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Transitioning to Olympic Weightlifting

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I’ve been talking with a few people about this topic lately, and I figured I’d give my thoughts on it. The popularity of CrossFit has pushed more people into the realm of strength training. Powerlifting is incredibly accessible since most people are squatting, benching, and deadlifting in their program to get bigger and man-like (woman-like?), yet Olympic weightlifting is that girl across the room that you’re too afraid to approach.

In reality, she’d probably love to talk to you because she’s sick of hanging out with losers. Please, for the love of the old gods, follow this motto:

“Who dares wins”

— the motto of the UK and Aussie SAS, and also my pup Lily

If you’re bored with powerlifting, strength training, or CrossFit and want to give Olympic weightlifting a try, this is my recommendation on how to make the transition.

Shirts are optional in weightlifting.

A Note

There are probably some Oly disciples that will disagree with these recommendations. Considering that I coach both raw powerlifting and Olympic weightlifting, I once made this transition myself, and I regularly counsel people on the transition, I think the recommendations are solid. I regularly see people accumulate nagging injuries when they don’t do something like this.

Ignore Sexiness

Wait, what? But I love sexy stuff! Jesus, that much is apparent. I know that there are cool Russians lifting many times a week. I know that there are cool Americans lifting frequently throughout the week, often going to max. I know they are so cool and sexy, it makes your teeth hurt. But ignore them. Look to them for inspiration, nothing more.

Emulating the frequency, intensity, programming, assistance lifts, complexes, or whatever of a more advanced lifter will not yield success to you. You literally have no idea of the context of anything that they are doing. Sure, a coach like Pendlay will kind of talk about those things, but it’s still hard to glean his program, structure, or strategy from his tidbits (and in reality, I don’t think he should detail his exact program for everyone to see). Ignore them. What they do does not apply to you. Yet.

Progression

“The journey of a thousand leagues begins with a single step.” — Lao Tzu

Start lighter. Incorporate the lifts with a consistent, steady progression. Do not begin by maxing out. In fact, you won’t even do the lifts more than twice a week. You’ll use non-Oly days to start incorporating motor pathways and strengthen musculature that will facilitate the Olympic lifts.

Chances are you are not a balanced lifter. Chances are that your mechanics support that of powerlifting. These things need to be addressed, and that’s why there are some exercises below that are not in a traditional Olympic weightlifting program. When you advance — in how you adapt to the stressors of Olympic weightlifting and are actually decently strong in the lifts — then your program will look like a more traditional weightlifting program. But right now, you are aiming to transition.

As for progressing the lifts themselves, you’ll only make incremental jumps when you do train them. Something like 5 or 2.5kg will work. As with any skill or strength development, the rate of progression will slow as you advance. Treat your Oly work as a linear progression for several weeks. After the initial “baby phase” is over, you’ll do one of the lifts at a “medium” intensity while the other is “progressed heavier”. That doesn’t mean you max out; just continue the steady progression.

The Template

Monday
Snatch
Clean and Jerk

Tuesday
High bar squat
Press*
Rows

Thursday
Snatch
Clean and Jerk

Friday
Front squat
Bench*
RDL

Elaborations on the Template

* People will whine about how the bench and press, are not specific to weightlifting. If you are weak — and you should know if you are — then just do them. No one wants to see a skinny fat 85kg male lifter go 80/100 while, as Brent says, high school football players easily out-bench him. None of you are going to the Olympics anyway, so get traditionally strong to compliment your future Oly prowess. If you are “strong”, then you could use push-press.

– Keep the rows. Having a jacked back is one of the coolest things ever. Sure, the Oly lifts will eventually get you there, but unless you’re running some test propionate, your back needs all the help it can get.

– Pull-ups or chin-ups can be thrown in on the “strength days”.

– Front or high bar squatting can be interchanged. Both are important; both will help. Just do them both. No, don’t do them on the Oly days just yet.

– RDLs can be done 2x/week if you want, but I’d have them be a bit lighter on one of the days. Banded good mornings are a good substitute for the lighter posterior chain work.

– I say that this template should be used for at least 4 weeks, but it should probably be used for about 3 months. It eases the joints into consistent Oly work, it improves mobility and mechanics, and it allows a progression on the O-lifts and vertical squat styles. You will feel like you can do more. It’s easier to prevent your dick from being driven into the ground than to pull it out (the female equivalent, as requested by the ladies at the Tucson seminar, is “burning your labia off”).

