One of the premier web resources for Olympic style weightlifting is Catalyst Athlectics (here). Owners Greg Everett and Aimee Anaya are phenomenal coaches and accomplished athletes who together have built a premier practice. Below is an exerpt from an interview by Jerry Hill of Crossfit Old Town (here) titled, “Interview with Greg Everett: Life & death training and more” (here).
Jerry: When you speak of that Greg, working the snatch and the clean and jerk, you would work that sub maximally?
Greg: For a long time, yes. You know, initially there’s no point in taking a movement like that to a max. You”re not going to get anything from it. The way I look at it is this. You”ve got basically these four components here and the very first one is position. Then you’ve got movement, then you have speed and then you have load.
Load is the very last thing you get to. You cannot perform a correct movement from an incorrect position. It’s not possible. You can”t really add speed until you have a correct movement. You can”t add a real load until you have a correct movement at the correct speed from the correct position.
I think it is really important to lay the foundation and all the layers of that foundation in order and to make sure each one is dry before you start moving on to the next. It”s like people trying to hang curtains while the cement is still drying. It doesn”t make sense. It”s not going to work. With the O-lifts, prior to some degree of technical proficiency, your maxes are limited by technique, not power, so a max is not really going to elicit much of an adaptation, and it’s most likely going to cause an unnecessary technique breakdown, which will then make establishing that technical proficiency more difficult.
I realize people are impatient, I am just as impatient as the next person, but you”ve still got to think long term. Ultimately it”s going to be a shorter process because otherwise you are going to be, OK yeah I”m snatching and clean jerking, I”m maxing out all the time, but you know what? You”re still very limited by your technique because you”re not proficient, you”re inconsistent and you”re lifting far less than you could be if you had spent that extra month maybe or so really knuckling down on that technique work.
_____________
As Crossfiters we have a tendency to feel that our workouts are unproductive if we don”t make sweat angels, or nearly lose our perfectly paleo lunch. This is especially true when considering the relatively light loads that are needed when learning the Olympic lifts- the clean & jerk and snatch. After all, how much progress can be made with an empty bar? Well an awful lot if you consider the continuum of: Position>Movement>Speed>Load
_____________
Veronica stopped by to help Meg and Em work on their O”Lifting…Veronica will be stopping by on our Tuesday/Thursday Olympic lifting focus days to offer coaching from an 20 year vet of the sport.
Can ya believe it was Em”s first time split jerking!
Meg working on keeping tight throughout the lift
_____________
Jeanne and Alan showing that our parents can and should be Crossfiters
__________
Dave Leys, one of the original Crossfit monsters, recently made a trip to Zambia where he and a group from Mosaic Church (here) helped to build a playground for the local children. His full story can be read (here)