlifter has short legs and a long torso. I have long legs and a short torso. The ideal weightlifter has a mind of steel. I sometimes get afraid of weights. So, when some type of exercise comes up that I am semi decent at, I have to JUMP ALL OVER IT because it may be the last time, in a couple days, that I'll do something that reminds me that I'm not wasting my time.

Side Note: Yes, I am all about cherry picking exercises you're good at JUST to raise your confidence level for the day.

Speaking of smelly farts.. here is your awkward family photo, photo of the day:

Day 278.. oh wait, never mind, it's only day 2

2011-08-23T13:50:00.000-07:00

Well, the good news is that I squatted today and although the odds were not in my favor, I didn't die (it has nothing to do with the fact that I stayed EXTREMELY light). Life is good.

Workout:
Box Squats: 5x2, back off sets: 2x3
Front Squats: 2x5 @ 4 second descent and 2 sec hold in the bottom
Good Mornings: 3x5
Wall climbs+Handstand Walks: 5 sets
Muscle ups: 12 total (done in pairs)

Allow me to elaborate:
Box Squats: These were supposed to be regular back squats, but I cannot squat below parallel with any type of heavy load. I've never really done box squats before, so I had someone show me how to perform them properly. MUCH different than an oly squat! We'll see if they transfer over to the clean at all.

Front Squats: I literally stuck with 35-40 kg for these. I stayed very light and controlled because I didn't want to aggravate my hip too much. Despite almost passing out from holding my breath for so long, I love having to force myself to slow a movement down and keep my form PERFECT.

Wall climbs: I use these for shoulder strengthening and stability. Start in a push up position with your feet on the wall. Walk your feet up the wall and your hands towards the wall until your belly is touching. When up there, walk on your hands laterally for a couple of steps and then walk your hands back out into a push up position. Repeat in the opposite direction. I LOOOOVE these for strengthening the jerk. The more hand stand work I do, the stronger I feel when supporting the weight overhead.

Muscle ups: I only did these so that I could still say that I can do a muscle up.

Things I focused on:

Since it was more of a strength day, I didn't focus on much other than making sure I eased my way back into things. I wanted to do 70 sets of box squats because I want my leg strength to be back where it was. Tomorrow. However, I knew that if I pushed it too much today, I most likely would be too sore to have a productive workout tomorrow. I want to progressively improve... Not take 17 steps forward, and 27 steps back (I'm really into random numbers right now).

I also focused on keeping everything tight through my mid-line. For me, I have a tendency to relax my core as I go through simple movements. Like good mornings, for example. I know that when I get lazy on a good morning, I really arch my back and completely disconnect from my abs as I'm sending my butt back. That does me no good! So, today I tried my best to avoid that. I made sure to ask my friends to randomly punch me in the stomach when I wasn't expecting it, just to make sure I was staying focused.... kidding, people... I didn't ask. My friends just do that on their own.

The last thing I focused on was not crying (tears of joy) when Michele told me my butt looked bigger. Miracles really do happen.

When my butt gets this big, I know that I'll REALLY be competitive in oly lifting:

Day 1 in the bank, yo!

2011-08-22T13:47:00.000-07:00

Yes, this is me not finishing my pull..
Day one is complete, and despite my previous concern, I did NOT forget how to snatch.

Workout:

3 Position Snatches 65%x3x5
Snatch Pulls: 90%x3x2
Snatch Deadlifts: 100%x3x2
Snatch Push Press: 3x5 with medium-heavy weight
Prowler push: 6 sets with 60 seconds rest in between each set.

Workout De-coder:

3 Position Snatches: 1 snatch from the ground, 1 snatch from mid thigh, 1 snatch from high hang.
65%x3x5: Anytime you see three numbers together, it reads: 65 % for 3 reps for 5 sets.
3x5: Anytime you only see two numbers together, it reads: 3 sets of 5 reps.
Prowler push: Take that heavy thing over there.. yes, that.. and push it. Fast.

I kept things fairly light today because I do not know what my best numbers are at this point in my life and because it's my first day back into the olympic lifting world. I could base my percentages off of my all time best snatch ever (77 kg), but I know that would be silly since I probably couldn't even back squat that weight right now. Nevertheless, I'm really going to work on being nice to myself and realizing that I'm not as strong as I used to be. I'll get there, I'm sure, but it's going to take time. Getting discouraged because I'm not lifting what I used to never got me any closer to snatching 80 kg.

Things I worked on:
1. With the 3 position snatches, I really worked on feeling each position. I wouldn't just go to mid thigh really quick and then snatch, I would go to mid thigh, make a mental note of how it felt, and then I would snatch it. Same thing with the snatch from the floor and snatch from high hang.

2. I also focused on keeping the barbell close to my body. When I have more than one rep to do, I have a tendency to get lazy and forget my technique. Whenever that happens, the FIRST thing that goes is keeping my elbows high and outside (aka keeping it close). When doing a weight for multiple reps, keeping the bar close is SO important because no matter how little weight you have on the barbell, come rep #3, the weight starts to feel heavy. The heavier that mofo feels, the closer you have to keep it, or that bar aint movin up!

3. On the snatch pulls and snatch deadlifts, I kept my mind on my heels. The pull off the ground is always hard for me because I have weak legs, so shifting to my heels RIGHT when I leave the ground is a MUST. If I don't over exaggerate that shift, the bar pulls me forward and I'm left chasing it for the rest of the movement... and I HATE chasing things!

4. The last thing I focused on with the snatch push press was holding the barbell up over my head for a couple of seconds. I wanted to make sure that I was completely stable and I wanted to give my body a chance to feel heavy weight over my head again. If I just snatch push press it up there and immediately bring it back down, I feel like I never give my muscles a chance to strengthen and become familiar with the position.

5. Oh, and for the prowler push, I just focused on not throwing up.

Quote of the day:
"It is important to look at yourself and identify your gremlins. In sports, as in life, the first step to success is getting out of your own way". ~ Mind Gym Book

Day 0.

2011-08-21T21:40:00.001-07:00

LADY GAGA

Tomorrow I begin my "get strong enough to where I can snatch over my body weight again and get jacked enough to where people no longer secretly wonder how the barbell hasn't snapped my legs in two" regime!

I will start on a program that my dad has conjured up for me, but will be substituting some exercises in and out depending on my hip, my recovery, and my decision as to whether or not there is a different, more fun, exercise I can do that I'm better at...

I'll share all my numbers with you fellow bloggers, as long as you're not that person who thrives off of always lifting one more kilogram than me. Cause let's face it, I'm a sore loser. I'll also be sharing what exercises I think will be good for ya'll to do as you look to improve your oly lifts.

My nutritional goals are all over the place, but basically I am deciding to:
1. Stick to lean meats only. No sausage, limited red meat, and bacon 1-2 times a week. I want to really try and have fish a couple times a week as well.
2. Cut out any added fats. Cooking oils and fat from meat will be the extent of my fat source. That means, no handful of nuts after a meal. However, I'm allowing myself to have 1 tbs of heavy whipping cream in my coffee each morning because I don't want to lose any friends or get arrested.
3. Eat as many vegetables as my sanity allows. My goal will be to fill the majority of my plate with all sorts of delicious veggies!
4. Drink 3-4 bottles of water a day in my sassy purple water bottle.
5. Not convince myself that anything gluten free is healthy and I should eat lots of it even if it's pizza and corn bread.

My physical goals are to:
Not look TOO skinny in my wedding dress
Put some lean muscle mass on my legs
Get at least 8-9 hours of sleep a night
Be as fashionable as Lady Gaga

My general goals are to:
Someday try out to be Eminem's partner rapper

3,2,1, Go.

Everything you didn't want to know

2011-08-20T19:43:00.000-07:00

Let us start off today's blog post with a background story and a little self pity party... because I like to throw those every once in a while (and by 'every once in a while', I mean at LEAST once a week).

Once upon a time, almost three years ago, I hurt my hip up at Northern Michigan University (I have yet to get an MRI to see exactly what is wrong with it, but I'm pretty sure I tore my labrum), where I was going to school and lifting full time. It was after high school that I moved up there, thousands of miles away from home, to pursue my dream of becoming the best lifter I could be.

Up in the Upper Peninsula (yes I was a Yooper), I made some new bffs, gained a ton of weight eating Lucky Charms as a post workout meal (I'm not even kidding), and hit numbers I had never hit before. My coach and the lifting program were AMAZING. I got really strong really fast. However, I failed to take care of my body. There is only so much squatting for 10 reps for max weight and NEVER stretching (don't tell Kelly Starrett) that a little scrawny (or not so scrawny at the time) girl can handle before her body gets pissed and goes on strike.

When I got injured, it really took my world for a spin. I had just gone 6 for 6 (hitting 75 kg in the snatch and 90 kg in the clean and jerk) at a local competition and I was ready to compete at the American Open the upcoming month. However, the training leading up to that magical competition had not been pretty. My hip was so jacked up that I started to have IT Band issues and knee issues. How I hit those lifts that day without my hip breaking into 17 pieces is beyond me.

I knew it would only continue to get worse if I pursued Americans, so I had to decide.. do I want to take time off and get surgery? or do I want to call it quits for now and move back to California? I called it quits, moved back to California and began my CrossFit career coaching Oly Certifications with my dad and coaching at CrossFit Invictus.

The past three years I have been much more serious about CrossFit than olympic weightlifting. The change of pace has been good for me and through the combination of CrossFit and paleo, I have been able to lose all the Lucky Charms weight (which was about 20 lbs)! Yay!

Anyways, now that you have wasted about 3 hours of your precious time reading all of that useless information, I shall reveal why I'm even writing this blog post:
I have decided to lift in the USAW/CrossFit competition in Colorado Springs the weekend of Oct 21-23rd, and I want all of you to come with me! Not literally, of course, (unless you want to... in which case, I'm ALL for it!) but I want to post my workouts, emotions, part of my food log, progress, etc. on this blog in hopes that you will keep me motivated and honest. Also, I'm hoping that through my training you can learn some tips for your own training (since that is why I started this blog in the first place).

Things to know before you commit:
1. I haven't worked out in a week
2. I think I forgot how to snatch and clean and jerk
3. I only have two months to transform myself into something other than a woman who's legs are so skinny, you literally think I'm a levitating torso with a head attached to it.

I'm ready to get this party started! Who's with me?!

Here is a picture of me in my Lucky Charm Phase (don't judge):

Hang with me fellow Bloggers!

2011-08-12T11:28:00.001-07:00

As some of you know, I recently got engaged and my fiance is leaving for Italy on Monday! He'll be gone for four months before returning in December for our wedding. To those of you who have asked, yes, I will be wearing mismatch socks on my wedding day.

Due to the hectic wedding planning and traveling, this blog has definitely been put on the back burner. I am completely guilty of spending my days talking myself out of psychopathic bridezilla meltdowns, instead of focusing on teaching the world how to avoid hitting themselves in the face on a snatch.

Give me another week to gather my marbles that I have clearly lost. I'll come back with THE blog post of a lifetime! Write in the comments section about what you want to learn with the olympic lifts.

So far I have had people ask:

"How do I get faster"?
"How can I fix the fact that I don't move my feet when I snatch and clean"?
"How do I improve my wrist flexibility for the rack position on the jerk"?

Until then, let me leave you with this:
When you are at the top of your jumping/extending/finishing position, do not let the barbell pull your body forward into a completely vertical line. Make sure your shoulders are behind the bar at the top. Not only will this eliminate any chances of you needing plastic surgery on your face, it will also allow the barbell to travel straight UP and BACK behind your ears for a smooth and snappy turnover.