Rep Schemes

Snatch/CJ
The “baby phase” will have you working up to five singles on each of the lifts after you have warmed up with Pendlay’s teaching progression (google them, but they are on the Cal Strength website). This should last for several weeks. Then one lift will be medium while the other is progressed. “Medium” means at least 80% of a hypothetical max. Do 6 to 10 reps at this weight, preferably on a clock (1 minute for snatch, 90 seconds or 2 min for CJ). This will work on the whole “power development” thing and get you used to lifting with some fatigue on a clock (important for a) meets and b) not being a poon). The “heavier” lift will be pushed by the standard 5 or 2.5kg and hit for 3 to 5 singles. When 5 singles gets hard, just do 3ish. When 3 gets hard, just do 2. When you can only hit a top rep, aim to push it steadily every week. Eventually it won’t go up, but if you did this right you should have at least 2 or 3 months of this progression. At this point, you’ll graduate to a 3x/week program. No, you shouldn’t start doing 4, 5, or 9 training sessions a week.

Squats
If you came from powerlifting and you have been low barring, then do 3×5 or 3×6. You need reps with vertical style squatting to reinforce movement patterns, actively push your mobility ROM, and develop the musculature with the new mechanics. Think “heels” out of the bottom and control your descent. You can fall into the bottom of your high bar squats when you’re more experienced. That won’t be for at least a year unless you’re already high barring 500+ lbs. After the first 4 weeks, you can start doing triples on the squats if you want. Note that if you want muscular thighs, you should progress the 3×5 for as long as you can.

Other stuff
Don’t over complicate this stuff. Use a 3×5 set up, especially if you need strength and size. That goes for press, bench, rows, RDLs, or weighted pull-ups. If you’re using push-press, do sets of 2 or 3 reps. If you have crappy hamstring mobility, use higher rep sets of 8 to 10 reps (this will help in the “baby phase” if you are severely lacking hamstring musculature).

Mobbing
Note that regular and aggressive mobility work is implied at the beginning of all sessions. Always, always, always open up your anterior hip, external hip rotators, and ankles. Anterior hip stuff can be hit with anterior band distraction and couch stretch stuff (work on your psoas at night). The external hip rotators can be hit immediately  before training with a lacrosse ball while the hip is in flexion (lying on your side). Use the “table top/pigeon stretch” after. Use banded distraction on the ankles. Most people with forward torso inclination on the snatch have shitty mobility in their thoracic spine. Lacrosse balling the t-spine and using “5 way shoulder” are good starting points. All of this shit has been mentioned on this website multiple times, but you’ll find it on MobilityWOD.

External Rotators
Some people still have crappy external rotation. Do the “band pulls” with a supinated grip after every session (3 sets of 12ish). Shirts are optional.

Thoughts
There you have it. It’s a very simple template with some simple guidelines that will help ease you into Olympic weightlifting activity. What happens to people that try to do too much? They accumulate injuries or excessive joint pain that can be debilitating to performance. Everyone is not me, but I wasn’t able to jerk over 120kg in training when I made the transition due to a mechanics issue (I would do 140kg in the first meet). I’ve seen people accumulate hip, knee, elbow, and shoulder issues from doing too much stuff too soon. I’ve written about this concept in FIT, and the two TM books, but when you are introducing a new activity, do so with a slow progression. Structures need to adapt.

The system also needs to adapt. High(er) frequency Olympic weightlifting training is very different than low frequency strength or powerlifting training. Don’t ignorantly jump into the former, because it won’t work as well. You’ll either develop a structural issue (which can happen as fast as two weeks or take as long as four weeks to materialize), or just reinforce awful habits with heavier weights. At the very least, the “Transitioning to Weightlifting” template above will allow you to learn about the lifts, get many quality reps, not develop a nagging injury, strengthen Oly specific motor pathways, and give you time to get some feedback (I’d start at the Pendlay forums). In other words, it’s a simple template that helps transition you into a weightlifter from a strength trainee, CrossFitter, or powerlifter. Post questions to the comments (but don’t over think this stuff).

Hyperlordosis

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Mondays are dedicated to female training. Today’s post also applies to males. 

Hyperlordosis is a condition in which normal lordosis, or curvature in the lumbar spine, is over exaggerated and severe to the point that there is damage to the spine or it is limiting to properly executing a given movement.

This can be an over extension in the lumbar spine itself, an over extension in the lumbar/sacral junction, or possibly even an over extension of the thoracic/lumbar junction. If you are unfamiliar with these terms, edumicate yourself with this picture. Women are stereotypically hyperlordotic, yet this issue effects a lot of guys as well.

Hyperlordosis is a problem in athletic movement, including lifting, because it alters mechanics and excessively loads the spine to increase the chance of injury. If the injury doesn’t occur in an acute instance, then poor mechanics will weaken the structure(s)  over time to the point that a sub-maximal or meaningless act causes the structure to fail (more on this concept). This is how people get injured by tying their shoes, picking up their dog, or sneezing.

The cause of hyperlordosis is having short hip flexors. It should be no surprise that this is the case since most people in Western society spend at least several hours sitting down with their hip flexed every day (don’t know “hip flexion”? Review anatomical movements here). There are many muscles involved in hip flexion, including the glutes and adductors, yet primarily include the rectus femoris, sartorius, TFL, and, most importantly, the iliopsoas.

