This is probably the most universal mistake I see across ability levels. It isn’t necessarily the MOST important, though it is important, and it isn’t necessarily the biggest most critical mistake. Nonetheless, from beginner to absolute Games level elite (as I coach sooooo many of them all the time), I see this mistake the most often.
The issue which I speak about is lifting to the weight, or as I like to put it, letting the weight lift you. Basically it’s athletes moving too slowly during light weight sets building to heavy sets. It starts like this. An athlete is back squatting for a max set of 3. It’s Monday, and Monday sucks. Really bad. The weekend was rough, really rough, and everything is moving slowly. Believe me I have these days. Still, I ask the athlete what their goal for the day is. For this example we will say it’s a female saying 200#. So that female starts with a quick empty bar set of 10, then a set of 5 at 95#, then a set of 3 at 115#, then starts her first working set of 3 at 135#. All good lifts, everything seems fine.
Except everything is wrong, because the speed she is moving the weight is wrong, and in lifting weights speed is king. OK, maybe technique is king, but speed is QUEEN, and the king and queen have been married for 20 years, so we know that the QUEEN is really in charge. I know how those crappy Mondays after a beer and Coldstone filled weekend feel on the knees, hips, and back. I know that there is nothing worse than putting weight on a bar, putting that bar on the back, and having to actually try hard to move it. But moving the weight like the weight it is is the worst thing an athlete can do when trying to lift lots of weights. We all want to lift lots of weights, or should. If not then we need to talk.
Going back to that example of the female athlete, after having made those lifts she feels loose and limber and has all the snap, crackle, pops out of the joints. The problem is that she has her Central Nervous System, better known in our world as the CNS, is moving at Post Coldstone Monday speed. Even though the last rep or even all 3 reps of a max 3 back squat might not appear to be moving fast, the exertion level you as an athlete are putting into that bar has to be like you are trying to move it 100000 mph, maybe even 10000000 mph.
Your body is a machine, a system that reacts to stimuli given to it to adapt to. Our amazing machine adapts very quickly. Lasting changes take days or weeks, but adaptations that are reactions to present stimuli literally can take minutes or seconds. In other words, after a few reps your body adapts to the stimulus of moving that weight. If you aren’t focusing on moving quickly then your body settles into moving slow and steady. Inevitably the female athlete who warmed up with easy does it reps at the light weights will fail her goal attempts because her body is not ready to move quickly. This is even more important when doing explosive lifts like the snatch, clean, jerk, or today’s push press.
I say this from time to time but should force you all to tattoo it on your wrists and foreheads, that you need to lift EVERY rep like you are trying to set a new 1rm PR. Warmup reps, PR reps, olympic lifts, deadlifts, squats, presses, Dexter-presses, whatever the hell it is you are lifting you need to do it with conviction, aggression, and violence. Lifting weights is not a ballet, it isn’t a non-contact sport. Weightlifting is literally you moving steel and rubber and iron as fast as you can, as often as you can, to improve the machine you were given at birth. Why do it half assed?
Today when you are push pressing, your lighter sets should FLY off your shoulders. The weight should be moving so fast that the bar RINGS at the top when you lock out because you are literally stopping it from flying through the ceiling that would otherwise create a hole that I will only excuse you from staying after and fixing because you were moving the bar with such violence that it caused me to cry tears of joy and those tears would cloud my vision from seeing you leave without fixing the hole in the ceiling. You want to be training your body to move the weight fast so when you get to your heavier reps your body is ready to LIFT THAT WEIGHT.
If you wanted something slow and easy you would be doing Pilates or whatever the crap is they do next door. You don’t want that so you are here at CrossFIt Lando. You are lifting weights, dripping sweat, forging personal bonds, smashing PRs, slamming bars, and always improving upon the unstoppable machine. As long as the machine keeps improving it can’t be stopped. That’s the point right?
LIFT THOSE WEIGHTS!!
TUESDAY
Strength: Push Press
5-5-3-3-1-1
WOD: 4 Rounds
6 HSPU
14 Burpees
14 Toes to Bar
6 Ring Dips
rest exactly :45 after each round
*HSPU to 5″ deficit
There will be a 15m time cap to this workout
SkWAT Team: 25 L Pull-Ups, 25 strict CTB pull-ups
