Sunday 1.27.31

REMINDER:
Potluck tonight at 5:30 pm at The North Pointe Apartments at 6801 Leisure Town Rd. (pretty much behind the gym).
Bring a paleo/ primal dish to share!

Olympic Weightlifting and The Compound's Programming

The goal of our programming right now is to get everyone as fit as they can be with the strength they currently have, so everyone can perform well in the CrossFit Games Open workouts!  That's not to say that you won't be making strength gains, because if you come regularly and eat right its impossible not to make gains.  But we have moved from building up our base strength and are working on more skill based strength and bodyweight movements that actually moves the weight we can pick up longer distances (which equals more power).

You may have seen an increase in Olympic Weightlifting movements.  This is for a reason.  It's nice to be able to Deadlift a huge weight, but if you can't pick up at least half that weight and move it to your shoulders and above your head, then you are missing some major aspects of your fitness.

We changed our Oly Class to Tuesdays at 6:30 pm.   Oly Class is a great time to come in and work on the skills necessary to improve your Snatch and Clean & Jerk.  We do not go for max weight often, rather we work on percentages of the amount of weight you currently lift to improve on form.   We take advantage of learning from Bill, our Oly Coach, who has years of experience in Weightlifting.

However, you will not improve from one class each week unless you are a beginner.  For those intermediate lifters, it is the work you do between the Tuesday Oly Classes that will help you improve your lifts.  Fortunately, we have programmed the gym in a way that you will be able to see more Snatches, Jerks, Cleans, and their many variants.

Fridays have been the day we typically program a variation of a Snatch or a Clean.  Usually in a "Power" form, meaning you are catching the weight high in an athletic stance.  For those of you that are consistently coming to Oly Class and are getting the technique down pretty well, I would suggest changing the Power variations into full Cleans and Snatches.  This way you get a second day in the week to work the full Olympic movements and you can push the weights heavier than you typically will on Tuesdays.

I have been playing with this type of programming for about two months now (after completing several cycles of strict Olympic Lifting).  My Olympic Lifting has continued to increase despite focusing less time on them.  I think it will work for many of you as well.