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Battle of London WOD#2 Tips #withmomentum

Posted 14th November 2013 by Josh Schouten

Short, sharp, hard and fast… but wait there’s more.   It’s a clever and nasty combination designed to smoke your shoulders, test your midline stability and then test your flexibility, speed and strength.

Warm-up

What can you hang snatch for 3 reps?  Honestly, do you know? This is the time to find out! Don’t leave it to chance, or waste W.O.D time performing light sets.  Warm up your snatch and perform your 3RM before the clock starts.  Once you know what you can hang snatch you can plan your attack. I’ll give you some more tips in this strategy below.

Don’t leave the STOH movement untouched in your warm-up.  The movement pattern you choose needs to be practiced and link together.  Test the waters and see how efficiently you can move the prescribed weight. Are you able to link all 7 reps, or will you need to break them up?  Are you going to push-press, push-jerk or split-jerk the weight?  Again don’t leave this until game time, get the movement sorted before the 3,2,1…GO!

With the toes to bar, I recommend you only do a limited number of reps and get a feel for the movement.  These puppies are quickly going to test your grip and midline strength.  Don’t overdo the warm-up here.

The W.O.D

Part 1

The combination of shoulder to overhead (STOH) and toes to bar (TTB) is the perfect recipe to put your shoulder and midline to the test.  Its not an overly difficult workout on paper, but these two movements are a tricky combination.

STOH

There are plenty of movement options to choose from here, but lets not overthink it.  The most time efficient way to bash out three reps would be a push press.  We have written about the push-press in a previous blog (Improve your fight gone bad score: push press) post and many of the same principles apply here. However, if the prescribed weight is too heavy for you to push-press efficiently you should push-jerk. If you can no lock your arms out quickly with the push-press I strongly recommend you push-jerk from the beginning of the workout.  You need to be able to lock the arms out as quickly as possible, there should be no arm pressing at the top of the movement, you don’t want to destroy your shoulders and elbows before the snatch.

NEVER DROP THE BAR, because you don’t want to clean it up.  If you need to rest during the movement you should do so with the bar pressed above your head.  Far too many CrossFit athletes rest with the bar in the front rack position, this is not a good idea.  With the bar in the front rack position your upper back, shoulders and arm muscles are working hard to maintain posture.  The weight of the bar is also crushing your lungs and being pushed against the airways in your throat (not that breathing is important, right?). If you must rest, lock the bar out above your head with your arms straight.  The weight of the bar will them be on the joints and not so on the muscles. Once you have a quick rest you will be able to take full advantage of the stretch shortening cycle from the eccentric loading.

TTB

Oh the JOY!  These guys are very deceptive, and in the beginning they seem easy. Many of us will be able to pump out the first one, two or even three sets of 12reps, but there will be a point when your grip, your timing, your midline, or all of the above fail without warning.  Be prepared to break the sets into more manageable numbers, do not go to failure or miss a repetition, as this will cost you a lot of time.

Many CrossFit athletes’ kip more than necessary while performing TTB . They push themselves away from the bar to reduce the range of motion needed in hip flexion to bring their toes to the bar.   Hamstring flexibility can be a limiting factor in hip flexion and excessively over-kipping allows the athlete to work around this.  However, over-kipping will place a higher demand on your grip strength and your lats.  Ideally you want to keep the kipping movement to a minimum and be as tight and efficient as possible.

Personally, I would recommend you perform a small kip that allows you to get you knees to your elbows (K2E) with bent legs.  Once you knees reach your elbows you kick your legs up to touch the bar.  As soon as your feet hit the bar you need to try to bend your knees and keep you legs as close to you body as possible on the way down.  If your legs are straight during the eccentric phase of the movement you will place greater load on your abdominal muscles (the longer the leaver and greater the distance from the fulcrum the higher the load).  Stay tight, stay compact and limit the kipping to produce the most efficient and effective TTB.  Throughout the movement your eyes should stay fixed on the horizon and you should not let your torso lean back.

Forearms like Popeye – The pump in your forearms is going to affect your snatch attempts later in the game, so it’s important to get your grip right.  Carl Paoli talks about grip strength in a number of his videos.  He gives away some very insightful information about hand position on the bar. “Place your pinky knuckle over the bar,” as this you will force the shoulder into a stable externally rotated position.  If you can gymnastic hook grip the bar I would recommend it. If not, you can simply place you thumb and fingers over the bar with the pinky knuckle on top of the bar.  Gripping the bar correctly will improve the shoulder stability, minimize the demand on the grip, create more tension in the shoulder and therefore produce a more efficient movement.  Not to mention the decreased chance of injury during all hanging movements.

Always chalk your hands for TTB!

Part 2

The hang snatch for 3RM is simply a question of speed and getting under the bar as fast a possible.  Always use an Olympic hook grip to secure the bar tightly in your grasp.  For each rep you need to make sure you are in the best hang snatch position to produce a powerful drive, keep the bar close and pull yourself into an overhead squat.  Pop and drop!  You need to make full use of the limited range of motion you have to hang snatch the bar form above the knees.  I would recommend:

  • From the standing position you should lower the bar to just above your knee height by pushing your hips back and placing your shoulders over your toes (keeping your shoulders in front of the bar).  This will give you maximum leverage to drive the bar as high as possible during the pull.
  • Move the bar as fast as possible by driving your heels into the floor, your knee’s back and down and your hips up and forward. As soon as your hips fully extend you need to keep the bar as close to your body as possible. Think of pulling the bar to your chin and keeping your elbow high.
  • Immediately after your hips extend you need to pull yourself under the bar with as much speed as you can generate. Make sure you land on your heels when you catch the bar in the overhead squat.
  • You MUST stand up fully and lock your your hips and knees for the repetition to count.  When you get the bar overhead don’t waste all your hard work by not completing the movement standards.
  • As you lower the bar between reps you need to keep it close to your body and try to cushion the landing by bending you knees and hip on impact with the thighs.
  • Rest and go again.

Strategy

The first part of the workout is a race against the clock and a test of your grip and midline stability.  You’ll be surprised at how much the TTB will affect your subsequent STOH repetitions.  Stay focused on your midline and your pressing form.

Make sure you complete all 7 reps of the STOH without dropping the bar.  There is no reason to put the bar down; 7reps can be completed even if you need to rest in the lockout position. ONLY DROP THE BAR AFTER ALL REPS ARE COMPLETE

TTB endurance is a lesson we all need to learn the hard way.  As mentioned above, the first couple of rounds may seem easy, but as the W.O.D continues your skill will be tested.  If you start to struggle you need to eject before you fail a rep.  Be smart and start to break the TTB up when the fatigue starts to set in.  Even if you can only complete 2-3 reps at a time, keep moving forward and make every single rep count.

Once you finish part 1 you should check the remaining time and plan your snatch attempts. There should be more than enough time on the clock to rest for 2minutes before even attempting your first 3RM hang snatch.  Recovery is critical since you’ve already tested your 3RM hang snatch in the warm-up you know what you are capable of.

Personally, I did my first attempt 5kg lighter than the 3RM I managed in the warm-up.  I wanted to make sure I got a successful score on the board before trying to repeat my actual 3RM.  I still had plenty of time to rest (2minutes) and then perform a second and third attempt at a 3RM.  I managed to repeat my 3RM score and then tried to increase it by 2.5kg.  No luck on the third attempt.

 

Good luck!!