(this guy needs to learn how to do the first pull)
So it’s true, if you work hard enough your dreams do in fact come true. I got to spend the entire day with 50 athletes ONLY focused on the snatch. Incredible.
With day 2 down and day 3 fast approaching we have been pleasantly surprised by the amount of improvement and the application of teaching we saw all day. We said from the get go that this camp was full of athletes. I define athleticism (personally) as the capability of a person to make the body accomplish a task that the brain tells it to do. Obviously this definition leaves a little to be desired but this camp is full of people who respond extremely well to teaching and lifting cues and are able to make their body do what is asked. All of our staff has noticed that with a little help and some coaxing they were able to accomplish optimal bar path, proper weight distribution through the foot, and ultimately achieve a technically proficient snatch.
This leads me to my point for the evening. These folks are coachable and they have impressed me with their desire to do the lifts well. They are willing to be patient, listen intently, and apply immediately the advice given. As a result of these character traits their lifts have improved drastically. We spent a total of 3.5 hours lifting at 70% or above today. We lifted from a ton of different positions with a HUGE focus on the specifics of the positions during the lift. These athletes picked up almost everything we were asking and did work on their technique. Their lifts will benefit from this moving forward. I am always impressed by athletes who are willing to learn EVEN when they already have good numbers. Lifters like Matt Hathcock (snatches 120kg/clean and jerks 155) or Sarabeth Phillips (80/95) who could ignore what feels funny and continue doing it wrong while still finding some success. They were all willing to make some changes, put themselves in awkward positions, and trust that sometimes you have to go backwards to get past where you are now.
One of the benefits of owning so many sets of pulling boxes is that all 50 athletes got to spend 2 hours snatching from different box heights. Below is a video of one of the more impressive snatches of the day from below the knee. We saw a lot of improvement but this is one of the more dramatic. I wish I had video of his snatch from Friday…trust me it looked nothing like this.
Snatch Improvement Day 2
Tomorrow we will spend an equally extensive amount of time on the clean and jerk. We are hoping for some of the same results. At the very least we are hoping to fix some of this mess…
No Rep
Ouch…Front Squat Good Morning?
Developing Power & Strength through the use of the Olympic Lifts.