Be here:

Not here:

Part of my Crossfit Journey

2011-07-06T10:05:00.000-07:00

Crossfit is a funny thing. It makes me feel like I’d rather jump into shark infested waters then finish this workout. And then in a matter of seconds, I’m contemplating punching those sharks in the face cause I’m off to conquer the world. The life lessons I’ve learned in the middle of a snatch far surpass any I’ve learned outside the gym. People say it takes someone’s whole life to figure out what kind of person they really are. I say, introduce them to Fran…. come pull up #15, they’ll know what they’re made of.

I think its safe to say that I’ve been a member of every single Crossfit club out there.
I’ve been a member of :
The Firebreathers Club
The I’m Just Doing This So I Can Eat Ice Cream And Not Get Fat Club
The I Define Myself As A Person By My Crossfit Numbers Club
And the I’m Tired Of Being A Little Sissy Girl, So I Crossfit Club

Recently, I’ve been the president of the I Define Myself By My Crossfit Numbers Club and I’ve been feeling pretty guilty about it. That is the reason I’m writing this ridiculous blog post. I want to know the password to, and be a member of, ANY Crossfit club I want... all without ever being disappointed in myself. And I’d love if all of you could do the same.

Let me break it down for you…

I’ve recently started attending Al -anon meetings. Al -anon is a program for families of alcoholics who come and share and learn how to look within themselves to solve all of life’s problems. I could go into all the ways it has exposed how jacked up I am, but then you’d know I’m not perfect… and I just can’t have that. Instead, I want to share with you what I’ve learned from Al-anon that has transferred directly over into my Crossfit world (because it really is a whole nother world).

There are three slogans from Al- anon that I say to myself pre, mid, and post wod.

#1. Keep it simple

I don’t know about you, but I will lose 8 kilograms before I ever even start my workout. I literally perspire… 8 kilograms of sweat…as I nervously break down and psychoanalyze every exercise in my head. However, my new and improved Al-anon self knows that I need not turn something small into the greatest feat of all time. Does that mean that I don’t take my workout seriously? No. It means that I keep things simple. I look at it as my workout… and nothing more. It is my workout that I am doing because I want to be healthy and happy all while looking good in Lululemon shorts. I do not look at it as a compilation of movements that individually tap into my self-conscious exposing all of my deepest darkest secrets and character flaws. Keep it simple.

#2. One day at a time

I want to be the best Olympic weightlifter and Crossfitter that ever walked the planet. I want to have a big butt and an 18 pack. And, in the midst of all that, I want to have a life. Can all of that happen in one day? If you say yes, contact me immediately. If you say no, perhaps you understand the concept of “one day at a time”.

I often get sick to my stomach when I realize how much work I have to do with my training. My legs need to be able to squat more than a toothpick with teddy bears tied to the ends, I need to be able string more pull ups together without it feeling like someone threw lava rocks at my forearms, and I need to lose the mindset that I would rather be stabbed in the eye with a hepatitis infected needle than run for more than 20 meters.

So, what can I do? I can focus on one day at a time. I can think about what it is that I need to do TODAY to make me better. I’m not going to worry about what I couldn’t do yesterday, and I’m not going to predict what I should be able to do tomorrow, because all of those thoughts will deter me from accomplishing what I can at this very moment. Lisbeth Darsh once said something that I will FOREVER remember.. “I will promise to do my best. My best will vary from day to day, from hour to hour, from minute to minute. But in that minute, I will do the very best I can”.

This means, that I can be apart of whatever Crossfit club I want, depending on what I’m feeling on that particular day. Whether it’s the I Have Period Cramps So I’m Going To Just Get Through This Workout Club, or the Get The Eff Out Of My Way Before I Snatch Your Face Off Club, it’s my choice… and I’m going to OWN that choice because I am working on focusing on one day at a time.

When you get caught up in the worry of what you didn’t do, what you couldn’t do and what you should be doing, remember to live your training life one day at a time.

#3. The serenity prayer

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference”

Reread that about 5 times and try to understand what it is REALLY trying to say. Religious or not, this prayer can do wonders for those of us with a wandering and doubtful mind. This prayer reminds me that I am in control of one thing and one thing only: myself. I am in control of my performance, yes, but more importantly, I am in control of my thinking.

Recently, my non Al-anon self has been gazing the room mid workout to see how far behind I am. I train with the top level Invictus athletes, so it’s safe to say that I’m usually behind by a good amount. This is where I practice saying the serenity prayer. I practice acceptance that I cannot control how fast my teammates are throwing around ridiculous amounts of weight. More importantly, I practice acceptance that I cannot control someone else’s interpretation of why I am performing slower than those around me. What I can control is MY speed on the workout and MY interpretation of my performance. If I take away the pressure of trying to do well for others, and solely focus on myself, I begin to realize that in that moment, I’m doing pretty dang well. (Oh, the wonders that can do for a workout’s level of enjoyment!)

So, next time you are beating yourself up mid workout because you are 3 thrusters behind someone else, try to figure out what it is that you can control in that moment. Is it someone else? Or is it you?

Right now, in this very moment, I am feeling good about the next time I walk into the gym because I’ve found the slogans what work for me. The slogans that allow me to workout and be fit, all without turning into a crazy person who pulls her eyelashes out because she couldn’t dead lift 300lbs.

I have my slogans.. do you have yours?

Think about your hands

2011-06-30T09:12:00.000-07:00

Before I get started, I have a few things I'd like to get off my chest:

#1- I have omitted bacon and heavy whipping cream from my diet for two weeks and I'm beginning to think I may actually die. If my blog suddenly shuts down, you know why.

#2- Starting next year, I am going to be offering seminars and certs in Europe. So if you're a European Crossfit gym owner that is Striving to be Fergilicious, I'm your girl.

#3- I got this super cool new purple water bottle that I love SO much that I'm actually drinking water throughout the day. I literally have to pee 18 times an hour, but my body feels amazing. If you don't drink enough water, buying a totally retro drinking device will solve most of your physical, and possibly mental, problems.

#4- I have a new cue that I learned that I would love to share with you all..

PULL YOUR HANDS TO THE TOP

What the french toast does that mean?

Often times, when we are snatching and cleaning, we focus so much on two things: The jump and the turnover. But what about everything in between?

After we jump, we know that we're supposed to pull our bodies down and around the barbell all while getting our elbows high and outside to keep it close (seriously, read that sentence about 5 times). AND we know that we are supposed to turn the bar over with an attitude that says "I ain't no little sissy girl". But, sometimes we're so focused on this position:

and this position:

that we forget what the bar is supposed to do as it passes by our face.

Now, if you're anything like me... your face is your money maker (TOTALLY KIDDING... my face is NOT my money maker... it's my intelligence and charm that bring home the bacon...that I can't eat right now...;( ) and you do NOT want a barbell smashing into and ruining the one thing that helps you make a living. SOOOO.. what we tend to do is swing our arms around our face and lock them out overhead. Don't do that.

Why?
If we swing the bar around our face? Where is the momentum going at the end of the lift? BACK! and that is only if we turn the bar over aggressively. If we swing the bar around our face and DONT have an aggressive turnover, then we lose the bar FORWARD. We want the momentum to be going STRAIGHT UP as it passes our face and on the turn it over so that the bar lands perfectly in our strong overhead position. So, if you are missing the bar in front of you or behind you, listen up!

Here is how we fix the problem:
Think about your hands!
As your sitting here reading this blog post, here is what I want you to do...
1.Put your arms in a scarecrow position so that your elbows are high and outside and your arms are at a 90 degree angle.

2.From there, pull your hands up higher until they reach your armpits, and allow your wrist to flex (fingers pointing down) so that your elbows are still higher than your wrist.

3.Now, keeping your wrist flexed, pull your hands higher and higher and higher (right along side your face and over your head) until your arms are locked out (fingers still facing down)

4.Last, flip your hands over fast and tight as if you were turning a heavy weight over.

(No, that exercise was not a joke to get you to do something extremely weird whilst sitting alone in front of a computer while I'm secretly recording you and updating the video on youtube.)

That is what I want you to do with a barbell!! Did you feel how you had to really activate all those muscles to get your hands to stay in close to your body and pulled all the way over your head? That extreme activation is why we forget to keep the bar close to our face when we are moving FAST with WEIGHT.

So, next time you are snatching, think about what your hands are doing:
They are pulling back off the ground, they are moving straight up the side of your body (all the way to your armpits) when you jump and pull yourself down, they are continuing straight up the sides of our face (as we continue to pull ourselves down) until we are JUST about locked out, and then they punch to the ceiling for an aggressive turnover!

ALWAYS BE ACTIVELY ENGAGING THE HANDS UNTIL THE LIFT IS COMPLETE AND YOU HAVE STOOD UP WITH THE WEIGHT!

Thank you for your time and patience and I look forward to writing again if this heavy whipping cream and bacon hiatus doesn't crush my soul.

Ps... The same exercise can be done with the clean. Pull the hands up your sides, to your armpits, to your shoulders and then pull your elbows around.. landing in a front squat rack position. Be careful not to turn the hands over too slow on the clean when you are getting your hands up and elbows around. I tend to see people pause with their hands at their shoulders AND THEN get the elbows around. DONt DO THAT. Make it one fluid motion.

Footwork

2011-06-20T09:56:00.000-07:00

I think I have a history of writing blabbery blog posts that leave people frantically clicking the exit button out of fear of becoming more and more confused about Olympic lifting. For this post, I pinky promise to make it short and sweet.

Lets talk footwork.

Everyone knows that getting under a barbell is scary stuff. We don’t trust our overhead squat and we don’t trust our front squat, so, we shy away from receiving heavy weight in those two positions…aka receiving a snatch or clean. That hesitation causes one of the MOST common technical mistakes I see in the Olympic lifts: people throwing their feet out wide.

No one ever said that the fastest way to a pretty snatch or clean was through a wide stance. So, why do we do it?? We try to get depth by jumping our feet out into a quarter split position instead of landing in our squat stance. And why do we do that?!!? Because we all have commitment issues.

Now, I’m not going to get into the many ways Olympic weightlifting can reveal things about you and your relationships in life because that would take away from me psychoanalyzing athletes through their technique. However, I am going to tell you how to fix your footwork problems.

If you are one of the many lifters who land wider in the snatch and clean (by wider I mean wider than your back squat/front squat stance) you need learn to NOT shy away from commitment AND you need to use cones when practicing the Olympic lifts. In most gyms, one can find some pretty orange cones. USE THEM! Take two orange cones, line your feet up in your squat stance, and place the cones outside your feet. Now that the cones are set, reset your stance with your feet right under your hips in preparation to snatch or clean. Now.. snatch or clean. When you have completed the movement, look down and see where your feet are in relation to the cones. Having the visual can do wonders for a lifter, and will most likely solve your problem if you practice enough.

If the cones don’t solve the problem, using small children and kittens have proven to be even more effective.

Footwork is key, people. If our feet cannot be consistent, how can the rest of our lifts be consistent?

An amazing coach, Steve Gough, always says that “99% of missed lifts can be attributed to the feet”. Don’t let your lift be a statistic... fix your feet.. (HOW’S THAT FOR DEEP?!)

Bar Speed

2011-06-02T14:27:00.000-07:00

Before we get started here, I had a ghettofabulous question about my previous blog post that I would like to address to everyone:

"Why wouldn't a straight bar path be good? Isn't that the most efficient? Takes a lot of energy to cover horizontal space with a heavy object, right?”

Answer:

If we were to pull the bar straight off the ground and continue to pull it straight through the whole entire lift, the bar would be about 6 inches away from our body. The bar would then end up out in front of us on the turnover, aka, the receiving position. The goal is to keep the bar as close to us as possible RIGHT off the ground, so that when we turn our hands over at the top, it winds up back behind our ears in our strongest overhead position.

Let's break it down: The bar sweeps back in the beginning of the lift, goes straight up in the middle of the lift, and SLIGHTLY goes back at the end of the lift (just enough to get back behind the ears). I have found this to be the MOST efficient path for the snatch, AND the clean. I Pinky promise...

