A new month, a new program… The last training block was aimed very much at your general GPP (general physical preparedness) and we had some good results and built upon some already great engines. In this new six week phase we are gong to focus on your clean and press, rowing and a good old Crossfit girl called GRACE. We will have a 3 week adaption phase, a 2 week intensification phase and a week realization phase. This doesn’t mean we are going to let other assets slip – there will be a balance of strength workouts, breathing workouts and fun.
The clean and press, as you’ll know, is where huge heavy ass weights, 2x body and even 3x body weight in some case are lifted from the floor to the rack position and then shot overhead. It is a great exercise. It demands skill, power, detail and some good old fashioned courage. It also provides us with a great conditioning tool as it puts a lot a demand on you body in many different ways.
We have asked our main olly lifting man Callum for some tips.
Callum, hope you’re well. We are moving into a new training phase with a focus on the clean n press. You being the ninja you are could you offer up a few simple tips for our members to get them moving smoothly and in the right direction. Could you give me 3 tips that you think would be helpful to our members who have not done that much lifting: warm up, mobility, drills, equipment, timing, pants etc.
Lol, not sure I can comment on their pants, since my own are so revealing! But here’s my tips! For the clean:
1) Try and ‘press’ the weight off the floor with the legs, rather than pull with the back. You almost want to feel as if you’re using a leg press machine!
2) Get the bar right in against your shins at the start. You want the bar to be behind the ball of your foot slightly, which for many people is gonna feel as if it’s really close to their foot.
3) Finally, I’d really focus on trying to keep the arms relaxed, and to think about ‘jumping’ the weight up rather than yanking on it. That really helps.
For the jerk:
1) First tip for the jerk: try to balance yourself as if you’re going to jump. The weight should be mid-foot. For a lot of people that’s going to be hard to do. They want to feel the weight go through their quads when they dip, which can only be done if they’re balanced through the mid-foot.
2) Think about dipping in a straight line. It’s a real temptation for people to let their torso lean forward when they go for the jerk. That’s a big no-no! It has to be all through the legs the whole time!
3) Finally, this one is kind of hard to explain, but think about trying to keep the bar on your shoulders as long as possible. Another way to think about this is as driving right up onto the toes before the arms kick in. This is kind of code for ‘use your legs instead of your arms’ again–but it sounds fancier!
If you really want to crush your olly lifting tekkers Callum offers small group olly lifting PT sessions and a short lifting course. Contact [email protected] for more details.
This week’s focus.
There are some testing workouts in this week’s program so we can set some benchmarks to test against and build from.
Olympic lifting we have 3 olly days in the program. Please read Callum’s notes above and let’s get that clean and press sweet.
Strength: work on our foundation lifts keep to the tempo and work those numbers. Not so much about hitting max weights, this week it’s more about TUT (time under tension).
Our breathing sessions should be solid and consistent. Set yourselves up well and maintain, don’t start to slow…
WODs: there aren’t as many WODs as normal but still a good selection to enjoy.
Accessory work: DO IT. It’s very, very important
Let’s work.
This is part b of the October gymnastics phase and should follow on from