On March 14 2014 08:54 tofucake wrote: Froning has amazing form and wasn't in the video. Castro doesn't count and people who do crossfit ignore him for the most part.
I was actually complimenting Froning in a kind of backhand way. I think that a lot of the top CrossFitters are genuinely good athletes, unfortunately most of them end up looking like Lipson. Even Khalipa's pressing was kind of shitty and their deadlifting form was really bad. I'm not sure why they lifted like that.
Edit: Starting today, no more excuses for me. I will be doing squat mobilization of some kind for at least 20 minutes.
Major things I will be hitting is foam rolling (3-5 minutes per day), dumbbell squats (goblet/front squat, 5x5 of each), hip mobilization (3 minutes per side), and hamstring mobilization (3 minutes per side). I could probably use some ankle mobilization, but I'll try to spend about 30 seconds per side mobilizing ankles between sets of squats when I'm working out. I'll post my mobility workout each day and try to update with progress. I'm not stopping until I can keep my feet as close to straight as possible with good form when squatting without any weight on. And once I finally have some decent mobility, I think I'm going to switch to front squatting. I feel like for me I'm more prone to screwing myself up with back squatting and with front squatting I'm more likely to keep the form strict.
I feel like there's a huge double standard here. With weightlifters or powerlifters that have "weird" form, like the way Klokov does RDLs with one of his feet slightly behind the other one, we just say "Oh, he's at such a high level that he's doing what works for him" and excuse it, but then with crossfit athletes that are also at the top level of their own sport, we don't always say "he's lifting the way that works for him (within the rules of his competition" we say "OMG look how stupid that is I can't believe he's lifting that way" Even though Froning is arguably at a higher/more competitive level right now in crossfit than klokov is in olympic lifting.
Tried squatting without my oly shoes yesterday for the first time in like... a year and a half? Feels INCREDIBLY different, and I suddenly realize why ya'll keep saying things about ankle mobility, even though that's NEVER been an issue for me.
Front squatting is probably easier to maintain form in than the back squat, and it's (IMO) easier mobility wise than the back squat too. If you want to get your front squat up, I don't see any reason not to switch right now honestly.
On March 14 2014 08:54 tofucake wrote: Froning has amazing form and wasn't in the video. Castro doesn't count and people who do crossfit ignore him for the most part.
I was actually complimenting Froning in a kind of backhand way. I think that a lot of the top CrossFitters are genuinely good athletes, unfortunately most of them end up looking like Lipson. Even Khalipa's pressing was kind of shitty and their deadlifting form was really bad. I'm not sure why they lifted like that.
Edit: Starting today, no more excuses for me. I will be doing squat mobilization of some kind for at least 20 minutes.
Major things I will be hitting is foam rolling (3-5 minutes per day), dumbbell squats (goblet/front squat, 5x5 of each), hip mobilization (3 minutes per side), and hamstring mobilization (3 minutes per side). I could probably use some ankle mobilization, but I'll try to spend about 30 seconds per side mobilizing ankles between sets of squats when I'm working out. I'll post my mobility workout each day and try to update with progress. I'm not stopping until I can keep my feet as close to straight as possible with good form when squatting without any weight on. And once I finally have some decent mobility, I think I'm going to switch to front squatting. I feel like for me I'm more prone to screwing myself up with back squatting and with front squatting I'm more likely to keep the form strict.
I feel like there's a huge double standard here. With weightlifters or powerlifters that have "weird" form, like the way Klokov does RDLs with one of his feet slightly behind the other one, we just say "Oh, he's at such a high level that he's doing what works for him" and excuse it, but then with crossfit athletes that are also at the top level of their own sport, we don't always say "he's lifting the way that works for him (within the rules of his competition" we say "OMG look how stupid that is I can't believe he's lifting that way" Even though Froning is arguably at a higher/more competitive level right now in crossfit than klokov is in olympic lifting.
Tried squatting without my oly shoes yesterday for the first time in like... a year and a half? Feels INCREDIBLY different, and I suddenly realize why ya'll keep saying things about ankle mobility, even though that's NEVER been an issue for me.