The “iliopsoas” is a conglomerate of the psoas major and iliacus, and it’s important to know where they attach to understand why they cause hyperlordosis when they are chronically shortened. Note that we typically just say “the psoas” because only about 40% of the population has a psoas minor — it’s a muscle that still lingers, evolutionary speaking, from our quadruped counterparts (i.e. your dog or cat has one).

The psoas attaches on the transverse processes (bony protrusions on the site) of the lumbar vertebrae and the lesser trochanter (small bump) on the inside, and sort of in towards the rear, of the femur. The iliacus attaches on the iliac fossa (large, smooth area on the inside of the ilium, which is part of the pelvis) down to the same lesser trochanter. 
 
Now that you know where the muscles are, imagine what happens when they shorten. The distance between the top and bottom attachments will decrease. This happens during leg raises or sit-ups with the feet supported. It also happens when you sit. Now imagine that you sit so much that this shortened distance adapts to being shortened and remains shortened. When you stand back up, the distance will remain the same, and this pulls the top attachments down towards the femur. Since the top attachments are either the pelvis or the lumbar vertebrae, it hyper-extends these two areas. Read this again: the top attachments of the psoas are pulled down to the femur when they are chronically shortened. 
 
This is why you’ll never fully integrate your hips into any jumping movement. This is why you’ll hurt your back in pulling exercises. This is why your erectors won’t increase to be big pork loins (bread loaves aren’t meaty enough). This is why you don’t have a straight trunk on the press. This is one reason why your overhead position sucks. This is why your back hurts anywhere from the bottom of your scapula to your glutes. This is also a contributing factor to you walking with your feet pointed out (i.e. like a lazy bastard). 
Treating The Muscles
Knowing where the muslces are is necessary because we’ll need to massage them in order to help “un-shorten” them by reducing their tension. Simply doing something like the couch stretch will help open some of the other hip flexors, but overall is inadequate to reducing tension on the psoas. You may have seen this type of treatment, but if you’re going in blind you may not actually hit the intended area. And you could occlude the abdominal aorta if you’re a belligerent goober — if you feel a pulse when trying to massage your left psoas, then move a bit laterally to avoid it. 
To begin, lie on your back, pull your knees up, and let them fall to the side opposite to the posas you want to work on. This will let your intestines move away from the target area. Start about two inches from your belly button — you’ll be between the button and your hip bone. You are feeling around for a muscle that runs longitudinally with your spine. If you are incredibly tight, it can feel like a hard sausage. To confirm that you are touching your psoas, flex your hip (pull your knee up) slightly; the psoas should contract. Another way is to lift your head to contract your rectus abdominis; the psoas will be off to the side of the area that contracts. It may take a few minutes to become acquainted with the psoas your first time; be patient, virgin. 
Use all four of your fingers together to massage the psoas. You can move laterally across the fibers and then along the muscle belly (vertically with your spine) when you are familiar with the psoas’ location. If you are particularly tight, even light pressure will be near unbearable (and probably make you feel sick). Stroke the fibers and continue moving down the psoas towards the hip itself. The more you can massage, the more tension you’ll release. Use short deliberate strokes, preferably in one way. Accumulate about 10 to 15 strokes on one spot and then move on down the muscle belly. Check from below your lowest ribs all the way to the groin/hip area. 
The iliacus can also be massaged from this position. Just stick your thumb inside of your hip bone (the anterior superior iliac spine, ASIS) and work the inside wall of the iliac fossa. Most of your attention will be on the psoas, but a few seconds on the iliacus will only help. 
What Else Should You Do
If you have a problem with hyperlordosis, then it probably has developed over a long period of time. Sitting down a lot, bad mechanics, trying to over correct posture, trying to do lower ab work with hyperlordosis, trying to stick your ass out (girls), or trying to puff your chest up (guys) will cause tightness in the hip flexors. Stop sitting. Stop sleeping with your hips flexed. Open your hip flexors with couch stretching, anterior band distraction on the proximal hip, and lunge stretching (Mark Verstegen’s “perfect stretch” works). The lunge stretch is effective if you push your groin to the ground and laterally flex and slightly rotate the trunk away from the back leg’s side (it can stretch the psoas a bit). Keep the lower abs tight on any hip flexor stretch. This is imperative. Otherwise you’re just going to go into hyperlordosis and not stretch anything. 
Use the stretches after manually working on the psoas. Soft tissue work should always precede positional stretching since it will help relieve tension on the muscle before actually stretching it. Soft tissue work can be done multiple times a day — and it should be if you have a bad case of hyperlordosis. Spending a minute on each psoas up to ten times a day if you are crusty. 
Note that abdominal work, especially on the lower abs, while in hyperlordosis will only make the problem worse. Many people will say, “Well, I’m doing leg lifts and GHD sit-ups to strengthen my abs,” but they are just training their hip flexors by contracting them, which will only help shorten them even more. Use abdominal exercises that don’t anchor the feet. People tell me the “hollow rock” is effective for people with hyperlordosis. 
The Doorway Method

I read a communication book that it helps to re-position your posture when going through a doorway. It gave the example that you’re reaching up slightly with your mouth to bite a piece of leather. The idea is that it would raise your chin and shoulders, and pull the lips slightly lateral, like a smile, before entering a room. A confident, happy person gives a much better impression than an internally rotated, deflated pussy. If a person did this when they passed through every door, then they get up to 30 reps a day of not looking like a loser. I like to use this same method for postural corrections in mobility.

