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Katie's weighted overhead walk

So ends another strength cycle at CFSBK.  Our movement pool for the last month was comprised of Hang Snatches, Front Squats and Handstand Push-ups.  Did you improve your capacity in these movements?  How many exposures of each exercise did you train?  Where do you see room for the most improvement?
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Poland's National Weightlifting Team Training Footage Part 1 of 10

Comments

  1. Hang Snatches – made all four exposures. First one went well, got up to my old PR of 95, so I felt encouraged. Second exposure went to pieces, and I took a step backwards as I failed repeatedly on 85s and 95s. Third exposure went off well and I did the 95×10 workout reasonably well. Fourth exposure came after I had hurt my shoulder over the weekend so I could only get to 105 as I was feeling a bit tentative:

    Overall Grade: Frustrating, though I felt I made some progress on getting a slightly better feel for this lift. I’m still coming down too wide, and getting under way too slowly. I don’t think, either, that I have the full shrug happening yet.

    Front Squat: Made all the eight exposures and finished with a 15lb PR. I have a question: why were we only doing triples and variations like “squat on the minute”, and no quintuples? Is that something particular to the front squat?

    Overall Grade: Happy about the PR, but I feel like this lift got really heavy really fast – I had honestly thought I would be able to get more than 215 (hence my curiosity about the volume of the sets we did).

    Handstand PU: Missed two exposures due to injury and ended up doing DB presses yesterday. Made some progress on getting vertical and even did a few HSPUs with spotters.

    Overall Grade: Fail. Galling to still be doing subs. I feel like I have the strength to do a few PUs but don’t have the vertical bit down.

  2. When programming Front Squats for dedicated lifting exposures, we tend to favor singles, doubles or triples. One reason we do this is that there is generally more transference to heavy cleaning which is also usually done as singles double or triples within a pure weightlifting context. Also, when lifting maximally, after three reps the integrity of the rack position tends to fall apart pretty quickly.

    That being said, I don’t think theres anything necessarily “wrong” with doing Front Squats for 5’s, it’s just that we get a little more bang for our buck sticking to lower rep schemes

    I will note that this is all related to Front Squats and cleans being used as strength/power builders. In conditioning workouts, you’ll see these used at much higher rep schemes but with much less weight.

  3. Front squats for 5+ reps I’ve noticed really fatigues the glutes and the midsection a lot more than doubles and triples, assuming you go heavy enough and maintain form integrity, but that’s the caveat there. Most people you encounter outside of weightlifting aren’t going to have the FS integrity to maintain that rack position well enough.

    I’ll put it out there as a “challenge” to increase your FS technique in order for you to try a few sets of 5+ reps and experience some new midsection/glute soreness. Props if you can beat this guy:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkK9-mnDAy4

  5. Michelle – It’s 10:30am. Put the tequila down and walk away.

    ————–

    Samir – What Dave and Brian said. Plus (tough love time…) a 15 lb PR on the FSQ and a 10 lb PR on the Snatch, both ~10% better than previous PRs? Be happy dude. Be freaking happy with that progress. Also realize that MANY folks will sub at least some of our movements, some will sub many. You’ve made some pretty good progress in the gym lately (and judging from the accomplishments board, outside as well). Don’t be that guy who is never happy with his performance and always beating himself up over it. You, like some other folks, are better than you like to give yourself credit for. Recognize that. Please take this as a virtual pat on the back.

    ————–

    /steps off of soap box/

    ——————-

    As for myself, I am happy with how the 3 movements went for me this cycle. I hit all the exposures except one on the FSQ and made progress in both lbs and comfort with them. I never really did HSPUs outside of a WOD so didn’t know what to expect yesterday but was pleased with how I did. Snatch has the most room for improvement and I’ll continue to snatch a few days a week to reach potential. Front squat is a WEAK lift for me that I’ve avoided in favor of back squatting for a while so I was most pleased with how I did there.

    Looking forward to this weekends WODs (1 of which I am certainly scaling down!) and then a back off week.

  6. @David, Brian: Thanks; that clears up things considerably. (Like one of the commenters on that YouTube video, I was tempted to say, “Hey, I can frontsquat 200..oops, you mean 200 kilos? Never mind”). While on front squats, I’d say I found the new stretch for the shoulder very useful.

    @Chris: Thanks – I’ll take whatever kind of love I get. Heard you (I know you’ve said something like that to me before).

  7. Is that Katie? or a Mutant Turtle? Nice shot!

    October was a crappy month for me, consistency-wise, which is a particular bummer since I missed almost all of September. Work travel + wonky knee = lots of missed exposures. I got 1 snatch exposure, 3 FSQs, and (happily) 4 HSPUs.

    So for snatch I certainly didn’t see any performance gains but I do think every little bit helps in terms of learning this movement, so I’m happy to have learned some more tools in that regard (snatch balance, my new friend…). For FSQ, I did the 2-reps-on-the-minute WOD today at 135# and it was HARD. My previous 3RM is 155#, so I’m not sure where I stand. But again, I’ve learned some more tricks to doing the movement correctly, and that’s always good.

    HSPUs were the big win for me this time. I can actually see myself doing one someday, whereas before I really couldn’t. I loved all the high-volume stuff we did in WODs, and really got better at them as the cycle went on. Yippee!

  8. made up FSQ 175, 185pr, 195pr, 200f, 200f

    snatch continues to be a slow climb for me. Made all exposures. Had one break through workout snatch pull/ hang snatch on minute 95×5, 100×5, 105×5. proved to be an anomaly. single rep max was 105 and ugly.

    but HSPU rocked. I went from abmat to scaling up. eager to do a max rep to benchmark.

    FSQ also went well. went from 165 to 195! made all exposures.

    This was also my first paleo cycle and i do feel strong and energetic.

    Im very pleased. thanks coaches!

  9. My consistency was pretty bad this cycle–I think I made 6 of the FS WODs and all the snatches, but managed to miss all but one of the HSPUs. I don’t like to think that I’m picking and choosing, but I guess I’m making up the lifts I like and avoiding what I don’t. Oops.

    I got a 5# PR on the front squat and 2# on the snatch. Really happy with both of those, especially because my form is so much better on the snatch so I bet there’s more easy gains to be made there. The on-the-minute workout was really really helpful.

  10. Apparently lifting when not surrounded by the bad@sses in the strength cycle take 10-20 pounds off all of my lifts. Alas.

    Back SquatWarmup: 45×5 95×5 135×5 185x5Work: 215×5 215×5 215×5

    PressWarmup: 45×5 75×5 97x5Work: 115×5 115×5 115×5

    Deadlift:Warmup: 135×5 225x5Work: 295×3+F(PR) 275×2

    Deadlift would have been a PR for 5. I was too stubborn to back it down like I did the other lifts. After failing on the 4th rep at 295, I pulled off the 10s and did the last 2 at 275.

    Accessory Work5 rounds7 dumbbell thrusters 25#14 dumbbell swings 25#5:34

    Got this off of CF Football (although of course Rx was I think 50# dumbbells). Not a bad little burner, although dumbbell swings were weird grip wise.

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