12-02-15: Presses and snatch balances

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Wednesday, February 15th, 2012

Overhead press. Note the utter LACK of knee bends or leg action. The ONLY thing moving the weight is the upper body. Everything from the nipples down is locked into total support for the moving weight. Everything.

Snatch Balance. A slight dip (pic. 2) and re-extension of the legs drives the bar up, allowing time to redirect the body under the bar, catching the bar with arms fully extended. Fun fun fun...

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• Strength: 5-5-4-4-3-3
  Press @ 85% (110#)
• Skill Work: Snatch Balance (65#)
  

Push presses... you know, I don't think I've done these since June. That was my last PR at least, so I think that was the last time I did them at any sort of weight. Given another 7 months of work, I decided to up my work weight a bit from the original 85% of 115#, which would have been 100#. 110# instead, which was nice in that I then got to work in with Woody, a recovering distance junky. Between the work he's doing, and my making my way back from soccer and frisbee imbalances (upper body strength? Schwa?!), we both ended up at 110#.

I think I picked well, since the first two rounds felt like I had "one or two left in the tank," as 85% of 1RM should come out to a 6-7 reps. By the third or fourth rounds, fatigue was building up and I started struggling to finish the rounds. By the final two, the supposedly "easiest" ones (if you're naive), I was barely finishing. w00t! However, I was happy to make it through without failing any of them.

After that, it was on to working on the snatch skill set. I chose the snatch balance, since dropping into the bottom position is one of the biggest issues still facing my performance on the full movement. After several reps at 45#, I moved up to 65#, and instantly the struggles began. One of my big struggles is getting all the way down cleanly and quickly, compared to catching the bar most of the way down and "riding the elevator" the rest of the way down. I think I started to see some success, or rather, more success... still some work to do.

 Best song of the workout:

\m/

12-01-13: Snatches, sit-ups and snatch-balances

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Friday the 13th, January 2012

Iranian Olympic lifter Rezazadeh throws several hundred kilograms of weight over his head the way I through my daughter over my head.. only he makes it look easy. (Sweatpit)

Sage Burgener shows awesome snatch form. So awesome that in the second frame, during the explosive pull, she's actually transmuting time and space. Awesomeness. (CrossFit)

Snatch balance. Start standing up, end in a nice deep full squat, bar overhead with arms locked out and fully extended. (crossfit)

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• Strength: 10min
  
  • Snatch 75% and under @ 95#
  • Work to get under the bar
• WoD: 3 Rounds For Time
  
  • 20 Sit-ups
  • 10 Snatch Balance 95# 75# (First time seeing this video, and its AWESOME! Great coaching and tips.)

Ah, more olympic lifts! Today's goal was to work our experience under the bar, specifically finishing the snatch with the arms fully extended (rather than pressing out), and achieving stability in that extended position at the bottom of the catch. Hence, the lower weights, and the time to focus on form for each attempt. Rather than training at the squirrely edge of technique with too-heavy weights, the goal was to use weights we felt at least mostly comfortable with that would still pose a challenge.

Warm-ups with the bar felt fine, as did 65# attempts. Working through 75#, 85# and finally 95#, I began struggling a little bit more. I was really working on form, trying my very best NOT to just muscle the bar overhead, which at those weights I would have been more than able to handle. However, since that wasn't the point of the workout, it was more instructive to land on my ass a few times after a failed attempt than work too hard to rescue it.

For the WoD, we worked on the snatch balance, where the bar is held in the high-bar back squat position across the shoulders to start, then dropping under it as fast as possible, catching it with arms extended. This is really very difficult, especially since its way easier to initiate the movement by heaving the bar up a little bit to give the bar a little upwards motion prior to dropping under it. Of course, that's the heaving snatch balance, and not the same movement at all. Admittedly, by the third round, the heaving version was the only possible version.

Compared to the O-lifts, the sit-ups were basically non-existent, just some filler in between rounds of much harder, more awful (I mean AWESOME!) olympic lifts. The snatch balances were definitely the surprise hero of this workout, because even though I knew they would suck, they ended up annihilating me, making me wonder if I would make it through the workout or not. I've only done them a few times in the past, not including warm-ups with PVC pipe. I can only recommend them as a great way to work on the critical catch component of the snatch.

Total time: 10:06