(If your bar path is different and you're lifting as much weight as the guy below, then you can literally do whatever the eff you want in life. I won't even yell at you a little bit.. and I ALWAYS yell. )

Moving on:

It's so funny the things we learn from the most unassuming people (no, I did not just call someone stupid) ...

Just the other day, I learned something from one of my clients who is fairly new to the olympic lifts. She was asking about the speed of the bar throughout the entire lift. Is it the same through the whole lift? Does it change? Does it get faster? Slower?

So, as I was getting into this whole detailed explanation, with obnoxiously dramatic hand gestures, about how the bar moves from slow to medium to bionic speed fast as you change from position to position , she says (in an EXTREMELY nonchalant-like manner): "Oh, so, like Ready, Set, Go"?

I wanted to punch her and hug her all at the same time. It was PERFECT!

When you're pulling off the ground, you want to think about the different positions:

Floor: Starting position (read last post)
Mid-thigh (read last post)
Pockets (don't worry about it, it comes naturally)

But you also want to think about the speed of the bar. I see so many different kinds of speeds with so many different kinds of lifters, so let me break it down:

Lifters who live in the fast lane: If you move super fast off the ground, you're going to miss all of the positions and the bar can not stay the same speed from the ground to overhead..unless its .5 kgs. No grip and rip (I'm talking to you, Crossfitters. Ya'll like to get after those weights like a bunch of "junk-yard dogs"! I love you for it, I really do, but it just doesn't work with the lifts).

Lifters who like to play it safe: If you move so slow off the ground that I could literally walk away, go to the bathroom, french braid my hair, and come back and you haven't even hit mid-thigh, you're moving too slow. That slowness really starts to become detrimental with heavy weights. You HAVE to get some momentum behind the bar if you want 200kg to feel a little less like you have 7 Toyota Camrys in your hands. When you're practicing technique, GO SLOW! It's a perfect way to force your body into the right positions, just don't continue to go so slow when you increase the weight.

Lifters who get gold stars: Ready, Set, Go. This is PERFECT for us crossfitters because the word "go" turns us into crazy people.

'Ready' means that off the ground, you have control of the weight.
As your passing your knees, you're getting 'Set'. (moving a tiny bit faster)
When you get to mid-thigh, you are letting go of everything you've been holding onto in your life (except the barbell) and you are 'GO'ing!

Now, when I'm talking about "speed when you get to mid-thigh", I don't just mean speed when you jump and until you're fully extended... I mean speed through the extension, speed through the pull under the bar, and speed through the turn over. The speed does not stop until the bar has stopped moving at the turnover. You can't just think "SPEED, UP!!!!", you have to think "SPEED, UP DOWN!" when you get to that beautiful position we call Mid-thigh. Does that make sense? Here are all of the positions in which you should be moving bionically fast through:

Sage, out.

New starting position

2011-05-16T19:40:00.000-07:00

Let me start off by saying something VERY important that has nothing to do with the fact that you should all know my 21st birthday is tomorrow...

You will never stop learning as a coach and athlete

My father.. you know.. the Britney Spears of Crossfit.. always prides himself on being openminded as a coach. He'll be the first one to tell you that his way of coaching is not the only way (even though its totally the best way ;) ) and he is constantly telling stories of how his methods have changed based on suggestions from his own students or other coaches. This idea that even the best coach in the world can learn new methods was something that took me a while to grasp. Mainly because I learned it from my father, and lets be honest, what young girl actually listens to her dad?

So, my whole point of telling you this is because I recently learned something new that I am SO excited about! Just when I thought I knew everything there was to know about me and my weightlifting, I went up to train with Greg Everett and he taught me a new starting position that has completely changed my lifts and my life (two things that are really one in the same).

My old starting position: (very similar to a deadlift)

Hips above the knees and shoulders over the bar
Bar right up against the shins
Shins vertical
Weight on heels

My new starting position:

Hips above the knees and shoulders over the bar
Bar 1/2 inch away from my shins
Shins forward
Weight on the ball of my foot (still being able to wiggle toes)

Let me tell you why this new starting position is better and why you should do it:

The MOST important part of an olympic lift is the pull off the floor. If the pull off the floor is efficient, everything falls into place much easier. Your weight will be in the proper position on your feet to be able to jump aggressively, your jump will be vertical, the bar will move vertically, the bar will be close to your face so you can turn it over with an attitude, everything just goes GREAT!

So, what does a PERFECT pull off the floor look like? I have drawn a beautiful picture for you all that I'm certain will help you understand just what I am talking about.

Or this.. if you don't get it. (minus the crazy neck strain)

The key is something that Fred Lowe (million time olympian) says:

"Push and Sweep"

Although you start off with your weight on the ball of your foot, as soon as the bar leaves the ground, your weight shifts to your heels and your hamstrings PULL your knees back out of the way as you push into the ground and sweep the bar back into your body by engaging your lats. If you do it correctly, you should look something like this:

Melanie has swept that bar back into her body, landing her in the perfect mid-thigh position. Her weight is back on her heels, so when she goes to jump, she will jump off the whole surface of her foot.. creating a beautiful "junk yard dog aggressive" jump. If her weight was on her toes, or even on the middle of her foot at this position, she would end up receiving the bar forward and on her toes down in the overhead squat. Also, if she was forward, it would mean that the bar went straight up off the floor as opposed to sweeping back. Get where I'm going with this?!

Where she goes from here is a WHOLE different blog post, but if you can get to this position and accelerate the bar from here, you are in a good place. Kapeesh?

Lets hear your questions.

Sage, out.

Epiphany

2011-04-29T20:19:00.000-07:00

Look Closely, you can see the bend in the barbell

When I was about three years old, I had my first epiphany. I'm certain it had something to do with the olympic lifts because that's about the time I really started to get serious with my training.

Ever since then, I've been having epiphanies about every 4 days. I'd like to share one with ya'll that occurred just the other morning.

I was coaching a young chap who lifts in my oly club. For now, we'll call him Daddy Long Legs because his legs are so long, they literally connect to his armpits.

Daddy Long legs has the weakest legs in the history of ever. Minus Me. I've been forcing him to catch the bounce out of the bottom of every front squat and clean he performs, because if he settles in his receiving position for even a split second, there ain't no way he's standing up.

So, before we get into my epiphany, lets cover what I mean when I say "catch the bounce"...

Ever heard of the term "bend and snap"? Everyone thinks that it originated from the film Legally Blonde. Guess again. Like many terms that you may or may not be aware of, "Bend and Snap" is referring to the olympic lifts. Specifically...catching the bounce.

The beautiful thing about olympic lifting barbells is that they bend. With light weight on the barbell, I'm sure that the bend cannot be seen by the average human eye.. unless you're my father.. he. sees. EVERYTHING. As the bar reaches it's max bend-age, (it's a word. get over it) it then snaps back up!

If an athlete has fast elbows and great timing, they can actually use that "bend and snap", or "bounce" to help them get out of a very heavy clean and very heavy front squat. It's using the momentum, that YOU placed on the barbell with your great amount of explosiveness, to help you basically get half way out of the squat without ever even pushing a little. (Of course then you have your sticking point where I typically hang out at for seven hours before I decide to stand).

Any Questions? Great. Back to Daddy Long Legs.

As the session progressed, DLL really started to feel what it meant to "catch the bounce" and I really started to feel like I could wait a little longer before retiring as a coach. But, as you know, all good olympic lifts must come to an end as we realize that there is a whole nother world out there filled with hurt and bad technique that we have yet to step foot in.

So. New issue. DLL started hanging out in his extension much too long. He became a floater. (floater: someone who moving lackadaisically whilst pulling themselves under the barbell) His bounce out of the bottom was great, but his change of direction at the top was rubbish. (Man! I am REALLY picking on DLL today! He's still a good person..) So, on came the epiphany!

If DLL could understand "catching the bounce" out of the bottom of the squat, why couldn't he understand catching the bounce out of the top of the extension?! Perfect!!

When DLL finally understood that you must bounce down and then bounce up, his timing was much better. He realized that change of direction (change of direction of your hips, that is. They move up as you jump, and then IMMEDIATELY back down) on the lifts is what makes them fluid. They are fluid because your body is constantly maneuvering itself down and around the barbell as the barbell is moving up. IF you pause ANYWHERE!!.. at the top of the pull, at the bottom of the squat, in the middle, you have taken the natural momentum off the bar and you become a muscler (Muscler: one who muscles the bar with their weak arms).

Don't do that.

Folks, that's a lot of information. Re-read it a bunch of times to process what the heck I'm rambling about and then ask me questions. If I'm going to blog, I want some blogger friends. I'll be official.

Sage..out.

Despite what you think.. I did not fall off the face of the earth

2011-04-26T20:39:00.000-07:00

I'mm baaaackkk!!!

After a 2 minute heart to heart with my father, I realized that writing about olympic lifting and being on the cast of Glee (compliments of my dad) are my callings. I decided that I could write a memoir about my experiences in my 20 (almost 21) years of living on this earth, orrrr I could continue writing my blog....

No memoir.. you're welcome.

When it comes to being an emotionally stable woman and a reliable writer, I realize I'm inconsistent. So, I've decided to actually plan something out for once in my life. I'm writing down every blog post topic for the next couple of months. 2 blog posts (or more...if I'm feeling sassy) a month. You can count on that!

The first NEW and improved blog post will premiere Friday, April 29th. Each read blog post is guaranteed to put 5 kg on your snatch.. or your money back.

Tell all your friends. This will be fun.

Proper Hip Drive for the Olympic Lifts

2010-11-17T10:25:00.000-08:00

Kettlebell swings are sooo much fun, right?! Right! However, they are not the answer to ALL of life’s problems. Kettlebell swings are an excellent exercise that we incorporate into many workouts (and are proven to make one’s butt look ghettofabulous), but this doesn’t mean that the mechanics of a kettlebell swing should transfer over to all the other movements we do in the gym . . . especially Olympic lifting.

Lately, I’ve had the sense that many people believe the hip drive on kettlebell swing (which is horizontal) is the same as the hip drive on the snatch and clean and jerk (which is vertical). We know that a horizontal hip thrust with a kettlebell gets momentum moving on the weight, but it doesn’t work that way with the Olympic movements. If you want the bar to travel fast over your head, it needs to move vertically. Why? Because the shortest distance between two points is a straight line (and that really IS physics) and we want that barbell over our head in the least amount of time possible. Who wants to be lifting a million kilos over their head for 47 hours?! No one!

On the other hand, kicking the hips forward will cause the bar to bang off your body, which then causes it to swing around you and you’ll either miss the bar out in front of you or it will go flying so far back and around your head that you won’t be able to hold onto it anymore.

Our goal is to maintain control of the barbell by keeping it close to our body through the whole entire movement. The only way to accomplish this is by moving the hips straight up and straight down and LIGHTLY brushing the barbell off your hips . . . NOT banging it . . . EVER.

Remember, the bar does what your hips do. Move them vertically so the bar will move vertically. Do it . . . you won’t . . . .

and to see the most perfect video ever that shows exactly what I'm talking about. Watch this...

http://www.crossfitinvictus.com/blog/2010/11/16/wednesday-november-17-2010/

Don’t ever let someone tell you that you shouldn’t video your snatch

2010-11-02T12:22:00.000-07:00

Today is the day that I reveal my deepest darkest secret to the world:

I think I was born with a super power that allows me to view things in slow motion. It is called Slow-Mo Vision. Kind of like x-ray vision, but not really like it at all.

This extremely rare, seriously cool super power gives me a huge advantage when watching the Olympic lifts. It gives me an advantage because I can watch someone do a lift for the first time and know exactly what he or she needs to do to correct it.

