Today Trainer Jeff taught me how to do the squat clean. He had me watch this video first so I could see some aspects of it he thought I’d have a hard time with. We spent most of the workout rehearsing this in stages. I did some things that were more like hang cleans than squat cleans to practice the hip-drive part of the move.
Here’s a power clean in slow motion, along with a track showing the movement of the bar.
My planned attempt on Crossfit nasty girl Linda (aka the three bars of doom) will happen after I’ve mastered this lift for it. Wrist flexibility is something I’ll be working on, since I had trouble with the catch part of the move. A nice side benefit I’ll get is that my front squat technique is going to improve a ton, since I was having trouble with the usual hand position with that, for the exact same reason.
My first practice with this was done with a 70# bar, which I complained was light enough that I could just muscle it around without needing to perform the exercise properly. At 85#, the weight was enough that proper form started to appear naturally. Also, I was forced to put the bar into the correct position across my shoulders, and that’s how I discovered that my wrist flexibility would have to improve. But wow, what a change from where I was when I got started! Seventy pounds would have slaughtered me once.
It’s interesting to me how much power output is required to do a lift like this. Do a lot of them in quick succession, as Crossfit asks you to do, and you’re doing a high-intensity exercise that hits strength and cardio capacity at the same time.
Crossfit Helen, take 3.
Helen
3 rounds for time
400m run
21 kettlebell swings @ 24kg
12 pull-ups
Last time I did Helen, I was 17 seconds slower than the first time. Not today! Today I crushed it and did it in 15:20. 2:20 faster! Woot!
(Side note: I continue to be appalled by the kettlebell swing form in most of the Crossfit videos I find. Not that I’m the greatest, but I do know what it’s supposed to look like, and you’re not supposed to be pulling the bell up with your arms. Fire it up with the glutes, lock your core, pull down when it reaches its natural apex.)
My legs are still toast from all those squats on Wednesday, so the rest of the session was chest & back exercises. Pushing and pulling. Inclined bench press, high row and low press on the Hammer machines, all that stuff. Note that when I say “my legs are toast”, what I mean is, “omg walking ow ow”.
On Monday, I should be learning how to do the squat clean and maybe some other Olympic lifts! Trainer Jeff has lined up training for himself.
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-1-31)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
Microsoft's Creative Destruction
Sounds about right to me. I’d also add the bizarre ignorance of the rest of the industry, proudly displayed by 20-year veterans and valorized by other employees.
Crossfit Chelsea
Crossfit Chelsea
5 pullups
10 pushups
15 squats
every minute on the minute for 30 rounds
My mods: jumping pullups, kneeling pushups, 10 rounds. I completed all reps in each round in good time. In fact, after a slow first round I tightened up my timing and had 12 consistent rest seconds in all the remaining rounds. I probably could have gone longer, though going the specced 30 rounds would have left me in a heap on the floor.
While sitting on the floor dripping with sweat at the end, I delivered to my trainer a challenge. The challenge was: learn the squat clean and teach it to me, so that I can do Crossfit Linda properly. Scaled, as ever, but with the heart of the exercise intact. He accepted this challenge and will figure out a way for us both to learn it. +1 to my trainer. Jeff Kohler. Recommended by Ceej.
While my Lotus sits in the garage on a trickle-charger, safe from the rain, I console myself with a video showing much better driving than I can ever dream of. Look at what this guy does in the traffic early on!
Bay to Breakers 2010 preparation.
It’s on May 16 this year, and one reason I’m doing cardio every day is to prep for it. I’d like to run more of the course this year than I did last year, and finish with more strength. Last year’s extreme heat really killed me.
Prepping for a new Crossfit workout.
Sometime soon I’ll be doing the Crossfit Linda for the first time. This workout is more focused on heavy lifts than many of them, so it’ll be a nice change of pace.
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 reps of the triplet:
deadlift @ 150% body weight
bench press @ 100% body weight
squat clean @ 75% body weight
I cannot get anywhere near those specced weights, of course. Also, my trainer is not an expert in Olympic lifts, so he’s never done squat cleans, so I have no idea how to do them. I’ll be subbing in kettlebell cleans, which are so very different an exercise that one might wonder why they both have the word “clean” in them. (It’s the final position of the weight, I assume. It ends up resting on the shoulders in each.) This particular substitution really bugs me, and I’m going to have to find a way to learn to do squat cleans and power cleans with proper technique. They look like serious work, and as you know, I like weightlifting.
Anyway, today we did one set of each of these exercises to find good weights to use for my first shot at Linda Lite(tm). 100# is the weight I’ll be using for the bench press, 175# for the deadlift. And the Bothersome Cleans will be with a 24kg kettlebell. I’d never performed kettlebell cleans with that much weight before. All the flaws in my technique really show up.
Harvard research on shoeless running.
This research was partly sponsored by Vibram, but it’s yet another entry on the barefoot side.
New resolution: cardio on off days.
My new resolution is to use the elliptical cardio machine thingie we have at home on the days when I am not at the gym. I have made a decent start at it today. I spent the last half hour sweating while watching last night’s House on my iPhone. I am boggled to observe that I set the resistance level close to the machine’s max. Could probably have done the half hour at max. Hmm. I’ll have to set up a water bottle and a book and go for a full hour next time.
Yesterday was assessment and boxing. All numbers better than last time, fitness, weight bodyfat, pushups done, etc.
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-1-24)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
Mostly a pulling day.
Today was mostly a pulling-things day at the gym: lat pull-downs, rowing with heavy weights, rowing on the rowing machine, reverse flies. Also, back extensions, and pushups with my legs on a posture ball. We started with some heavy leg stuff: stiff-legged deadlifts at 135# (one set) and 155# (two sets); bench step-ups holding two count ‘em two 35# plates, and single-leg box squats.
My rowing technique has improved greatly in the last few weeks. I wonder what it’d be like to row on an actual on-the-water boat.
Two days ago I worked on Turkish get-ups some more, using some new refinements to the technique that Trainer Jeff recently learned. Progress, there is progress for me on the TGU. I’m still terrible, especially on the left side, but every repetition is one that earns my body a little bit more fitness.
PS: I have some horrible bruising on my upper arms from the front squats. Ouch.
Front squats.
I’m having trouble with my front squats but not for weight reasons, really. The squatting part is easy and I’m doing okay with posture and all that. The problem is that the bar hurts. It rests on my arms, not really my shoulders, and at weights high enough to make the squat meaningful it’s leaving a bruise. I have been trying to get the bar far enough back that it’s resting more on my shoulders, but this comes at the price of the bar being hard across my throat. Which is sort of un-fun.
My arms are not as shown in the video. They’re crossed and my fingers rest on the top of the bar. This video shows the grip. Maybe the solution is to use the elbows-front wrists-bent-way-back standard grip. I had trouble getting my shoulders far enough forward for that.
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-1-17)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
Guardian interview with Eno.
Interesting comments on Steve Reich’s recordings.
