Rebuilding......squats, snatches, deadlifts.....

     It's been 3 1/2 years in my crossfit career.  What I think I've learned is that you are must do some rebuilding from time to time.

     Back squat

     When I started I placed the bar lower and at some point realized that the prevailing wisdom was that high bar placement was better for the carry over into the Olympic lifts.  So I had to back off the weight and rebuild my back squat.  Ego aside, PR's were lower than before.  However eventually I got back to and exceeded previous #'s.

     In addition to this, when I came into CF I was used to a much wider stance in the squat.  This too needed to get closer to align more with the olympic weightlifting skill transfer.

Snatches

     This seems to be something that is constantly in flux.  There are so many subtleties and nuances.  In my case, I had to re-learn position 1 (hi hang or hip snatch) recently.  Turns out, Donny Shankle saw my shoulders come forward as I bent my knees and made it clear that hi hang was a knee bend.....PERIOD.  Shoulders must stay in line with (or even slightly behind) the bar as you dip.  This keeps the bar in the pocket and in contact with it the entire time you dip and then jump.  (Since then I have had virtually NO misses due to sending the bar out front.)

     Additionally, early last year I had to rebuild my grip width.  All this time my grip was too narrow and the bar was not finding the power position consistently.

Pull ups

     I learned to butterfly pull up before I learned how to kip.  I learned to "reverse bicycle" and did that for a long time.  (This technique makes you go "up" towards the bar vs. in a tight circle.)  When I went to Outlaw camp in 2013 I learned the arch/hollow cycling for pull ups.  It was then that I learned the mechanics of kip vs. butterfly were actually the same thing.  It took a little time but I learned it and my pull ups went thru the roof.

Box Jumps

     I decided to figure out bounding.  Took a month or so and started "from the ground up" to learn how to get back onto the box fast without killing myself.

Deadlifts

     I recently started in on using an exclusively double over hand (clean) grip on these.  Same idea, want to mimic the pull of a clean.  If I'm going for a 1RM, I'll try with a clean grip but if I miss I will mix my grip, but that has been the only time.


     I'm not sure what the next few months will bring other than I'm sure that I will continue to make little tweaks and adjustments to the way I do things and possibly even do some more "rebuilding" along the way.