Coaching: Rack Position

The success of the pressing/overhead movements start from a proper rack position. Practice makes perfect. Some cues that I use for the rack position:

-Hands set outside shoulders
-Elbows in advance of bar
-Feet hip width apart
-Belly tight
-Get your head out of the way
-Maintain bar over middle of foot
-Keep your ribs down
-Engage glutes
-Pull the bar back down

Coaching: Squat Foot Position

Have you notice how you placed your feet lately when squatting, cleaning, or snatching? If not, today is a reality check. Your probably doing it wrong...wrong meaning injury is soon to follow. Follow the cues for better squating and landing positions. These points of performance still apply:

1. Start with the feet about shoulder width apart and slightly toed out.

2. Keep your head up looking slightly above parallel.

3. Don’t look down at all; ground is in peripheral vision only.

4. Accentuate the normal arch of the lumbar curve and then pull the excess arch out with the abs.

5. Keep the midsection very tight.

6. Send your butt back and down.

7. Your knees track over the line of the foot.

8. Don’t let the knees roll inside the foot.

9. Keep as much pressure on the heels as possible.

10. Stay off of the balls of the feet.

11. Delay the knees forward travel as much as possible.

12. Lift your arms out and up as you descend.

13. Keep your torso elongated.

14. Send hands as far away from your butt as possible.

15. In profile, the ear does not move forward during the squat, it travels

16. Don’t let the squat just sink, but pull yourself down with your hip flexors.

17. Don’t let the lumbar curve surrender as you settle in to the bottom.

18. Stop when the fold of the hip is below the knee – break parallel with the thigh.

19. Squeeze glutes and hamstrings and rise without any leaning forward or shifting of balance.

20. Return on the exact same path as you descended.

21. Use every bit of musculature you can; there is no part of the body uninvolved.

22. On rising, without moving the feet, exert pressure to the outside of your feet as though you were trying to separate the ground beneath you.

23. At the top of the stroke stand as tall as you possibly can.

Credit to The CrossFit Journal: Squat Clinic

Coaching: Medicine Ball Clean

This is the progression I use for all my athletes learning the clean. I use this movement as a skill transfer exercise but sometimes I will also program into a workout for skill acquisition. Progression is as follows:

Deadlift
Front Squat
"Shrug and Drop" (from the hang position)
Put it together


The biggest mistake I see when teaching this movement is full/complete hip extension. Use the cue I show in the video. It works every time.

Scaling: Amanda

"Amanda"

For Time:
9-7-5
Snatch (135)
Muscle Up

Volume: 21reps (low)
Modality: Weightlifting, Gymnastic
Skill: Stamina, Power, Accuracy, Coordination, Balance
Time to Beat: 2010 CrossFit Games (video)
Standards: CrossFit Snatch (video), CrossFit Snatch Instruction-Burgener (video), Jerry Hill's Crossfit Tip: Muscle Up 101 (video), The Muscle Up-CF Journal (pdf)

These two high-skill movements make for a very challenging workout. There's only a small percentage of athletes that can complete this workout under 5 minutes.
The accuracy and balance of the snatch and the stamina and coordination needed for the muscle up make it nearly impossible.

Regressions: Hand Stand Pushup

This regression is not a definitive linear model, rather, it is a coaching tool when presented with a variety of different clients. In one class you might have multiple abilities, if you don't know how to modify for your athlete you will either get them hurt or give them an inappropriate movement that they are incapable of executing. Remember it's not CrossFit that hurts people it's bad coaching that hurts people.

The Regression are as follows:

Ring HSPU
Parallette HSPU
HSPU From Bumper Plate
Kipping HSPU
Static Hold
Wall Climb
Pike Static Hold (on knees)
Pike Static Hold (on toes)

Coaching: Thruster

The most difficult part of the thruster that I find coaching is the idea of "violent hip extension." A novice athlete might think that 50% of the thruster is being done by the upper body, which is certainly not the case. This is why I break it down into Front Squat, Push Press, then Thruster. After I have taught that sequence I coach how to connect the reps by setting the bar back on the "rack" position [after a full push press has been completed].

Thruster Sequence Today:

Air Squats as a class (to assess proficiency in the squat)
Front Squat (coach bar placement, "squat like you would regularly squat but now you have a bar in the front of your body")
Push Press (overhead cue, "bicep must meet the ear at the top of the press")
Connect the Thruster

Scaling Annie Workout

"Annie"

50-40-30-20-10:
Double-under
Sit up

Volume: 150 reps (High)
Modality: Metabolic and Gymnastic
Skill: Cardiovascular, Stamina, Balance, Accuracy, Coordination
Time to Beat: Bobby Noyce 3:57 (video)
Standards: Double under Demo (video), Buddy Lee Power Jump Double-under (video), Anchored Abmat situp (video)

This workout is easy to teach but hard to complete. The balance, accuracy, coordination, needed to completes the double-under's and the volume at which is being asked makes the workout hard enough. Not to mention the amount of sit ups that are required. Find a tempo and stick with it.