I wasn’t aware of this super power until just recently when I overheard someone asking for critique on his lifts. His partner’s response was that the movement was too fast and he couldn’t quite catch what he had done incorrectly. I too was watching the lift and could see that the man pulled with his arms too soon.

Why could I see the technical deficiencies and this man could not? Slow-mo vision was the only logical explanation.

However, in the extremely unlikely event that I actually do not possess Slow-Mo Vision, I have also decided that I may be able to see things other people can’t because I have watched millions of lifts in my lifetime. Not only have I watched millions of lifts, but I’ve watched millions of videos of people’s lifts and been able to re-watch them over and over again until I figured out what was right and what was wrong about the lift. That very thing is why I have gathered you all here today.

VIDEO YOUR LIFTS

Not only does it take time to be able to critique other people’s form properly, but it also takes time to feel what you may be doing wrong in your lifts. The one thing that can solve that problem is to bring a camera into the gym and ask your bff (for example, every single one of you asking me) to video your lifts. You don’t have to record every attempt, but just get a few lifts on the camera. After you do that, replay your attempt and set the camera to either play it in slow motion, or play it frame by frame. That way, you can see yourself lift a lot slower and pick out faults a lot easier.

WATCH VIDEOS OF OTHERS

After you’ve seen yourself lift and assessed your own technique, go on the web and watch other lifters’ technique. Compare what you did the same and what you did differently than that lifter. These visuals will stick in your head for the next time you go to lift, I pinky promise.

Moral of the story is, if you video your snatch/clean/jerk technique enough and re-watch it enough times, maybe you too can have Slow-Mo Vision like me.

Least updated blog EVA

2010-10-01T09:24:00.000-07:00

"You best be mentally tough nukkas" - Coach B (not really, but it'd be funny)

Don't worry, I have't forgotten about you all. I purposely have not updated this thing in a while because I was trying to get in the Guinness Book of World Records for the least updated blog in all of existence. I WON!

I recently decided that I am taking a break from Crossfit and am strictly going to focus on my Olympic Lifting. For the first time in 2 years, I am back on one of my dad's lifting programs ( Mikesgym.org It is the 12 week competition program) and I'm LOVIN it (Not a reference to McDonalds). Let me tell you why I decided to do this.

Here's the thing: I absolutely love crossfit; the way it makes me feel, the mental toughness it instills and the fact that it can knock me on my bumper (aka bottom) for a good 10 minutes, when I really only worked out for a total of about 5. However, I found that the constant intensity of crossfit style workouts was really starting to become mentally taxing for me (It absolutely had nothing to do with the fact that I may or may not be a little sissy girl). When working out became more stressful than fun, I knew that it was time to change things up a bit.

Olympic lifting and Crossfit both require mental toughness. HOWEVAA, in my personal opinion, the mental toughness required for Crossfit is completely different than the mental toughness required for olympic weightlifting.

Let me break it down for ya'll:

Crossfit: When we crossfit, we experience insurmountable amounts of pain throughout our whole body and soul. It's a competition between you and said "pain". Mental toughness in Crossfit means fearing the pain, feeling the pain, accepting the pain, and overcoming the pain.

Olympic lifting: When we olympic weightlift, we experience the fear of having to get under a heavy cuss weight. Stepping up to a barbell that is loaded with a weight you've never lifted can bring up all of your repressed feelings of self doubt and insecurity. Mental toughness in Olympic Weightlifting means believing that you are more of a badass than any one else on this planet. It means stepping onto the platform and allowing your self confidence to suck in all that doubt and insecurity and crush them into oblivion. CRUSH, I say! It's a competition between you and the barbell. Are you going to let that barbell beat you? or are you going to make that barbell your biznatch?

So, the point I am trying to make (even though I'm just kind of rambling on about biznatches and crushing and cussing and what not) is that I think that it's good to change up your training because you get to experience what it means to be "mentally tough" in many different ways. If you're constantly having to challenge your mind by forcing it to be all sorts of "tough", you become much more well rounded as an athlete.

Spend a couple months overcoming the pain that Crossfit brings about, and then change it up and force yourself to face (And crush) the self doubt and insecurities that weightlifting brings about. If that doesn't make you a better athlete and person, I don't know what will!! (other than maybe listening to some more Fergie).

PS. I just went back and re read this whole post and it is ALLLL over the place. Get over it.

these raps are getting ridiculous

2010-08-22T11:28:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when I rewatch myself on these rap videos, I have to walk out of the room and ask myself why in the heck I just exposed myself like that to all of the world. But then I remember that ya'll asked me to do it. So it's your fault. I can't help that I'm a giver.

Here's the breakdown of what I meant in my rap.

#1: Think about your chest

I may have mentioned it before (I never remember anymore), but keeping your chest up is extremely important in the lifts. If your torso comes forward at all, (which it actually will most of the time due to inflexibility, but still try to think about keeping it as tall and proud as possible) that generally will put your weight on your toes making it extremely hard to stand up with the barbell. A tall chest makes for a much more stable position whether it be in a front squat or an overhead squat.

#2: Think about your elbows

Elbows turn around the same time that the feet hit the ground. I don't mean turn them around in a T-Rex/reverse curl kind of way. I mean getting the elbows high and outside (which is happening as you pull yourself down. Read on, and this will make sense), and down and around REALLY fracking fast. The faster the elbows, the more comfortable you will feel receiving that barbell. Elbows can be EVERYTHING on a clean. Every time you have slow elbows on a clean, God kills a kitten.

#3: Think about Britney Spears

This is one of those common sense things that definitely doesn't need any explanation.

#4: Pull yourself under the bar

Do NOT jump and drop under that barbell. Jump up (getting as tall as possible (ATAP)) and when you cannot possibly get any taller, IMMEDIATELY change your hip direction from going up, to going down by physically pulling yourself down and around that barbell. If you try to jump and drop, that bar is going to beat you down EVERY SINGLE TIME (I dont know why I'm really into using caps lock right now) . However, if you pull yourself under the bar, you can guarantee that there will be no crashing of that bar on your chest and you will receive it in a much more comfortable position.

Which leads me into my last point...

#5: Become one with the barbell

If you pull yourself under the bar, you know where it is in space and you can avoid having that barbell come up really high and smack you right in the throat or nose or forehead (we've all had it happen). Not knowing where the barbell is means that you are not in control of it. That bar WANTS to be controlled. It wants you to meet it wherever it is (since when did a barbell start developing personality traits?). So just do it, ok? Be more zen-like with that barbell.

What is mental toughness?

2010-07-30T17:54:00.000-07:00

That is me during my workouts.

#1 I just got back from Switzerland. If you haven't been. Go. Right now.

#2 I never remember what I have written about on this thingamajig, so if I repeat things in my posts, get over it.

#3 I'm not going to say much in this post, I'm going to let my brother's letter do all the talking (he doesn't know I'm posting this. He'll probably be upset. I'm ok with that).

I was struggling a couple months ago with feeling like I was mentally weak. I saw all these amazing athletes around me that, during the hardest of workouts, never had one look of pain or struggle across their face. They appeared to be immune to the torture. I never felt that way when I was working out. I feared workouts. I feared getting under heavy weights. I feared the pain that was to be inflicted upon me via thrusters. Because I feared so often, I was certain that I had some rare, possibly fatal, medical condition.

My brother Casey got his degree in physics which basically means he knows everything. Therefore, I burden him with all of my questions about life, liberty and the pursuit of chocolate. I wrote him an email asking him, as an olympic athlete, what he thought it meant to be "mentally tough". The letter he wrote to me seriously changed my life. I am not saying that I am mentally tough by any means, but I at least have a better understanding of how to go about becoming a better person each day. I read this letter almost everyday and it has gotten me through many times of self doubt. It is long, but I promise you won't be disappointed if you read the whole thing..especially if you feel like you may have the same medical condition that I had a couple months ago.

"First, you need to decide what you are going to do. This may sound like a simple step, or like you've already done it, but let me tell you, it's the hardest, and most important step in being tough. Once you make the commitment to do something, then almost nothing can stop you. This is why it took me so long to decide to come back to lifting. I knew once I committed, nothing was going to stop me from achieving my goals, no matter what the costs, or how much workouts sucked, or how badly my body felt.

So with you, you have to really really really decide that the Crossfit Games are what you want to do. Once you decide this, the process will be easy. When you commit, it's easier to block weaknesses out of your head, and workouts will seem like steps forward to your goal, rather than burdens. When you commit, I really believe you can do anything. Really take this decision seriously though, because if you only "half" decide you want to do it, or do it for "fun", then you shouldn't even worry about Regionals, and just train whenever you want to and not care about how a workout goes. If you decide to do it for "fun", then you can't be bothered by any performance at Regionals or any meet, because you decided not to take it seriously.

Now, either decision in your case wouldn't be a bad one (in my opinion), just make sure you stick to your choice wholeheartedly. I read a great book recently, and it talked about how when someone commits to something, they should do it all the way, and be satisfied with whatever the outcome. So if you commit to the Games and start training as hard as you can, you have to be comfortable with the possibility that you may succeed tremendously, or fail miserably (in terms of winning and losing). The important thing is that you committed, and you did everything you could to make it happen. Trust me, if you do that, the thoughts about winning and losing seem to almost disappear. It's about overcoming yourself, and pushing yourself to become greater than you were the day before, that's what really matters.

I'm reading a great book right now, and while I don't agree with a lot of points (it's an atheist book that talks a lot about being selfish), it has a lot of great points about pushing yourself to your highest potential. He talks mostly about pushing yourself in terms of knowledge and creativity, but I think a lot of it applies to life as well. Basically, every decision you make should be a conscious one in becoming a better person. Every decision you make has meaning to it, and you pursue a better self constantly. The friends you choose, the people you surround yourself with, the food you eat, the books you read, the television you watch, how much sleep you get, everything should be a stern decision that makes you go in a better direction than the one you're headed towards. Surround yourself with people who want to make themselves better, and who in turn push you to make you better.

One of the big points in the book is the "will to power", which basically means that when you conquer yourself and get rid of everything that has once held you back, you can "will" yourself to do anything. This is really difficult to achieve, but think about how much it could help if you just strive for it. If every time you have a bad day, or feel a negative emotion, or have a bad workout, you "will" yourself out of the poor mindset, refusing to let it beat you down, and just continue your journey in becoming the best you can be. I'm not saying you can be like this every day, but the important issue is that you are truly DOING it. You'll slip up, you'll still have bad days, but as long as your moving forward, and not letting yourself continue to slip, then there's nothing you can't do.

Mental toughness for me has always been hard to explain. I've never really thought that I was mentally tough, but the reason why I was successful in meets is because I KNEW what I was capable of. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to quit lifting, or give up, but I didn't because I committed to what I was doing. That was one thing Mom and Dad taught us that is invaluable; to never quit. When you commit to whatever it is in life, make sure it's a positive direction, and just don't quit. Fight with all of your being to achieve what you set out to, and know that you're becoming a better person because of it. So even if you have a bad day, or hate Crossfit, or lifting, or school, or whatever it is, you can still have the confidence that what you're doing is making you better in some way, and that is a beautiful feeling.

A lot of this may not seem like it pertains to mental toughness, but when you think about it, what does that mean anyway? Toughness means you fight through pain, or discomfort, and continue striving forward. But why would you do this in the first place? It seems against our nature to put ourselves through pain and discomfort, so why bother? The answer is this; because we are committed to making ourselves better, committed to be something greater than what we currently are. Think about the people who are tough, the one thing they have in common is that they've committed to something. Whether it's becoming healthy, smarter, a better parent, or a Crossfit Games champion, they decided it was what they wanted, and they didn't care how hard it became, or what obstacles showed up, nothing was going to stop them from following through with the decision they made.

