8 Week Weightlifting Class at CFP

By: Coach Ben Gabriel CF-L1

What separates two equally strong people when it comes to the Olympic lifts? In my opinion the difference is positional strength. What is positional strength? Simply put it is being strong in the positions you want the bar to travel as it comes from the ground to eventually overhead. We are all plenty strong enough to take a barbell off a rack and squat it or pull a heavy deadlift but it becomes not so easy when we are asked to do a clean which combines both a squat and a pull. The missing piece is the ability to harness that strength and use that to take the barbell from the ground to balanced overhead.
The great thing about both the snatch and clean and jerk is that you can literally break up the lift into its separate parts. Having trouble on the first pull of a snatch? Easy way to work on that is by doing the first pull of a snatch, which starts from the ground and goes to just below the knee. Having trouble pulling yourself under the bar on the clean or snatch? Easy, we can snatch or clean from the power position. Okay its not that easy but hopefully you get what I am saying.
Positions are important and being able to step up to the barbell and physically move that bar in the path you want it to which is most efficient to get overhead is pretty damn hard. You need to practice until you can literally step up to that PR weight and without thinking let your body take over until its overhead. Don’t get me wrong we still have to keep squatting, pulling, and pressing to get strong but if we are able to get the bar into the right positions, that strength we have will be used more efficiently and hopefully lead to heavier weights being lifted.
So how do we get positional strength? Bring in the 8-week Olympic weightlifting class. My goal for this class is to have you come out of it a more efficient lifter. Again we will do this by working different positions of the lifts and getting stronger in those positions.
This will be a 2-day a week class with 1 day focused on the snatch and one day focused on the clean and jerk. Each class will start with a warm up specific to the lift, will be followed by a variation of the lift, and then followed by a specific assistance movement that will help strengthen some part of the main lift. Each class will also finish up with some sort of core stability work. Finally and most importantly this class is for everyone and if you have any questions you can ask me in person or e-mail me at bgabraham59@gmail.com.
 
Benefits from taking the class
• Increased efficiency in the Olympic lifts – More efficiency means bigger lifts and less energy used for each lift
• Increased power – A CrossFit Metcon is for the most part all about how fast you can do work. If we get better at moving large loads quickly then this will translate to other aspects of your fitness besides just lifting heavier weight.
• Great carry over to other movements in CrossFit – There is a reason why a lot of the top CrossFit athletes do a lot of Olympic weightlifting. Again the requirements for doing a proper snatch or clean and jerk requires speed, balance, flexibility, and stability just to name a few all of which will benefit you on other movements.
• Increased Flexibility – Although doing a proper warm up and mobility work should come first when trying to improve flexibility sometimes getting into positions and challenging them safely can also help your flexibility. An example would be the squat.
• Increase Strength to bodyweight ratio – For the most part when working the Olympic lifts you will be working in the 1-3 rep range at most. Without getting into all the science this basically allows you to get stronger without adding muscle mass. Again this will help you in CrossFit especially if you are taking part in the Virtuosity Program.
START DATE AND SCHEDULE:
Classes will run from 7pm-8:15pm every TUESDAY AND THURSDAY starting NOVEMBER 3rd
CFP Member Cost:
-$229
Non Member Cost:
-$259
SPECIAL SIGN UP:
-$189 (if you sign up by Monday 10/19)
*We will have a maximum class size of 12 participants so space is limited!
To sign up e-mail Richard@crossfitprototype.com