Beardtastic!
Could it be the end? The great American poet Langston Hughes once spoke of a dream deferred. I, too, have had a dream. That dream was simple. It was elemental. It stood for everything decent in this world.
I wanted to conjure forth a beard of epic proportions.
Lucas Parker, who recorded a 15th place finish at the CrossFit Games (but a first place finish for summoning a beard fit for Zeus himself), shared in this dream. Only the gods can tell the remainder of days this beard will walk amongst us mere mortals before it is called back to the hallowed halls of Mt. Olympus. Until that day comes to pass we can only marvel at its grandiosity, its sheer and utter perfection….
Methinks that to strike down a budding young beard as it approaches perfection is a disservice to one’s friends, family, and humanity. However, I find myself paradoxically befuddled: duty and honor demands I continue this crusade and raise the beard to full maturity and glory, yet to grow the beard may possibly disgrace and dishonor another soul important to me. Argh! (Grinding of teeth! Wailing!) Oh, what a burden to bear! Perhaps the steel will provide the answer in the next twenty-four hours….It hasn’t failed me yet!
Enough talk about facial hair (can there ever really be enough, though?) and on to the work! We started off with some cleans from the blocks, but from the Pendlay Position #1 (pockets). I was pleasantly surprised to see how these drills exposed a hidden weakness in our lifting. Many of us have had trouble with finishing our cleans before we pull ourselves under the bar. What I’m talking about here is reaching full extension. Some of us rush our positions and pull with the arms and some of us don’t get those shoulders back and up. A couple of questions to consider when setting up and executing this lift:
- Have you stepped close into the bar, with shoulders way over the bar at the start and then pulled yourself to pockets by bending the knees and dropping the hips? Have you made your torso vertical, with the shoulders pinched back?
- When starting the lift, are you exploding up and back, driving through your heels from the Pendlay Position #1?
- Have you pulled that bar back to meet your hips as you move to full extension or are you popping your hips forward? The former would be the better choice…
- Once you’ve made that bar weightless, are you actively pulling yourself under the bar, or are you just lazily falling under the bar?
Who looks the best? What suggestions for improvement might you offer?
After the weightlifting technique work, we hit a nice little WOD that sneaked up on a couple of us in the later rounds. Remember, fight for that big step on the lunges and make that shin perfectly vertical at the bottom of the lunge. The sheer forces lurking in the shadows waiting to destroy your knees are kept at bay by the shin staying vertical in the bottom of the lunge.
Good work today, everyone! Tremendous improvement by the last set of those cleans. Oh yeah, and by the way, who knew hollow body rocks could be so yucky?
Remember no evening class on Thursday and no class on Friday! Class resumes at the normal scheduled time on Monday morning!
Terpak
Strength
Block Cleans from Pendlay Position #1 – Pockets
3 sets of 3 reps @ 55% of 1RM
2 sets of 2 reps @ 65% of 1RM
3 sets of 2 reps @ 60% of 1RM
WOD
11 Minute AMRAP
8 Racked Lunges (75#/55#)
10 Hollow Body Rocks
12 Broad Jumps
