Today I am headed to a much cooler country filled with weird bacon, maple syrup, and mounties. The Outlaw Staff (most of us) are getting to program and assist in the Sweat RX Championships in Toronto.
The first event is one I am particularly interested to see the results of. The first event is Max the following complex: Clean x 1 + Front Squat x 5 + Jerk. Each lift is scored separately with points riding on each part of the complex. Truthfully, this has Crossfit competitor written all over it. Here’s why.
Many Crossfit athlete’s strength far exceeds that of their technique in the Olympic lifts. There are multiple men who squat 500+ and Deadlift close to 600 yet their clean is only 300 and their snatch only 250. In the weightlifting world this doesn’t make sense and seems awfully disproportionate.
As an example, I live on the other end of the spectrum. I squat 420 and deadlift 400 (yes that’s weird). However I clean 350 and Snatch 275. That’s much more like a weightlifter. Although I would say I am a little weird.
Tomorrow I bet we see a lifter clean their PR or close to it and then turn around and front squat it 5x. The jerk is likely the sticking point though. I doubt we will see many made jerks after a maximal clean and 5 front squats . The jerk is highly skilled and under those circumstances I doubt we will see many completed.
Tomorrow, my bet is that we see a lot of lifters whose technique hasn’t caught up to their strength. Its amazing to me see competitive exercises who have this crazy capacity. As the sport grows we are seeing the much harder technical side of the lifts catching up to the strength side. It hasn’t caught up yet but when it does… look out.
More to come as the weekend progresses.