The last thing I'm going to say is that while all of this seems draining, and challenging, it also has to be fun. Commitments can be joyous, they don't have to be discouraging and hard all the time. I committed to being a husband, that doesn't mean it's a burden. It's challenging, and tough at times, but I love every minute of it because I DECIDED that it was what I wanted to be. So take comfort in knowing that no matter what decision you make, or what direction you want to pursue, it's going to be amazing because it's your path, your decision, your direction. There's beauty in the successes and the failures of your journey. Soak up every ounce of it and know that you're becoming a better human being. "

Paralysis by analysis

2010-07-13T09:00:00.000-07:00

This is what someone's face looks like when I tell them to snatch.

It is universally known that the Olympic lifts are 87% more complex than physics and 73% more complex than women. I have grown up around the lifts (obvs) so at first it was hard for me to understand why people were having such a hard time performing a snatch or clean and jerk. In the beginning, alls I wanted to say was “Just snatch it. All you have to do is jump the bar over your head. It’s so simple!“ That’s when I began to notice that the look on someone’s face when I asked them to jump with a barbell in their hands was very similar to the look on a teenager’s face when trying to teach them how to drive a manual…blank (insert your age discriminatory joke here about how I’m so young I probably got my license last year). So, what is it about the oly lifts that makes them so darn complicated and hard to execute, especially in a crossfit style workout? Answer: there is way too much to think about and that creates, as my dad says, “paralysis by analysis”.

Chest up, back tight, weight on the heels, pull back, stay over the bar, jump hard, hips vertical, keep it close, pull under, aggressive turn over, meet the bar, stay tight and stand. Technically, those are all the things you should be thinking about as you are performing a snatch or a clean. However, unless you are a robot or are in the matrix and can see/perform movements in slow motion (if you can, please contact me immediately), thinking about all those things at once is impossible.

Now, let’s stop talking about how difficult life is, and start talking about the solution. The best thing for ya’ll to do is get to know yourself as a lifter. Think about all the cues that have been thrown at you while performing a lift and find the one that makes the most sense to you. Find the one cue that helps to bring everything else together. For example, when I am lifting, all I think about is keeping my chest up. This makes me set my back tight in the starting position, I don’t raise my butt up too soon off the ground, I keep it closer to my body and I am in a much more stable position when I receive the bar. All of those things allow me to have a successful lift and all I thought about was keeping my chest up! Isn’t that great?!

Now that you know another secret about lifting, go and experiment with it. Think about one cue at a time until you find the one that helps you to perform a beautiful snatch.

The end.

To all my fellow grasshoppers

2010-07-04T08:46:00.000-07:00

Hokay so, (I don’t know why I always have the urge to start my posts out like that)

First, I have to say that we started an Olympic lifting club at Invictus and its pretty much the coolest thing ever existing. I tell all my clients, especially my girls, that I get super emotional every time I watch them lift because of how much they’ve improved. Nevermind that I am extremely emotionally unstable, I am just so impressed with their new abilities to move like Olympic weightlifters. What I mean by that is, there are those who are new to the sport of weightlifting and are not comfortable with throwing a weight around, so the movement tends to be a little slower, a little more hesitant and a little more muscled. When someone starts moving like an Olympic weightlifter, they really start to understand what “speed” means. They’re unafraid to move fast under a bar because they’ve started to trust in their technique. THAT, my children, is a beautiful beautiful thing.

However, we all know that getting to that place of trust and comfort takes a while. I see so many people getting frustrated with their olympic lifts. Listen (no,seriously, listen up), I know that this is the greatest sport ever and I know that we all have this undying passion for the sport and the desire to be amazing at it, but by NOT mastering the sport right away, it only makes us respect the sport that much more. Think about it this way: say you're craving chocolate ice cream with peanut butter SOOO bad that you could kill a baby kitten just to get it. You live right next to Cold Stone so you could just walk over and get it. In other words, immediate gratification. BUUTTT what if you lived 7 miles away from Cold Stone and your only means of transportation was a trash can on three wheels cause the 4th wheel was flat. That would make your journey much longer and much harder, but by the time you got to your destination, that ice cream, my friends, would taste DAMN good... sinfully good.

So, next time you're down about your oly lifts, just remember that nothing is quite as amazing if you don't have to wait for it and if you don't have to put tons of sweat and tears into it. Respect the sport of Olympic Weightlifting. Respect that its H-A-R-D. Respect that you have to be up in the gym just workin on your fitness..much like how Fergie explains it (she was talking about oly lifting). Respect that it makes you "junk yard dog tough" (as my dad says). Respect it..and it will respect you, young grasshoppers.

Saving the world one snatch at a time

2010-06-19T17:16:00.001-07:00

My sister in law is most likely stronger than your brother in law. And she has a perfect overhead position. Take notes on this, yo.

Ok ok... I have literally been threatened WITH-MY-LIFE by multiple people about not updating my blog. So, I pinky promised someone at my cert in Flagstaff this weekend that I would update it ASAP out of fear that he was going to take my blog off his bookmarks (and because I really think I may not live to see my 21st birthday if I don't).

No excuses here about the lackage (yes thats a word) of updates other than I've just been out trying to save the world one snatch at a time. .. no big deal.

I'll make this one short and sweet.

Today at the cert, Lisa Ray (the owner of Crossfit Flagstaff) had a GREAT cue about the overhead position in the snatch/ohs (they are the same). While she was trying to stop rolling her shoulders forward while the bar is overhead because of the strain it puts on the shoulders and because it is not an efficient position, she figured out that if she thought about how a waiter would support a tray overhead with one arm, it helped her to get in the proper position.

Proper position for the bar overhead:

Arms slightly back behind the ears where the body is supporting the weight
armpits facing straight ahead
traps and lats pushing up on the bar
arms locked out
wrist slightly turned up
crease of the elbow facing the ceiling

In other words, think about how you would support something overhead with just one arm. Would you roll that shoulder forward in a weird position? Or would you be applying all of those proper positions stated above? ( The answer is B) Now do the same thing with both arms overhead and your hands a little bit wider apart. WHALA! There's your overhead position!

This new position might feel a little funky, but if you practice it, you'll find that you can support much more weight, much more comfortably because your body is doing all the work and not your arms! And unless you do 47 thousand curls for the girls a day, your arms are so much weaker than your body. OBVSSS!!! (shorter/sassier term for "obviously". Must be said with an attitude)

Keep it sassy

Do the hook

2010-03-30T13:48:00.000-07:00

Reminder: the hook grip is with your thumbs wrapped around the bar and your fingers wrapped around your thumb. You don't have to get all white knuckles on me by death gripping the bar, just using two fingers is enough to lock that bar into place.

So I competed in the sectionals this past weekend and despite the fact that I asked God to "just take me right then and there" at least 47 times, it was still an amazing experience for me. However, I dont want to talk about MY experience competing. Instead, I want to share with you all what I learned this past weekend.

From everything that I took away from the competition, the main thing that is stuck in my head is: Crossfitter's are a whole new kind of species, and a funny one at that.

" Sage, when I was working out, I realized something. I'm in a parking lot, lifting weights, and putting myself through terrible terrible pain. Why would anyone ever CHOOSE to do this?" - Nichole Dehart

After laughing for about 7 minutes, I stopped, and then tried to really think about that question. Why do we work out in odd places, why do we do odd movements that make for WAY too many "thats what she said" jokes, and why do we push our bodies til we feel like death?

My main answers to that question are:

#1 We do it because we're all obviously a little messed up in the head and in Crossfit, being crazy = being badass .

#2 We do it so that we can give back to this "thing" (crossfit) that has changed all of our lives.

I don't know about you guys, but I can honestly say that, without Crossfit, I would be in a completely different place in my life. I would probably be making millions as a rapper. (kidding, but not really)

But its true! I would not be in San Diego, working for the best gym EVER, and I would not be traveling around the world getting to coach and meet so many amazing individuals. I wouldn't have any friends other than my mom (maybe not even her. kidding mom. but not really) because all my friends are Crossfitters, and I wouldn't have the pleasure of looking at people's facial expression every time I tell them I'm going to be teaching them about the snatch!

My life would be completely different. My life would be way less fergaliciously awesome.

Crossfit has provided all of us with so many great opportunities. It has changed the way we look, the way we act, and the way that we view ourselves. It has given all of us confidence that we never knew we possessed. And THAT, my friends, is a beautiful thing. There is something about beating a previous time in a WOD, or hitting a new clean and jerk record, or doing a workout as prescribed for the first time that makes us feel like we did something amazing. Like we did something worth while. Like we did something that we can be proud of. All of those things are soothing for our souls. And, I dont know about you, but I LOVE a good, soothed soul.

This post has gotten way out of hand with all the randomness and cheesiness. So I'm gonna stop. But, think about what crossfit has done for you. Maybe that will explain why you workout in strange parking lots and why you choose to push yourself to the point were death seems more appealing than doing one more thruster, and why you risk sounding like a complete hoochie mama when you try explaining to someone that you had 7 different coaches working on your snatch at the last olympic lifting certification.

keep it sassy.

What is death?

2010-03-24T16:41:00.000-07:00

Dont let your starting position look like this:

There are three questions that every single human being will ask at least once in their lifetime:

#1 Why, when taking a nap, is it more comfortable to sleep on top of a well made bed as opposed to being under the covers?

#2 Why did the oompaloompas change colors from the very first Willy Wonka movie to the more modern one?

#3 What is death?

Well I'm here to answer question #3.

Death comes in three forms:

1) Rounding the back when pulling weight off the ground.

If you do not tighten everything that can possibly be tightened when pulling a barbell off the ground, you. are. going. to. die. What happens is that the bar starts to pull you WAY far forward and when that happens, you've lost control of the weight. Not being in control of the weight means that you cannot use your great technique to get that barbell over your head. Instead,the bar will be flying all over the place. Trust me, that is NOT a pretty sight... And we're all about being pretty. So squeeze your back shoulder blades together, get your chest up, shift your weight back onto your heels, AND THEN proceed to lift the bar off the ground.

2) Not fully extending AKA not finishing

Some people LOVE the feeling of the bar hitting them right in the face, but I personally do not love it. I don't know why, but I just never wake up in the morning and say, " You know what I would really love today? A good smack in the face by a heavy barbell!" Call me crazy, but that's just me. SO, if you're on the same page as me, take my advice and FINISH your pull. A good finish ( and by finish i mean the movement, not a Finish person) is with the body fully extended, a big proud chest at the top, and the shoulders slightly behind the barbell. That will allow for a great path for that barbell to travel straight up. If your finish is with your hips vertical, but your shoulders hunched over the bar, you're inhibiting that bar from taking the path that it wants to take in life, so in turn, it will smack you in the face or be out in front of you in a position where you cannot stand up with it cause its too far forward. (talk about a run on sentence) Anyways, it's a mutual relationship here people. Love the bar, let it take it's desired path in life (which is going over your head) by getting your chest and face out of the way, and it will do good things for you.

3) Not flipping the hook grip out on the turnover on the clean

I've seen broken wrists TOO many times from slow elbows on a clean. Fred Lowe, a million time Olympian, was helping me at my cert this past weekend in Chicago. He said the greatest quote EVER... "The turnover is an attitude". He is totally right. Turning those elbows around FAST and with a "junk yard dog" (as my dad likes to say) attitude, is the only way you will not die on a clean. And the only way to get that incredibly ghettofabulous fast turnover, is by flipping your hook grip out and letting that bar land back on your finger tips with your elbows WAY high up. Keeping the hook grip means low elbows, which means all the weight is on your arms, which means arms hitting the knees at the bottom of the squat, which means broken wrist, which means death. Got it? Think about turning the elbows ALL the way around (flipping the hook grip out) the same time that the feet hit the ground. MAKE THE LIFT SNAPPY!