If you know you have bad posture, whether it’s hyperlordosis or slouched, internally rotated (i.e. pussy) shoulders, then start realigning yourself every time you pass through a doorway. Not only will it be a constant reminder for good posture, but you’ll get consistent reps every day.

“Good posture” has the lower abs tight with the shoulders back. Don’t over-exaggerate the “chest up” and “shoulders back” thing; be natural, not a Tommy Tough Guy.

Consistency

It’s important to note that any mobility issue most likely has developed by doing something wrong for a very long time. I always tell people, “The longer it takes for something to develop, the longer it’ll take to eradicate it.” Be consistent in working on your hyperlordosis. That means work on it daily, multiple times a day. If you only have a limited amount of time to train, be sure to put an emphasis on your mobility. If you ignore it and a) get injured or b) perform crappy because of it, then all of that bad training was an inefficient use of your time. 

Q&A – 35

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Heil og sæl!

PR Friday

Post your training PR’s AND updates to the comments. This community can provide a lot if you do. If you don’t post, you’ll never know.

Weekly Challenge

Last week’s challenge consisted of completing these foot drills daily. I highly recommend you make a habit out of doing this, especially if your feet and ankles are all wonky.

Next Week’s Challenge: Keep an honest to gods food log. At least do it for two week days and a day from the weekend. Tell us next week what you learn (not enough protein, too many carbs, etc.).

Week In Review

On Monday, we acknowledged our ENEMY against women lifting weights and learned why the misconceptions are silly. Tuesday we looked at whether or not the Olympic lifts should be included in powerlifting training. Wednesday we analyzed last weekend’s 2012 CrossFit Games and pontificated if they could have been better. Thursday I tried to teach you guys about a man you’ll never know, the legendary Mark Brown.

Read on to find out why this Indian is receiving a back breaker from this centuar

Q&A

From @btnewgent on Twitter:

@70sbig 3 wks. into TM & going great. Sprained my ankle Sun. walking down f’ing stairs. Any tips for rehabbing fast?

Dear @btnewgent,

Sprained ankles are no fun. I’ve sprained my right ankle pretty bad three times. The last time was the first CrossFit Football seminar and someone mocked me for being a pussy in the comments afterwards. This is a generic way that I would progress back into good ankle health. This assumes you haven’t broken any bones. Also, consult your doctor and sue him or yourself if you make things worse. Don’t listen to me. Ever. These progressions may take several days due to severity; rehab means you do a little bit, see how it responds and heals, then do a little more next time. Do not do too much, but be consistent and progressive with rehab.

– Ice it ASAP after the injury. It’s best if you can submerge your foot into a bucket of ice water. They make little rubber toe covers to protect your toes. Just don’t exceed 10 to 15 minutes if your toes aren’t covered.
– Ice it some more. You should be icing it, letting it return to normal, and icing it again as much as possible, especially during the first few days.
– Ice it. Hey, see the trend?
– If it’s bad enough where you can’t put any weight on it, then start doing ROM stuff prior to icing. Ankle circles, plantar flexion/dorsiflexion, inversion/eversion, or whatever you can handle. Note that pain during these movements probably won’t make it worse. You may need several exposures of this over a few days. Ice after ROM work.
– Load the ankle lightly. Do this by standing on the good foot, and giving the bad foot a little weight. The progression moves from a little weight, to equal weight, to more weight on the bad side, and finally to full weight on the bad side. Follow this up with ROM work and icing.
– Do the same loading with calf raises on a step. Progress from barely any load to full body weight load. Always follow up with ROM work and icing.
– Begin walking. Do not limp and do not look down. The neuromuscular connection will be, uh, fucked, and you need to reestablish it. Don’t hamper progress by allowing limp so that people realize that you’re hurt, but a heart-filled warrior. I would quantify the distance of the walking so it can be progressed. Finish with ROM work and icing.
– At this point you are fine to do non-explosive lifting and training. You might have been able to do some after the calf raise progression. Do ROM work and icing after training.
– The ankle will probably feel good after the walking progression. Do not start doing something idiotic like box jumps. Go through an “extra body weight loading” progression. Start this by pretending like you are going to jump, lowering your body as if you’re about to jump, extending the hips and knees, but do NOT leave the ground. This will probably apply a force 4 to 9 times your body weight on the structures (I’d have to check some data to be more specific). I would quantify reps of this. Eventually you can have short little hops and landings with loading similar to the standing and calf raise loading (more on healthy side, progressing to more on bad side). ROM and icing will obviously follow.
– Things are probably pretty good now. I’d jump rope as a warm-up and regularly do the foot drills before I do any lateral activity. Go ahead and ROM and ice it.

