By: Leo Fontana
So you may ask yourself these questions every week, Cleans? Again? I hate snatches why do we do them every week? Well the answer is simple and it may not be new to you. Here it is, are you ready? Because it is good for you!!
When performing a Clean and Jerk or a Snatch, you are literally using all of the large muscle groups in your body. More muscles used, more energy required, more calories burned. These movements are extremely difficult. It requires a big amount of coordination, speed, athleticism, strength, balance and confidence. All of the skills mentioned are extremely important in our day-to-day life and in Welded they are practiced very often.
These movements can always be improved, even the pros work on their technique everyday and even though they lift crazy amounts of weight and it seems effortless they still have off days and they will miss lifts. So why do we, “regular humans”, not Olympians get so frustrated when we miss a lift? Because it can be extremely frustrating. For example: you do a power clean and you feel really good, the bar almost feels weightless for a split second and get under it with no problems, you reach down to perform another one and it feels like someone just added 500lbs to it and you have no idea why your elbows just happen to get slow. That is the beauty of it. If you don’t mind me getting deep here, you can compare these frustrations with life. One day you do certain things and everything turns out great but for some reason the next day you think you do the exact same but life throws you curve balls and you have no idea what happened. However, just like in a wod you get back to it and do another rep perfectly.
Here are some other fun facts on why doing these movements are so beneficial: They are fast and pretty, the snatch is the fastest way to get the bar from the floor to overhead, you don’t have to do that many reps to feel the benefits, it is difficult to over train it, these movements will get your back stronger (stronger back, healthier body), it teaches you how to apply large amounts of force, heaviest snatch ever from a man: 475.2lbs, Clean and jerk 578.6lbs. For the ladies: snatch is 341lbs and clean and jerk is 424.6lbs.
So now when you walk into your gym and see clean and jerks or snatches on the board, be excited, it is another day to improve and to treat your body with so many benefits of the Olympic Lifting.
Group Class Workout
Warm Up: 30/25 Cal Machine, 25 KBS Russian, 20 lunges, 20 v-ups, :45 sec plank
Finish with: 1 Min Banded Hip capsule 15 PVC PT, GM
Strength: Deadlift 6×3 (Rising) Start at 65% Every 1:30
Lean: No Strength
Metcon:
Welded
5 Rounds for Time
Rest 2 Minutes after each round
10 Pull Ups
20/16 Cal Bike
30 Wall Balls 20/14
Adv: 20 WBs 12/10’
Time Cap 25 Min
High intensity!
Welded Lean
40 Minute AMRAP
12 TTB
8 DB Burpees 30/20
400 Meter Run
Just stand up with DBs, no jump.
400m=1 rep
*21 reps per round
Scaled: 18 Knee Raises
Mobility of the Day: Quad Smash (pg. 324)
Improves: Hip Function, Knee, Hip, and Low Back Pain
Skills: Quads and hamstrings