Dont make me post a video of some guy doing a clean with slow elbows and his wrists are flying all over the place hitting people in the audience in the face. They show those videos enough on the news. Which pisses me off, btw. But thats a whole different blog post for a whole different time.

keep it sassy.

pretty much the fastest burgener warm up in all of existence

2010-03-14T17:02:00.000-07:00

So, I was in Florida visiting my bestest friend for a week and was without a computer, so dont sue me for not updating my blog. I was told that I apologize all the time for not updating my blog, yet still continue to not update it, so Im just going to stop apologizing so that I'm not looked upon as a liar. I got a rep to keep up, yo.

First off, I would like all of you to know that I got shoes that say fergilicious on them. They're pretty much the coolest things ever.

Second, a lot of people have been asking me "Sage, I am just SO perplexed! What iiiisss the REAL Burgener Warm-up? I've seen so many different versions and it has been giving me extreme anxiety not knowing which one I should follow!" (thats exactly how they said it too, im sure of it!) Well! I'm here to clear things up for ya'll. The burgener warm up HAS been modified slightly over the years, so I want to give you guys the most updated version cause I'm a nice person AND I don't want you to feel out of the loop.

1-2-3- Down and up: you have a Snatch grip, the hook grip OF COURSE. You dip straight down drive straight up and shrug at the top. Dont lean forward when you dip, that is a different position. (this is pretty much the jump)

4-5-6- Elbows high and outside: this is followed by the down and up and you continue with your elbows going high and outside (hence the name). This helps to keep the bar close to your body. Always make sure the elbows are above the wrist.

7-8-9- muscle snatch. NO REBENDING OF THE KNEES OR ILL HIT YOU WITH A PVC PIPE. This helps with the snappy turn over. Its a muscled movement (hence the name..again.. We like to keep things simple. K.I.S.S. keep it simple stupid-michael scott) so you don't want to be thinking about getting underneath it, that will make you rebend your knees and that's bad!

10-11-12- snatch land- this helps with footwork. The bar stays overhead after the muscle snatch and we have people land in a two inch depth squat, a 4 inch depth squat, and then a 6 inch depth squat. All above parallel, but working on getting lower (this helps with practicing meeting the bar at different heights) without throwing the feet out. You want your feet to be in the EXACT same position every time no matter what depth of squat you are in. Kapeesh?

13-14-15- Snatch drops- this again helps with footwork. The bar is still overhead and you pretend there is a trap door under your feet and DROP all the way down into a overhead squat AS FAST AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE!!! DROP IT LIKE ITS HOT, YO. again, make sure that your feet are hitting the same landing position every time. Dont throw those kicks (ghetto term for shoes) out wide trying to get depth. Squat to get depth.

This is probably THE worst burgener warm up technique wise, but get over it. It was hella (nor cal version of saying EXTREMELY) fast.

Love me some OHS

2010-02-22T11:14:00.000-08:00

So as I was cleaning my house today, I remembered the thousands of times I have been asked how to improve flexibility on the OHS. I am STOKED (for the old folks out there, stoked means "so excited") that people ask me this because alls it means is that they want to get better at the best movement in the whole entire world!

The solution is simple: DO MORE OVERHEAD SQUATS.

Whether you are cleaning the house, rearranging furniture or threatening your kids by tossing them over your head to prove your insurmountable feats of strength, you can always be practicing your overhead squat position. Its one of those things where stretching your shoulders, loosening up your hip flexors, improving your ankle mobility, etc will ALL benefit you, but you really just have to DO the movement as much as possible to really get better at it. Your body has to get used to finding the right muscles to fire and finding its balance. The only way to do that is to allow the body to feel the movement as much as possible. (AMAP)

I know its a foreign movement being down in a squat with your hands out wide and heavy weight in your hands. Its anything but comfortable. But like everyone says.. "get comfortable with being uncomfortable".

You should be able to OHS anything from a pvc pipe to a toyota camry, but when someone is struggling getting in the overhead squat position with a pvc pipe, I usually put a LITTLE weight in their hands (like a 15-33 lb bar) and that generally allows them to sit a little more comfortably in the squat position (if they stay tight and keep the bar back behind the ears allowing their body to support the weight) because something is weighing them down. However, like I said, your goal should be to squat a pvc pipe and a heavy weight exactly the same. Kapeesh?

So, if your heels come off the ground in a squat, if your shoulders are so tight that the bar wont go back behind your ears, if your torso leans way far forward when trying to get into the OHS, know that these are all common flexibility issues. Work on flexibility on the side, but for the most part, grab your swiffer and get your booty overhead squatting!

2010-02-16T10:33:00.000-08:00

One of my bestest friends in the whole entire world, Kaia, recently lifted in her first weightlifting competition ever. She was extremely nervous (if you're not nervous before a competition, there is something seriously wrong with you) and was beginning to question her amazing lifting abilities. Anyways, despite all the nerves and doubts, she ended up having the most amazing meet ever, going 5 for 6 and pr'ing about 27 times. It's one thing to be nervous before a competition, but its another thing to be able to control the nerves and use them to your advantage. And that is exactly what she did.

Her competition experience inspired me to write this rap.

size fetus

2010-02-11T07:42:00.000-08:00

Oh herro! So, ya, thats me snatching like .7 kgs back in the day lookin like a criminal and stuff in my prisoner singlet. When I found this picture, it reminded me of the many atimes when people have asked me about little kids weightlifting and what I thought about it. I am obsessed with little kids and I am obsessed with weightlifting and it's common knowledge that the two things you are obsessed with HAVE to go good together. But let me further explain the benefits of lifting weights as a wee one (all my friends in Ireland will be proud of me for using "wee")

First off, let me start off by saying that I have been lifting since I was four (competing since I was six), and even though I am a little (ok so maybe more than a little..) crazy in the region between my ears, I turned out to be ghettofabulous.

What weightlifting has done for me:

1) Taught me body awareness. Body awareness is SO important and can make learning new things a heck of a lot easier. Weightlifting is great for body awareness because you are lifting a heavy a$$ weight over your head, and if you have no idea where your body is in conjunction with the bar, then you're basically screwed. Lifting teaches you to be in tune to each little movement of each little body part.

2) Taught me how to focus under stress. The great thing about lifting is the competition aspect. You work hard for months and months, and then you get to take all that hard work and perform in front of a crowd and in front of judges. As great as it is, it is also makes you want to pee your pants from nerves! Its just you and the bar up on a platform in the middle of a huge room with thousands of eyes looking at you. Scary or not, it is a great thing for a young kid to experience because you have to learn how to block out distraction and perform under great a deal of stress. That focus transfers over to almost every other aspect of life that requires focus.

3) Learned what it meant to be dedicated to something. Weightlifting taught me how to be committed to something and how to STAY committed even if I hit a rocky road (mmm makes me think of ice cream). that commitment did interfere with my social life with friends, but not enough to make me resent the sport. The rewards I received from the years of hard work i put in, far exceeded the sacrifices I had to make. I learned to set goals for myself and learned that I could reach each goal with my persistence and dedication. Reaching goals, is an important feeling for kids to experience and weightlifting gives you so many opportunities to do just that.

4) Most importantly, weightlifting gave me confidence in myself. There is something about walking up on a platform, approaching a heavy weight, feeling afraid, and lifting that bar over your head that makes you feel such self satisfaction and makes you feel extremely proud of yourself. The feeling of conquering your fears is a hard feeling to match. We all fear, yet we all have a choice: Do we let that fear control us? or do we control the fear? Olympic lifting allows you to feel that fear, accept that fear, and then punch that fear in the face, one lift at a time. With each fear you face, new confidence is brought about and you grow as a person. You grow as a person who believes in his or herself more and more each day. And to believe in ourselves (as children or adults) is the hardest feat that most of us will ever have to face.

Weightlifting did great things for me. I can honestly say that I would be a completely different person if I didn't have olympic lifting in my life. It shaped me into the woman that I am and I am SO grateful for that. It is why I blog all these corny blog posts to ya'll. I want to give back and help you all to feel the benefits that olympic lifting has had on my life. I want ya'll to love it as much as me.

I think I completely got off topic...

keep it sassy

Get up off my grill, son!

2010-02-07T14:09:00.001-08:00

Why all you mutha suckas be up in my grill bout my updating of my blog?

You know that whole thing where people want what they can't have? My blog updates are kind of like that. I'm trying to play hard to get via blogging. If I updated every 5 seconds, then ya'll wouldnt even read this shananigans anymore! Youd be off cheating on me with some blog about low bar backsquatting and power lifting. ;)

Now that we all understand each other, lets move onto the important stuff: ice cream. Thats what I'm blogging about, right? I can't remember if I'm supposed to be blogging about ice cream or oly lifting. I guess I'll just write about both today because I had a magical experience with ice cream on Friday night....

I had just finished a killer workout.. literally... Cj is trying to kill us... and I decided that there was nothing more I could ever want in the world than some nice, cold, delicious ice cream. So, I left the gym and proceeded to purchase a pint of ben and jerry's coffee and heath bar ice cream thinking that I was just going to take a couple bites and then continue on with my paleolithic lifestyle. but NOOOO I got home, turned on the tube which automatically killed about 80 brain cells, and ate that whole frackin pint in about 7 minutes. Let me just tell YOU.. that was THE best 7 minutes of my life... minus the loss of brain cells.. but its ok because I have plenty ;)

ANYWAYSSSS

tip of the day:

Some people have been telling me that they jump back when they snatch and clean. Is that good or bad?

WELLLL.. Ideally, you want to be jumping straight up and down. That tells me that your hips are moving vertically and that makes the bar move vertically and that's what we want to see. Jumping back is OK, but you have to remember to be Compton Hard.. aka really aggressive when turning that bar over. Think about it this way... if you jump back, bring the bar back with you. That is the only way you wont miss that bar out in front of you.

So, jumping straight up and down is ideal, jumping back happens, but never jump forward..EVER... even if there's a fire. If you jump forward, it either means that you swung the bar out, or that you banged it off your hips, or that you were extending with your shoulders forward, rather than having those shoulder back behind the bar when you extend. capeesh?

keep it sassy

im sorry, ok?!

2010-01-24T22:43:00.001-08:00

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

can you do me a favor, and like.. not talk for a second

2010-01-10T14:49:00.000-08:00

First attempt... stupid Nate..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65PgLczt25g

Finally got Nate to pipe down with the unnecessary gruntage while benching.. so here is a video of me demonstrating and BRIEFLY explaining the skill transfer exercises. In the future, I will go more in depth with each one individually, but here's just to get you started. Warm up your necks because ya'll are gonna have to watch it sideways. Im not so techno saavy and cant figure out how to rotate it... dont judge..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBSvncbbLRk

get ready...

2010-01-05T17:40:00.000-08:00

Its about to get sentimental all up in this joint...

Gather round and let me tell you all a story..

It was a dark and stormy night at the Invictus gym (not really, it was actually yesterday afternoon in sunny California) and inside the gym, there was me and M (my roomie and one of my favorite people on this earth) getting our pump on..cause thats just what we do when she isnt trying to clean and jerk me http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUj-3CL-aO4

CJ, who is pretty much the meanest/non merciful/greatest coach ever, was putting us through workouts (yes.. there was more than one) that a)made me throw up (literally..) b) made me truly believe with my whole heart that death was the most appealing thing EVER and c) despite how much i love him, made me want to punch CJ in the face until my knuckle bones were exposing themselves.

So anyways, we were doing these workouts from hell and I found myself slowly start to slip into my normal "I'm really doing bad. I'm getting a horrible time. I'm feeling sorry for myself" mode. I could feel myself falling farther and farther into that negative mindset and before I knew it, the workout was over and I didn't have time to snap out of it and "man-up" and switch back into thinking positive. So, the workout was over and I was stretching (which i never do.. BUT ya'll betta! ) and I was feeling disappointed not so much in my performance, but in myself for letting all that doubt and negativity consume me. I ended up leaving the gym, a place where you go to workout and release endorphins, shake off stress, and have fun with the people you love (all while feeling better about yourself), more upset than when I arrived.