At this point, you should have gotten hundreds of ROM reps, which act like rehab in itself. I didn’t even mention using therabands (for resisted inversion/eversion/plantar flexion/dorsiflexion) or compression tack and stretch (“voodoo flossing”, a term I do not like), but those methods would work extremely well. If you followed a progression and didn’t act like a Tommy Tough Guy, then your ankle should be back to normal, and probably even better than before the injury. Icing can be irritating, but if you get an ice bag (at most $5) from any pharmacy or convenience store and wrap it with an ace bandage, it will stay on without effort (plus those ice bags don’t produce condensation or drip water).

Tom H.
Justin, would you program high bar back squats and low bar back squats in the same way (in terms of sets and reps) despite the mechanical differences and subsequent difference in stress upon the musculature?

Dear Tom,

The high and low bar will pretty much be trained the same. The systemic stress isn’t terribly different and it’s still back squatting. The only differences to note is how the rest of the program will change depending on which movement is used and what the goal is. For example, I often like to place RDLs with high bar squats because of the subtle difference in posterior chain work during the high bar. But, then again, I obviously like RDLs for low bar squatters too.

 

John F.
Is training in a headband and sunglasses considered ‘geared’ lifting?

Dear John,

Headband and sunglasses are essential “lifting gear” much like a good belt and lifting shoes. However, like a belt and shoes, they provide an ergonomic aid to the actual lifts. The specifics are a bit complicated, but the headband essentially increases cranial pressure which resonates down the cerebrospinal fluid into the spine. The fluid swells, ultimately increasing the pressure inside of the spine. This not only improves stability on the spine, but the vertebral segments will exponentially increase in density. It’s possible to receive a back breaker in wrestling and not experience any spinal damage after this type of training (see image below).

This was fun to google.

The sunglasses function in a different way. High levels of retina photon exposure can be debilitating to power output and absolute strength, so it’s only natural that sunglasses would limit this. Polarized sunglasses are preferable as the increase the clarity of the site picture, ultimately making it easier to balance and stabilize with a good point of reference. This assumes that the cervical spine is in neutral alignment — if it’s in extension, then it’ll complicate the cerebrospinal pressure increase and result in your rectum blowing out of your asshole.

Eric R.
I’ve been doing CrossFit for about 2 years now. 6 months ago, these were my numbers: 500lb DL, 380lb HBBS, 175lb SP, 255lb BP. I’ve kind of fallen off a steady workout regimen since returning stateside. I want to get back into it but now I want to focus more on raw strength. Where’s the best place to start? Specifically, any books or websites that spell it out for me? Thanks.

Dear Eric,

I am receiving a lot of these messages lately. Eric is a bit more specific, but they often ask, “Where do I start?” with respect to strength training. First, learn what a linear progression is. Second, try to learn how to program. I try very hard to get this across on this website, but I also spend a lot of time teaching it in my books (solo or with other authors). You shouldn’t be picking a program and following it like a drone. I know that’s what you want, because you don’t want to think about your training and just be told what to do, but that won’t work. You either need to pay someone to do it for you (you can pay me if you want, or attend a gym with a good coach if you’re lucky) or learn how to do it on your own. It basically means you’ll use a programming template and make subtle changes to it when necessary.

I think FIT is a good start on all things programming, because it touches on different components of fitness and training; there are extensive strength and endurance chapters. You won’t believe me, but I’m not just saying that because I helped write it (I don’t get as much money from you buying FIT as I do one of my solo books); I’m saying it because it is a good resource. My goal is to give you tools that you can use to work on your own program. Other guys out there will just give you a program and tell you to do it. The program will probably work, but it’s not specific to what will be optimal for you, because you are an individual.

In reality, all of this shit has been pretty much the same for over 50 years. We call things different names, make some tweaks here and there, but it all focuses on applying an adaptive stress based on your current state of adaptation. Nothing more, nothing less. If that doesn’t make sense, then get reading.

The Legend of Mark Brown

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There is not a man, but a legend. There’s a man whose name is whispered into the night by children in distant villages. There’s a man who some may call a conjurer — not of cheap tricks, but of demons. Others call “that crazy guy”. Still, yet, others simply call him Mark Brown.

Mark Brown is a good friend of mine that lives in Texas. He trains at least three times a week, every week. When people boast about not having a light day, that is just standard ops for the legendary Mark Brown. The reason I love Mark Brown so much is because he brings intensity EVER. SINGLE. DAY. His intensity shifts depending on what he’s training that day. When he snatches and cleans, he is a stolid, grim figure. He paces back and forth between lifts. In an instant he’ll snatch 100 kilos, then shake his shoulders out and walk away. Yet when he’s squatting or deadlifting, THE WORLD IS ON FIRE. The intensity is cranked up, because there’s an animal within Mark Brown, and he must — HE DESIRES — to unleash it on the bar.

