12-01-26: Death by Clean & Jerk

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Thursday, January 25th, 2012

Sage Burgener cranks through a perfect clean and jerk (the full version) with the bar coming from the floor, the catch in the full squat, etc.

Natalie Burgener bangs out a clearly awesome clean and jerk. Again, note that this is the full version.

A focus just on the jerk, with the dip and the re-extension to drive the bar up, allowing the athlete to drop under the bar with arms extended.

An insanely heavy (to me, and probably most people) clean. The technique of dropping under the bar and catching in the full squat means that you don't need to lift the bar as far. So, technique means you don't need to do *as much* work (as you would with crappy form) to get the bar on your shoulders.

Having stood up with the bar on the shoulders, there is another dip-drive, and the split (again) gets the body under the bar, so it doesn't need to be lifted as far. Technique equals efficiency, which means less total work per lift.

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• WoD:
  • Death by Clean and Jerk @ 65% (100#)
• Sell-out:
  • Skill work

Very simple: Minute one, one clean and jerk. Minute two, two clean and jerks. Continue 'til ya can't. The only spin on the rules was this: After the round where you reached inevitable failure, you had to rest the following minute, then start back down the ladder, the same way you came up, UNTIL the final athlete finished in failure. So, if you made it to three reps on the third minute, and failed in the fourth minute (perhaps only completing three reps), you would rest for the fifth minute, then in the sixth, start at THREE reps, then in the seventh minute, two reps, one rep in the eighth, and (should things come to that), work back UP the ladder. (It turns out, that last part would be unnecessary.)

We were given the choice of doing either the full squat clean, the power clean, or the hang power clean. Knowing that my form would probably crap the sheets just about the third round, I opted for the less skill-intensive hang power clean. Just for poops 'n' grins, I started each round with a power snatch from the floor. They felt ok, but very quickly, the fact that I'm at the limits of my forearm flexibility in the catch position of the clean started catching up with me. After the getting the bar onto my shoulders, the transition time to getting set to get it overhead grew longer and longer...

While the 6th rounds six reps took me all of 30 seconds, in the 7th round, it took me nearly the full minute, leaving me screwed to finish the seventh rep in time. I ended up having to rest in the 8th round, then started my way back down the ladder with six reps in the 9th minute. There was some confusion as to whether there WAS a ninth minute, as the person who had lasted the longest didn't actually complete round 9. Screw it, I finished my six reps to start on the way back down.

Round	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Total
Reps	1	2	3	4	5	6	6	rest	6	33

For skill work, I worked on a few different things. For the first, I banged out 34 push-ups (in 4 rounds), to get ahead in a facebook thing where for everyone who liked a status, i would do a push-up. 48 likes the last time I checked, and 34 tonight brought me to a total of 50. Much better than some other facebook denizens who, being way more popular than me, ended up owing 3,000 or more. Suckers.

Then, it was on to the joy of double-under practice.  As usual, I had no idea going in if they would chain or not. For the most part, they did not. But, several serious welts later, they did start coming together. Near as I could tell, I tend to rush the spinning of the rope, making the double-unders even harder than they need to be. Stupid me.

Finally, it was on to a little work on kipping pull-ups. I haven't worked on my kip since leaving NYC what, eight months ago? No good. So, a little work on the basic swinging motion... until my palms felt like they were on fire. I *had* just done a bit of barbell work, after all. :-/ It's important to not be this guy:

11-06-10: Death by Deadlifts and 10m runs

Elm City Crossfit WoD for June 10th, 2011

Deadlift starting postion. Shoulders above the hips, hips above the knees. Alternate grip is optional (I prefer to save it until the weights get really heavy, to actually work my grip as much as possible.) (games2008.crossfit.com)

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Death By:

• Odd # Rounds - Deadlift @ BW% 185#
• Even # Rounds - 10 Meter Run

(1st minute, 1 deadlift, 2nd minute = 2 10m runs, 3rd round = 3 deadlifts, 4th minute = 4 10m runs, etc...)

With a nice case of system-wide soreness (presses, kettlebell swings and front squats, plus some new warm-up motions), I showed up for my 3rd day at Elm City Crossfit. Deadlifts and some running. In a ladder, which means it starts off pretty easy, cruises along for a few rounds, then suddenly starts sucking. Hard. Today would be no different.

After nice thorough roll-out and warm-up, we reviewed and warmed-up our deadlifts. I jumped from 95# to 135# easily, and opted to do the workout at 185#, as we were encouraged to scale for the hellishness of the ladder. Its arguable that I should have gone a little lighter, perhaps 155#, but in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't the weight that caught up to me, it was my complete and utter lack of lungs.

Warmed-up and ready to go, we rolled our barbells out the door, and lined up in the parking lot. With Coach Vin shouting out the minutes and rounds, we started out. As always, the first 5-6 rounds were stupid easy. This is where globo-gym guys start laughing, not realizing what's really happening: as the minutes climb, the number of reps goes up while the time to recover effectively gets shorter. If you're me, and your initial wind capacity sucks and your recovery time is long, this kicks in much faster than for anyone else. ;)

Rounds 9 and 10 were starting to get hard, and I was already garnering some extra coaching for my ever more craptastic back position in the deadlift. As I fatigued, I started to make (at least) two glaring mistakes: 1) I would set-up with a rounded back, unable/unwilling/unaware to get my butt low enough to allow for a well-arched lumbar curve, or 2) Pull the weight off the ground in the wrong order, opening my hips first, rather than after the legs had straightened. Basically, your hopefully rock-solid back position and angle should stay immobile during the first stages of the lift, only straightening up after the weight has cleared your knees. I was firing up way earlier as I started fighting more for air than for mechanics.

Part of the problem was definitely my legs, my quads especially. As I would try to settle into the correct position, my quads were just screaming at me (good, I can fight through it) or oddly numb (bad, because that's terrifying), probably depending on my technique during the running. I'm not entirely sure. All I know is that when they hurt, I could just sink into the position, and use it as a stretch for a moment. When they were feeling numb, I had NO feedback from my body, leaving me guessing (apparently poorly) as to where and how I was setting myself up.

I finished the 12th minute (120m of running) really sucking wind, and was barely able to string together 3-4 deadlifts at a time.  I had just completed my 10th when the timer sounded to start the 14th minute, effectively ending my workout.  I was the first one out, but only by a minute or two. I don't remember if anyone failed the 140m running, but 3-4 people didn't make it through the set of 15 deadlifts. So, I had that to be thankful for, as comparisons go!

Death By Deadlifts and 10m Runs: 12 rounds & 10 deadlifts.