I knew I needed to do some major self evaluation, so I went home and tried to think about what separates me from all of those amazing crossfit athletes that KILL workouts day after day. The first person that came to mind was my roomate and best friend, Michele, who competed in the Games and is officially the 23rd most fit person on the planet. I thought about how she came into the gym after weeks of not training and was still smoking the workouts left and right. And throughout her smokage (yes thats a word) a glimmer of self doubt never crossed her face. Thats when I realized that Michele looks at a gym and working out for what it truly is: a place where you go to workout and release endorphins, shake off stress, and have fun with the people you love, all while feeling better about yourself. She doesn't make working out her life and she DEFINITELY does not let her performance in a workout dictate how she looks at herself as a person (something I, myself, am extremely guilty of).

I guess my whole point of going on this rant is to encourage you all to not be so hard on yourselves. It's ok if you don't finish first in a workout. Don't beat yourself up if you dont get a PR on a day when you're maxing out. Don't put so much pressure on yourself to be the best ALL the time. Look around you and realize that you are with amazing people and you're just sharing one moment in time with them via working out. You can't enjoy the product, if you don't truly enjoy the process.

WELL! now that I have THAT out of my system.. I will answer one of the questions I got when I asked what to post about on this sucka..

"Why do I jump forward on the snatch balance? Oh, and how do I quit that crap?"

- When you find yourself jumping forward on ANY movement, it typically means that you are kicking your hips horizontally rather than getting them vertical. Us human beings generally think that, for whatever reasons, speed is generated through a stupid hip thrust forward. This is NOT the case!! You generate speed by jumping and shrugging and letting your hips pop straight up aggressively.

So, lets just say that you are jumping forward on a snatch. What that means is that your hips are going horizontal which makes the bar kick out in front of you and then you have to jump forward so that you are able to get under the weight. Bad Bad stuff.

SOLUTION!!!!!!! (too many exclamation points?) Get some chalk and draw a line on the ground (nothing more than a line because then you'll just piss your gym owner off and then you'll end up saying "Sage told me to" and then I'LL be the one getting in trouble. And if that happens, I'll be pissed) Line your toes up with that perfectly straight line and then do your snatch (or whatever movement you're doing) and focus on not jumping over the line. Usually that will get you moving in a vertical fashion rather than a horizontal one.

WHEW !! That was long!! THE END!

keep it sassy

2010-01-02T13:26:00.000-08:00

Happy new year everyone! I hope all of your new year resolutions consist of something to do with bettering your technique in the olympic lifts.

For New Year's Eve, my family did a talent show. Above, you will see a video of my brother Cody during HIS talent show. He is expressing himself as an individual by singing Bspear's "Hit Me Baby One More Time". We are all just so proud of him and hope that all of you will vote for him on a future season of American Idol.

Tip of the day:

If you are having trouble feeling strong in your starting position, or you are letting your hips shoot up too soon off the ground, try practicing regular AND snatch-grip deadlifts (or pulls) while standing on a plate or blocks. This puts the bar a little lower than normal and makes the movement feel WAY harder because your muscles arent used to being in that low of a position. I used to do these a lot because my starting position just always felt weak. No matter how many deadlifts I did, I just couldnt seem to feel confident pulling the weight off the ground. After I started deadlifting off of a plate, when I switched back to regular deadlifts, I felt way more solid. It just works all the muscles in a different way. While doing this movement, it is really easy to let those hips shoot up right away, really focus on keeping those hips down and keeping the back angle the same. Remember to feel a lot of tension in your legs as you are pulling that bar off the ground.

http://www.mikesgym.org/gallery/video/sagepullblks.mov

Here is a video of what Im trying to explain to ya'll!

Trajedy....

2009-12-28T12:59:00.001-08:00

A tragedy has fallen upon me.... My brother Casey and my sister-in-law Nat are moving away from me. They're going to a place where the women flock like the salmon of Capistrano. Going to a little place called ASSSSSSpen. Not really, but they ARE moving back to Colorado Springs. I just want EVERYONE to know that I do not support them moving away. I think they should stay close to me and have lots and lots of babies so that I can be an aunt and spoil my nieces and nephews by feeding them bacon at midnight and letting them play with PVC pipes for hours on end. (thats what all wannabe aunts dream about doing, right?)

Ok, ok.. in all seriousness, I am extremely proud of them for chasing after their goals and making the necessary sacrifices that will allow them to achieve them. They were accepted back into the Olympic Training Center as residents and will be training for the 2012 Olympic Games. Please keep them in your thoughts and using your telepathic powers, please send them all the luck you have.. even though they wont need it.

Tip of the day: One cue that my old coach Kartsi used to tell me all the time was "hands and feet at the same time". What this means is that when you are snatching, I want you guys to think about turning that bar over the same time that your feet hit the ground. This will allow you to create a "crisp" movement and a "snappy" one. A "Snappy Snatch!" (that should be a T-shirt!!)

This idea is even more important for the clean. You want to think about turning your elbows around the same time that the feet hit. If your elbows are slow AT ALL, you will not be successful with your clean, especially if its heavy weight. Sometimes, you may feel that bar crashing on you in the clean. That is because of slow elbows. So, to fix that, what are we thinking? Elbows and feet at the same time.

This idea really comes into play for most of the movements in olympic weightlifting. the jerk, snatch balance, power snatch, power clean, etc. So any movement that you are doing.. HANDS AND FEET AT THE SAME TIME!

Merry Christmas Ya'll!! eat your faces off

2009-12-25T13:16:00.001-08:00

Merry Christmas Everyone! Hopefully none of you were on the naughty list for dipping forward on a jerk or not pulling yourself under the bar. Santa is ALWAYS watching you work out.. remember that...

So, I decided that I'm not going to write a 146 page novel every time I blog because I know you all are EXTREMELY important people with things to do,places to go and people to see. I also do NOT want to get carpel tunnel. So, I will try my DARNDEST to keep em short and sassy.

In the video above, my brother is doing a "dive start". This is a VERY rare starting position. Olympian Wes Barnett did it, and was an amazing lifter, but not many people can pull it off. As a coach AND a lifter, I feel its really important for you guys to try out different starting positions. At our olympic weightlifting seminars and certs, we teach hips slightly above the knees, and shoulders slightly in front of the bar (and also above your hips),weight on the full foot, and with your head and eyes facing straight ahead (not down). This is just what we have found works for MOST people because it allows you to use your legs to lift that bar off the ground rather than just your back. Why do you think all weightlifters ever existing (minus me) have HUGE legs? Its because they lift the bar off the ground using their legs, which can allow them to generate a lot of force against the ground when they go to jump! However, you live your life the way you wanna live it and do what you feel is best... aka..you guys should try higher hips, try lower hips, try anything that makes YOU feel strongest and most efficient. We all have anatomical differences and you have to find the positions that WORK FOR YOU.

keep it sassy

work hard my nukkas, youre struggles make you stronger

2009-12-21T19:51:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to say that I see a lot of people getting frustrated with the olympic lifts, and I want you all to know that these movements ARE NOT easy. AT ALL. They take years and years to get used to. So just keep your head up, and keep on practicing. Realize that you are going to have your good days and your bad days. Whatever day it ends up being, acknowledge it, accept it, and go with it.

keep it sassy

you best get unda that bar nukka!

2009-12-21T09:55:00.000-08:00

Oh herow.. today I would like to talk to you about one of the most difficult concepts of the olympic movements: pulling yourself under the bar.

Generally what happens is we tend to get a great shrug and we reach full extension, and then from there, we disconnect ourselves from the bar and we try to "drop" to get under it. If you think that you may be doing this, stop IMMEDIATELY or you may as well put yourself on Santa's naughty list and expect zero Christmas presents this year. (Except maybe from your aunt Tibby who will always love you no matter what you do in your lifetime.)

So in the picture above, you see me in the "elbows high and outside" position that we teach you in the Burgener Warm-up. Keep in mind that we are teaching you that movement to drill into your brain that you are keeping the bar close. you are actually never in that position in an actual snatch and clean and jerk.

Let's play a little game for those of you who learn better by actually doing rather than just reading. Stand up for me, get up on your toes, shrug,raise your elbows high and outside. That is the position we put you in for the Burgener Warm up. Now, get up on your toes, shrug, raise your elbows high and outside, and now bend your knees. That is the actual position that you will be in when snatching or cleaning (after you have fully extended with that shrug) because this signifies that you are pulling your body underneath the weight.

You just never want to shrug and then feel like "omg i have no idea where that bar is in space right now so I'm just gonna 'drop it like its hot' and try to get underneath it as quickly as possible". If you get in the habit of doing this with light weight, when you get to heavy weight (lets say 200 kg because that is what you all are capable of doing), the bar WILL beat you down EVERYTIME. Lets face it, gravity/reality sucks..

So, in conclusion, you are pulling that bar off the ground and then you start your VICIOUS shrug and that bar is traveling upwards weightlessly with TONS of momentum on it. Now, you ask yourself, "Am I going to just drop under this mofo? or am I gonna remember what Sassy Sage's blog said and start pulling myself down (with those elbows high and outside because we dont want it to be out in front of us) and finish with a GREAT turnover?".........make the right choice.. we all have to live with the consequences of our actions..

Before you leave, go ahead and look at that video of my brother Beau. For me, I would have liked to see him shrug a little harder at the top, but, nevertheless, his pull under and turnover were so aggressive that it made up for his lack of shrug. (the only reason it did was because that was light weight for him. If he puts more weight on, he could NOT get away with a shrug like that).

Remember, its ok to ask questions. I dont expect ya'll to get this stuff by just reading it.

ps... just went to Lady Gaga's concert and magically became a better person. She's THAT good

keep it sassy

Peanut butter cup perfection

2009-12-19T15:40:00.000-08:00

I dont really have too much to say today because I'm feeling like a lazy bum, but I do want to share with you all one of God's greatest gifts to the earth...

PEANUT BUTTER CUP PERFECTION

Ingredients:

Chocolate ice cream

Scoops of peanut butter

2 reeses peanut butter cups (although I generally ask for one extra)

fudge syrup

love

You can find this at Cold Stone.

Even just writing about it makes my mouth salivate so much that I had to buy a new computer due to water damage.

Try it..its good for the soul.

Oh and it also guarantees that you will increase your snatch PR by 5 kgs.

2009-12-18T11:04:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning and immediately thought "The world is a better place since the invention of the breakfast burrito". Like seriously.. if I ever meet the mystical being who one day decided that he/she was going to put eggs, bacon, ham, (I add carna asada as well) all inside a warm delicious tortilla, I will get on one knee and propose to her/him. I guess, to me, it just seems like that would be the only logical thing to do in that exact moment.

Hokay So...second day of the jerk. We only have 3 more things to think about. So simple, right?

If you're feeling stressed, go break off a square of Trader Joe's one pound milk chocolate bar, take a deep breath, and remember.. olympic lifting is just a sport that allows you to have fun, get buff, and work on your multi tasking skills due to the requirement of remembering approx 230984209348 technical things all at once. Oh, and you also become a better person. It's a win-win situation, really.

So, we already know where the bar should be up on our shoulders, we know that our dip MUST be straight with our weight back on our heels to keep the bar from pulling us forward, and we know that we have to be "Tupac tough" when driving that bar off our shoulders with our legs. Now, the final three things:

4) keep the bar close to the face

5) fast hands fast feet

6) foot position

Let us, yet again, embark on this journey..