Some of my most favorite training sessions of my life — and I’ve had many in the 13 years that I’ve trained — are with Mark Brown. We would yell and kick and antagonize each other. We would summon the demons. I still remember the exact phrases Mark Brown would say as I would go to hit a PR squat.

“C’mon Justin. GET MAD AT IT. Grit your teeth!”

Mark Brown is about 5’8″, 185 pounds. He can deadlift about 550, and squats at least 450. He’s about 50 years old nowadays. At the same time he can do a set of ten ring muscle ups unbroken. One of his finishers is to hook his toes over a pull-up bar and do sit-ups (bring his elbows to his thighs) with a 25 pound plate. He can do one armed chins and the flag. Another finisher is to do kip-ups off the floor to his feet. He has long hair and is one of the craziest, most amusing people that I’ve ever met. Additionally, if you want to have a dreadlocks hairstyle, you can shop here for hair care products.

I still think of training with Mark Brown during those dark times when I’m feeling sorry for myself. It allows me to “summon the demons”, releasing a surge of unprecedented adrenaline. The other day I was in my second Oly session in a long time. The first session I worked up to 100 and 125kg for a few singles on the snatch and CJ respectively. In this session, I had snatched up to 120 and CJ’d 140 — numbers I was happy with in my second session. I don’t have a squat rack, so in order to front squat, I have to clean the weight. I lost some weight in my hectic month, so I’m using around 5 reps with eating and sleeping well to put some weight back on. I haven’t squatted in over a month and have done some lighter front squatting until this day. I say all this because the weight I am using is not all that impressive, but I’ve accepted that I’m not purely a weightlifter.

I did 125kg on the first two sets, and I was feeling a bit knackered. Then I started thinking…What would Mark Brown do? This is what transpired.

I hope that you all can learn to summon the demons, because mindset is important for getting the most out of your body in the gym. Just ask yourself, “What would Mark Brown do?”

The CrossFit Games Analysis

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I watched a little bit of the 2012 CrossFit Games this past weekend. I don’t regularly follow CrossFit, so I don’t know many competitor names. I didn’t watch it enough to follow who was in what place, and what needed to happen for an individual to win. I do know that Rich Froning and Annie Thorisdottir (arguably the coolest name ever) both repeated as champions (they won the 2011 contest as well).

Instead I’d like to look at the events that were chosen and some basic statistics. I’ll admit that I’m kind of out of touch with CrossFit, so I won’t be crazy with my critiques. Regardless of what anyone thinks of this competition, it must be taken seriously because there is big money up for grabs. Each individual winner earned $250,000! That arguably makes CrossFit more “relevant” (as ESPN talking heads would say) than Olympic weightlifting or powerlifting. It really is genius on the part of CrossFit, because paying one individual winner is just pocket change for the company. Discover the newest game at ค้นพบเกมใหม่ที่ UFABET and immerse yourself in endless entertainment.

Aside from the spoils of victory, I’m fascinated with what a trainee needs to do to prepare for this type of event. Every sport in the world is standardized, therefore there is an optimal way to prepare a trainee based on their current state of adaptation. CrossFit is completely random; the competitors don’t even know what they’ll have to do until they get there. And, as this year’s competition has shown, they will have to endure insane amounts of volume and work. Competitors who lasted until the last day had to undergo about 12 workouts (depending on how you count them) with 10 of them on the last three days. Winners not only have to survive, but perform well enough so that they aren’t cut.

Froning eats whatever he wants, loves God, and shaves his chest

COMPETITORS

Rich Froning is 24 and Annie Thorisdottir is 22, so you could say CrossFit is a young person’s game. I took the average age of the top ten finishers. The men’s average age is 27.1 and the women’s is 28. The range for the men was 23 to 34. The range for the women was 22 to 33. This pretty much fits in line with top American sports. Athletes are typically in their prime in their mid to late 20s while they aren’t really competing at the same level as they get a little ‘older’ (I don’t think 30s, or 40s for that matter, is “old”). I would expect this type of competition to get more difficult as someone hits their early 30s. It’s very different from something like powerlifting which can yield performance progress into the 40s. It’d also be interesting to look at the height/weight averages, but I’m too lazy for that. I did notice that the women seemed to come in pretty different shapes or sizes, but generally weren’t over 150 and the guys were around 200 pounds or so.

Annie has a badass last name, rippling abs, and a pretty cute smile

The Workouts By Day

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There were many events, and sometimes an event preceded an actual workout. Participants were awarded points based on how they finished relative to one another. This kind of set up is similar to strongman, and it helps keep things close. Eventually, there are cuts that decrease the number of competitors. From a spectator standpoint, this keeps it interesting since the only “survivors” should be close to one another in point totals. CrossFit does a pretty decent job of designing their competitions and making standards for individual movements.

