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Today begins the first phase of our off-season process. I’ll go into more detail over the next few days, but I wanted everyone to be on the same page and understand exactly where we are.

We’re going to run an entire 4 weeks of nothing but Snatches and Cleans from blocks of differing heights. We won’t perform the full lift until sometime next month. We will also take the total amount of reps on each of the lifts up, because the loading will drop 10-30% depending on how clean your technique is. It would behoove you to build, steal or borrow some blocks immediately. I will be posting instructional videos to help with the process. Many of you are completely new to the lifts or different versions of them, and we’ll try to do what we can to help you understand a few keys to each one.

Yes, we’ll be running a squat cycle starting this week also. I’m going to go back to the original cycle I used last off-season, with the addition of bi-weekly High-Bar work. Also, and I’m incredibly excited about this, we’re going to replace one of our heavy pulling days with a traditional Dynamic Effort Deadlift day, and we’ll be using a fairly easy band setup which everyone should be able to use. This is an opportunity for my inner super-nerd to come out, and be allowed to use all of you as my control group.

That’s all you get for right now. Please don’t pepper the comments with a million questions about the exact details of what we’ll be doing. I’ll be trying to explain everything over the coming weeks, and you’ll just make LGA mad anyway.

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Dumb, and some not so dumb, feats of strength from the 2012 Games Training Camp:

1) BP with the most confusing lift in the world.

http://vimeo.com/43795798

 

2) The ladies and their big balls (see what I did there).

http://vimeo.com/43796246

 

3) Elisabeth’s 185# Snatch.

http://vimeo.com/43796695

 

4) BP 185# Log Clean & Jerk.

http://vimeo.com/43796892

 

 

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WOD 120611:

BB Gymnastics

1) 7X2 Snatch off High Blocks – heavy but fast, rest 60 sec. Demo 1 – Demo 2

Notes: Blocks should raise the bar to somewhere between the knees and the pockets. DO NOT push the knees forward, on the other side of the bar, and allow the torso to raise into a vertical position. The barbell should be directly under the shoulder blades, with the knees only slightly in front of the bar when starting off blocks. Make sure to set the back before pulling, load the hamstrings, and DO NOT jump forward. If jumping forward is an issue make sure to finish pulling the bar all the way to the pelvis and keep the heels loaded until the last possible second.

2a) 4X3 Snatch High-Pulls – heavy, rest 60 sec.
2b) 4X3 Drop Snatch – medium/heavy and fast, rest 60 sec.

Notes: Drop Snatch definition courtesy of Catalyst Athletics: “Sometimes used synonymously with snatch balance, the drop snatch is actually slightly different. While in the snatch balance, the athlete uses a dip and drive of the legs to unload the bar momentarily before driving under it, in the drop snatch, the athlete must drive under the bar with no upward push at all. This greatly limits the loads that can be used in the exercise, and as a consequence, limits its utility. It’s more appropriate as part of a warm-up or to be used while progressing up toward heavier snatch balances.”

Strength

1a) 4X8 Weighted “Strict” GH Raise – heaviest possible, rest 60 sec. (no swing, start from a position parallel to the floor) Demo Video
1b) 4X3 BB TGU – heaviest possible, 3 each arm, rest 60 sec.

Conditioning

5 Muscle-Ups
Row 100m
4 Muscle-Ups
Row 200m
3 Muscle-Ups
Row 300m
2 Muscle-Ups
Row 400m
1 Muscle-Up
Row 500m

NOT for time.

Notes: This entire effort should be performed at approximately 80% effort. Do not redline, but do not be lazy.