Some of you have heard me exclaim that while the majority of society only uses 10% of their brains, I believe that I possess the capability of using at least 87% of mine. Let me prove that to ya'll today with the following statement:

**the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.** BOOM!!! ...(it's physics)

Now that I have your attention, let's use that little piece of information to start us off on point #4. When we are driving that bar up with our legs, the bar path needs to be going straight up and then finishing slightly back behind the ears. So, you need to be thinking, "keep that bar close to my face" as it is traveling upwards. The first automatic concern is: "my mama gave me this chin for reasons other than hitting it with a barbell". Alls I have to say is... your mama will also tell you to move your chin out of the way, so you wont hit it.

You know when you are trying to give yourself a double chin and your head moves back? That's all you have to do when going to jerk and you wont get hit. And if you do get hit, just consider it a right of passage and move on with your life. So you knock out a couple teeth.. who cares!? That only means that you get to eat ice cream for the rest of your life. The main thing to think about is not pushing that bar forward/out in front of you. Sometimes we get scared and we dont want to commit to getting that bar back so we drive the bar away from us to a place where we can see it because that makes us feel more comfortable. Being comfortable is not gonna happen when youre dealing with heavy weight. So get pissed, drive the bar up keeping it as close to you as possible, and commit to it by getting it back behind your ears.

HOW DO THESE POSTS GET SO LONNGGG???

I am going to try REALLY hard to talk about these next two points with out getting sidetracked and bringing up unnecessary topics such as ice cream(even though I truly believe it to be one of the most necessary topics ever). *sigh* there I go again. Ok serious...

#5) really simple. You want to think about your arms locking out the same time that your feet hit the ground. I want you to be thinking aggressive leg drive, but don't forget that you have arms. You get that bar up to a certain height with your legs and then you want to finish by punching up with the arms fast and hard. If you do that, like I said, you will be locking out your arms the same time that your feet are landing. This will make the movement fast and snappy. Because it will be so fast, it will be easy to loosen up as you receive it. Remember to tighten up that core IMMEDIATELY so that you can support that heavy heavy weight!

#6) foot position is critical. If you look at the photo above you will see that hips are facing 12 o'clock and my feet are planted at about one o'clock and 7 o'clock. This is to make sure I am not moving all over the place while walking the tight rope. You can also see that I have a pretty long stance. I HAVE to have that, because I want to have a good base underneath me. If my feet are too close together (aka short stepping it) I wont be stable. Get a good base under you. Dont be afraid to really get that front foot out in front of you.

* A couple things to remember for your front leg: weight back on the heel, knee in line with or slightly behind the ankle. You do NOT want to have the weight too far forward on the front foot.

* A couple things to remember for your back leg: leg is SLIGHTLY bent and heel is slightly off the ground. You dont want to have the back leg too bent because when the weight gets heavy, its easier for it to drive you down because too much pressure is on the back quad.

*Most important thing to remember: all of your weight should be centered on your hips.

* Always recover half step back with the front foot, full step forward with the back foot. If you recover with the back foot first, it means that the weight is forward. And if it wasn't forward before you recovered with the back foot first, it will be.

Sorry these blogs are so long.. Just goes to show how technical these movements are. They're challenging. But if they weren't, we wouldn't love em so much.

keep it sassy

We all hate jerks...

2009-12-17T11:12:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBUP3NGYAXU&feature=related

I brought you all here today because we need to have a serious conversation. I know ya'll hate jerks (I'm talking about the "split jerk" that isn't really supposed to be called a "split jerk" because by just saying "jerk", you're really already saying "split jerk"), but I would just like to say....... get over it and start jerking the (insert vulgar word here) out of some weight DAG NABIT!

First off, please take a second and watch that video that I posted above of my superman of a brother and concentrate mostly on the jerk portion.. (this is where you stop reading for a second and re-watch the video). He's sick, isn't he? BTW..That is 484 lbs. Just sayin...

Anywho, I would like to break this shiz down for you guys. Jerks can be lots of fun if you get over the whole "there's this really heavy weight lying on my shoulders right now and I feel extremely awkward/uncomfortable and alls I wanna do it get it off of me, but theres this weird girl in mismatch socks screaming at me in a screetchy voice telling me to jump it over my head" thing. Once you can do that, you'll realize that it can be the most simple olympic lifting movement.

This post would take 80 hours to read if I went over the WHOLE movement, so I'm going to break it down into two days.

SO.. first couple things to think about:

1) bar placement on shoulders and your elbow position is critical.

2) the dip is what makes or breaks the rest of the movement.

3) you best drive that mofo up with your extremely ripped "Redwood tree trunks" legs. (or if you're like me, your extremely ripped "toothpick that they stick into sandwiches" legs)

Ok.. so it appears that there is a lot to think about, but take a deep breath and stick with me as we make our way onto this fabulous journey of learning how to jerk.

I'm going to explain the 3 points that I made above, in detail. DUN DUN DUNNNNNNN

1) If you look at that studly picture of my old man (I'm allowed to call him that since he calls himself that), you will notice that the bar is resting on his shoulder. His elbows are down and out, but slightly in front of the wrists. If the elbows are in line with, or behind the wrist, you will lose that rack position and will be holding that bar with your arms. You never EVERRRRR want to be supporting that bar with your arms when you are getting ready to jerk, because when you go to jerk, most of your power will come from your arms. If you support the bar with your shoulders/body, when you go to jerk, most of your power will come from your whole entire body. And we all know that our body is stronger than our arms (except for maybe that one guy whose biceps exploded). Also, notice how he has his whole hand on the bar. Most people try to jerk off of their finger tips and by doing so, have to adjust the bar mid-air back into their hands when it's going over head. That is just too crazy. Put your whole hand on the bar that you can create a more explosive drive up without worrying about the bar falling on your head and possibly dying (kidding.. kind of). SO! Bar supported by body/shoulders. Elbows down and out and slightly in front of the wrists. Hands all the way on the bar.

Are you staying with me? Don't fall asleep yet, we're getting to the good part.

2) THE DIP!!!! So, the dip is where WWIII breaks out. Like I said, you have this heavy a$$ weight on your shoulders, so when we go to dip, its natural for our weight to shift to our toes, our torso to come forward and then driving that bar forward away from our bodies. But that doesn't HAVE to happen, ya know. When that bar is on your shoulders and you are getting ready to dip, you need to be thinking "Weight back on my heels and torso stays straight up and down". I like to puff out my chest and then visualize my back right up against a wall. When I dip, my upper back and butt should stay in line with that wall the whole entire time. If I dip forward, my ghettofabulous booty will kick me off the wall and all my weight will be forward. So think about counterbalancing that bar pulling you forward, by shifting your weight back right before you dip. Stay stubborn with it, keep your chest up, and do NOT let that bar get the best of you. Get it? Got it? good.

We're almost done for today, I promise..

3) DRIVE MOFO, DRIVEEEE. This is where you gotta be hard. This is where your days of growing up on the streets of Compton will start to pay off as you drive this bar up with all the speed and aggressiveness you can muster. But that speed and aggressiveness needs to come from your legs, people. If you start trying to press that bar over your head with your arms, you might as well call it a day and go home and eat some ice cream. Your legs are what is going to get that bar up. Alls you are doing is JUMPING that weight over your head. You are trying to produce all the momentum you can so that bar feels weightless and you have all the time in the world to get underneath it (something I will cover tomorrow). If you dont drive it up with your legs, youre going to be trying to sneak under it, and the bar will beat you down EVERYTIME. (unless its like 15 lbs).

side note: when you are driving it up, remember we are trying to keep our chest up and our torso straight up and down throughout the whole movement. Don't have a great straight dip and then ruin it all by letting the torso come forward as you start to drive. Alls youre doing is jumping straight up trying to touch the top of your head to the ceiling.

I dont know if any of this stuff makes sense. PLEASE feel free to ask any questions if it doesn't. I dont want all you peeps out there scratching your noggins wondering if I'm smoking crack while writing these blogs.

keep it sassy

OHS-where you'll make your "chedda"

2009-12-16T09:57:00.000-08:00

Although my rap broke down the importance of overhead squats, I will further explain myself.

First off, let me just say that you should be able to overhead squat AT LEAST 20 pounds more than you can snatch. AT LEAST, people.

A couple things that the overhead squat does for you:
1) makes you hecka strong.
2)builds your confidence when doing a snatch
3)stabilizes the core
4)guarantees that you will find true love in the next seven days.

If you can hold a barbell overhead with heavy weight on it, comfortably, then you are on the right track. Its all about holding it with your body. Let me repeat that so I can make this more dramatic.. ITS ALL ABOUT HOLDING IT WITH YOUR BODY. Too many times we try to manipulate that bar overhead with our arms. We think that all those curls for the girls will finally pay off and we start relying on "muscling" that bar into place. If you do that, you will fail miserably and may possibly become a worse person. The key is to find the right place overhead (typically right behind the ears), and hold it there without letting the bar move ONE millimeter. You want to feel your traps, your lats, EVERYTHING pushing straight up on the bar. You need to be in control of the bar, do not let the bar be in control of you (deep... i know..)

WARNING: some people have a tendency to activate the shoulders by rolling them forward, as if to hide the neck. THIS IS WRONG. Try to feel your armpits facing straight ahead as everything is pushing up towards the ceiling. If we roll our shoulders forward, the bar will move forward and we find ourselves, yet again, holding the bar with our arms. Try it for me.. put both your arms overhead, now roll your shoulders forward. See how your hands move forward too? Now push everything straight up. Feel the difference? Boom shakalaka.

So, as I said before, a heavy OHS will make you stronger and more confident in your snatch (no, not that one.. Well, actually..maybe). Moving on, let's just say that you are overhead squatting everyday like a good boy/girl should do and you make a PR at 400lbs. What does that tell you? It lets you know that you are a badass and it lets you know that if you can just get under the bar when snatching (something I will elaborate on in the near future), you can stand up with that weight easily, and stand up with it feeling strong. That little boost of confidence can make all the difference in the world when attempting to lift a heavy a$$ weight over your head. (something that we all tend to have minor panic attacks over).

I can honestly say that having practiced heavy OHS for about 70 years, I feel way more stable when holding ANYTHING over my head. Whether it be dumbbells, a sandbag, a plate, my roommate Michele, I always know EXACTLY where to place the item over my head where I will feel the strongest. Its all because of practicing my overhead squats over and over and over again.

So just do it.. like seriously...

keep it sassy.

Soooo... umm..

2009-12-15T10:50:00.001-08:00

I really don't know anything about this whole blogging scene, but I'll give it a shot.

My main reason for starting this is to help people with the olympic lifts. I know they are hard stuff, but they are super fun once you get the hang of em! I love crossfitter's desire to learn about these lifts that have been apart of my life since I was in the womb (my dad had me lifting through osmosis). I'll do my best to break the snatch, clean and jerk, and many more fun movements that, despite how they sound, have no direct connection to sexual activities (sorry).

A little about me: I started lifting when I was four in our garage, which is a gym. ( www.mikesgym.org. check it yo.) Dont worry, I wasn't lifting a million pounds as a small child, it was only a broomstick. My 3 brothers and I would sit and watch the lifters working out and we would try and mimic exactly what we saw. My first competition was at 6 years old and after that I just fell in love with the sport. It became a HUGE part of my life and my family's life.

For those of you who dont know my dad (he is like the Britney Spears of crossfit..aka AWESOME) his name is Mike Burgener. Everything you hear me say, I learned from him. He is the best coach to ever walk the planet and has willingly shared his knowledge with me throughout my whole life. He is why I know what I know.

I've competed in a 2,345,675,674,456 competitions (roughly). Dont get me wrong, I was never very good at the sport, I just love it more than most. I love how it requires technique, confidence, explosiveness, grace, sassiness, strength, charisma. It tests you as an individual. It allows you to "see what you're really made of".

Olympic lifting has changed me in ways that I never knew a sport could. I hope through this blog, I can help you guys love and appreciate it as much as I do.

keep it sassy,
Sage B