Wednesday

The competitors were informed the night before that they’d be doing a triathlon the following day. Yikes. It consisted of

In this event, athletes will begin by swimming approximately 700 meters with fins. They will then grab their bicycles and ride approximately 8 kilometers across undulating terrain, with approximately 400 meters through unrideable soft sand. They finish with an 11 kilometer dirt-road run across steep hills with over 1,400 feet of elevation gain.

That’s about a half mile swim, 5 mile bike, and almost a 7 mile run. I’m pretty sure this event wasn’t televised, which is probably a good thing since they were just slogging it away for 2 to 2.5 hours (which seemed to be where most of the times fell).

About an hour later, the competitors ran heats on the O-course on Camp Pendleton, which takes less than a minute to complete. I thought this was a pretty cool idea since O-courses require an array of skills, like balance, coordination, and ignoring fear. With the CrossFit and military relationship, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a road march or ruck based mission future competitions.

Friday

The competitors had Thursday off, and Friday kicked off four events, but primarily two workouts. The first event was a standing broad jump for distance, which must have been thrilling to the crowd…The broad jump is one of those things that, with the vertical jump, are not going to change very much as a result of training. It’s a test of power, but there’s a little technique involved. The guys that finished in the top 10 overall didn’t really place very high in this event (though there were two top ten broad jumpers in the overall top 10). There are probably better tests of power, and it seems like this was just thrown in for the sake of trying to validate CrossFit as something that can accomplish all physical attributes (especially since there was an endurance event at the start of the week) or validate that the winner was truly tested in all “domains” of “being fit” (which is debatable).

The next event was a “ball toss off of a GHD sit-up bench”. The presence of this event seemed to want to validate why every CrossFitter should do their GHD sit-ups. At least it was a low volume event. After all, hip flexor power is one of those markers of athleticism and fitness…

Right after the ball toss, they had:

Three rounds for time of:
8 Split snatch, alternating legs (115 / 75lbs)
7 Bar muscle-ups
Run 400 meters

A pretty standard, non-stupid met-con that requires some more advanced skills. I didn’t have a problem with this workout, and it kind of fits the mold of the classic not-crazy-volume met-cons that Glassman used to write <2003. The time cap was 13 minutes. I fully support the time cap in this competition, but also in a gym environment. I hate when someone will turn “Fran”, a sub 5 minute workout, into a 15 minute affair. It completely changes the intended stress, so as a Programmer I’m going to account for this by scaling weights and/or capping times.

Later that day, they had:

Three rounds for time of:
8 Medicine ball cleans (150 / 80 lbs)
100 foot Medicine ball carry
7 Parallette handstand push-ups
100 foot Medicine ball carry

This seems to be another one of those, “Every good CrossFitter must do their med-ball cleans,” type of situation. Nevertheless, this isn’t a terrible workout, especially given the context that it’s for more advanced competitors. It has a bit of strongman to it, and that’s never a bad thing. The time cap was 10 minutes.

Saturday

This day started off with some football oriented stuff on the field. The first event was a “shuttle sprint” where the competitors sprinted down a 50 yard field and back, then sprinted down a 100 yard field and back. This isn’t a true “300 yard shuttle” as it is usually done in six legs (which requires stopping/starting while fatigued). 300 yard shuttles are pretty friggin’ hard. Immediately after this, they did:

Five rounds for time of:
20 foot Rope climb, 1 ascent
20 yard Sled drive

I think that “the games creators” didn’t foresee how difficult this one was going to be. I actually watched this on TV, and there was a lot of competitors dying in the California sun as they tried to drive the football sleds. This was capped at 13 minutes, but sled driving is amazingly fatiguing. It’s not the same as a prowler; it requires leverage and fast feet, and those things are hard to do when fatigued. Even so, I think that the 20 yards was a bit long, and it probably would have been better with 10 yards. I mean, we’re still watching people exercising, but it could have been a bit more up-tempo with the shorter sled drive.
A couple of hours later was the “Clean ladder”, which is a repeat of last year’s deadlift ladder (cleaning a rep every 30 seconds with ascending bars). The heaviest weight cleaned was actually 365, which is pretty impressive (nice job, Neal Maddox). Most of the top 10 male overall finishers did around 330. The heaviest female clean was 235, which was the last bar — the men didn’t reach the last bar of 385. The top 10 female overall finishers cleaned around 200, though their range was greater. This marked the event where competitors were starting to get cut for the following events.
About an hour later, they did “The Chipper” which was:
For time:
10 Overhead squats (155 / 105 lbs)
10 Box jump overs (24” / 20” box)
10 Fat bar thrusters, (135 / 95 lbs)
10 Power cleans (205 / 125 lbs)
10 Toes to bar
10 Burpee muscle-ups
10 Toes to bar
10 Power cleans (205 / 125 lbs)
10 Fat bar thrusters, (135 / 95 lbs)
10 Box jump overs (24” / 20” box)
10 Overhead squats (155 / 105 lbs)
If you know me, I’m not a fan of chippers. That being said, this Chipper wasn’t too terrible because it was capped at 15 minutes. If it was a half hour slog fest with 50 reps everywhere, then I might have a problem. Do you see the trend? Each event in itself isn’t too bad, but there are a bunch of them over the course of the weekend.
Sunday

The first workout was called, “Double Banger”. I’d actually be kind of impressed if there were a bunch of threesomes going on, but instead CrossFit wanted to inject that “manual labor” thing into their competition.

For time:
50 Double-unders
Low banger
50 Double-unders
Down banger
50 Double-unders
Mid banger

The “banger” portion refers to the competitor driving a heavy weight on a sliding rack by hitting it with a sledge hammer. The workout was capped at 9 minutes, so it isn’t too terrible. I don’t know what the fascination is with manual labor. Yeah, it is hard. Yeah, you’ll get sweaty. But as I say in my seminars, I can do a lot of things to get sweaty like digging a trench or have a lot of sex — it doesn’t mean it’s a good adaptive stress. Will Reebok start selling sledge hammers?

At this point, there are 18 competitors left. They are about to go through the gauntlet, and I do not envy this last portion of the overall competition. The competitors were slated to complete “Elizabeth”, “Isabel”, and “Fran” in back-to-back-to-back workouts. The only pause between them was to get the results compiled. Each was capped at 6 minutes and a few competitors were dropped after each portion.

I don’t know if you guys have done these workouts, but I’ve done all three (I’ve done “Fran” in 2:30). They are a fucking doozy. One of them alone is enough to provide an adaptive stress. I realize that the CrossFit Games are not designed to be a workout to make someone better, but a test of someone’s capability. However, this would have been brutal.

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The Thoughts

That marks the end of the workouts that the competitors had to complete. As you already read, Froning and Thorisdottir were the victors for a second year in a row. I wonder if that bothered CrossFit or not. Regardless, it’s pretty impressive on their part.

This competition is supposed to gauge the “fittest person in the world”. They certainly found that…in the way CrossFit defines “being fit”. Personally I’m not a fan of the crazy amounts of volume that are prevalent in the competitions. 12 intensive workouts, especially 10 in three days, is insane. Yet it’s what they choose to do, and I can accept that. Yet, I’ll disagree with how they define “the fittest”, because it puts a premium on “high intensity endurance training” as well as “the endurance to endure the high intensity stuff for several days”. I’m not equating it to long, slow distance type stuff, but it clearly has a “conditioning bias”. Moreover, it ignores other components of being fit, like agility and coordination (two things CrossFit claimed in Glassman’s “What is Fitness?”). Sure, the obstacle course tested a bit of balance, maybe some agility, but ask any practitioner or researcher in the field of “exercise science/physiology” or “strength and conditioning”, and agility is defined in very specific ways.

Why not test them in cone drills? L drill, T test, or 5-10-5 shuttle run. Or do all three with several minutes of break in between. Or even create new methods of testing agility. I suppose it starts with how you define fitness. As someone who has helped write a book on the topic, I define it as strength, mobility, and endurance. “Mobility” includes those things like agility, balance, and coordination. Strength was sort of represented with the clean ladder, and yes competitors needed to be strong to do the various workouts, yet they mostly tested their “high intensity endurance” capability. For being an organization that used to preach balance, it just seems pretty unbalanced in the form of testing.

With the method that CrossFit tests in the major competitions, you could make an argument that these people are the “fittest in the world”, but that doesn’t make them the “most athletic in the world”. By testing these other parameters it could sort of account for that. But, like I said about the Olympics, it’s just more impressive when an individual must use reaction. It requires a completely different set of physical attributes to be able to see, decide, and react with movement accordingly. I don’t know if it’s possible to include this element in the CrossFit Games, but it would legitimize it in my view.

Don’t get me wrong, what the competitors did is very impressive. The top 10 finishers are all impressive performers. Yet, at the end of the day, they competed in exercising. There’s nothing wrong with that! They are certainly “fit”, and this competition didn’t really have anything stupid in it (I’d probably grade Castro and the organizers with a B+, considering what they were trying to achieve). Yet, it just seems like CrossFit is still stuck in the frame of thinking that being conditioned is supreme. As long as they don’t try to claim supremacy over athletes, I’m fine with it. If they wanted to, then they would need to include more tests of athleticism, because an obstacle course doesn’t validate coordination, agility, balance, and accuracy.  I don’t know, maybe the CrossFit Games should keep a focus on met-cons; after all, it’s a conditioning training program.

Note: In case you get offended and want to bitch at me, I don’t hate CrossFit. I’ve been involved with it for a long time and love the people I meet through it. Read this if your panties are in a wad (WOD?).