Front squatting is probably easier to maintain form in than the back squat, and it's (IMO) easier mobility wise than the back squat too. If you want to get your front squat up, I don't see any reason not to switch right now honestly.
Klokov has been weightlifting longer than crossfit has existed and has fantastic technique. Not even comparable. A bad deadlift is a bad deadlift and doing it 60 times in 8 minutes is begging for injuries for your average person. Sure if you're a great athlete you'll probably be okay but average joe crossfit that idolizes froning is about to go do 14.3 today and herniate a disc.
Front squat is definitely harder mobility wise for the average person. It requires a mostly upright torso which means greater hip and ankle flexibility that most people don't have. That being said it's hard to do a front squat without good posture because you'll drop the bar if you lean forward too far. I love front squats though, need to get mine up to 200kg and beyond soon!
Hm I find front squat easier actually, I have definitely more problems with back squat, especially low bar. I might not be able to lift as much front squatting, but I have surely less problems form wise.
While we are at it: This week was the first in forever where I felt really good. Squatted the heaviest in 18 months and made some progress on the bench. Will record a form check video soon to make sure I am not developing any bad habits as I am started from low weight again. Only deadlift is really sucky for me still since my left leg is still way weaker and any heavy DL looks horribly imbalanced.
I hate front squats because they are so insanely uncomfortable (getting choked by the bar, resting all that weight on 2 small points on the front of my shoulders, the immense strain on my lower back).
Glad to see you're getting better zatic, surprised DL would be a bigger issues than squats.
On March 14 2014 08:54 tofucake wrote: Froning has amazing form and wasn't in the video. Castro doesn't count and people who do crossfit ignore him for the most part.
I was actually complimenting Froning in a kind of backhand way. I think that a lot of the top CrossFitters are genuinely good athletes, unfortunately most of them end up looking like Lipson. Even Khalipa's pressing was kind of shitty and their deadlifting form was really bad. I'm not sure why they lifted like that.
Edit: Starting today, no more excuses for me. I will be doing squat mobilization of some kind for at least 20 minutes.
Major things I will be hitting is foam rolling (3-5 minutes per day), dumbbell squats (goblet/front squat, 5x5 of each), hip mobilization (3 minutes per side), and hamstring mobilization (3 minutes per side). I could probably use some ankle mobilization, but I'll try to spend about 30 seconds per side mobilizing ankles between sets of squats when I'm working out. I'll post my mobility workout each day and try to update with progress. I'm not stopping until I can keep my feet as close to straight as possible with good form when squatting without any weight on. And once I finally have some decent mobility, I think I'm going to switch to front squatting. I feel like for me I'm more prone to screwing myself up with back squatting and with front squatting I'm more likely to keep the form strict.
I feel like there's a huge double standard here. With weightlifters or powerlifters that have "weird" form, like the way Klokov does RDLs with one of his feet slightly behind the other one, we just say "Oh, he's at such a high level that he's doing what works for him" and excuse it, but then with crossfit athletes that are also at the top level of their own sport, we don't always say "he's lifting the way that works for him (within the rules of his competition" we say "OMG look how stupid that is I can't believe he's lifting that way" Even though Froning is arguably at a higher/more competitive level right now in crossfit than klokov is in olympic lifting.
Tried squatting without my oly shoes yesterday for the first time in like... a year and a half? Feels INCREDIBLY different, and I suddenly realize why ya'll keep saying things about ankle mobility, even though that's NEVER been an issue for me.
Front squatting is probably easier to maintain form in than the back squat, and it's (IMO) easier mobility wise than the back squat too. If you want to get your front squat up, I don't see any reason not to switch right now honestly.
I don't think klokov uneven foot stance is bad form ,he just has one leg way longer than the other. You can't have bad from and S/C&J above 200 at any weight class.
I don't mind fronning as he seems to be a good oly lifter, but this guys are among the best of their sport (I think?) and they are weak as shit on Squat/deadlifts for ppl their size. I don't mind the bad form, but the half squats and thigh lifting to say your numbers are bigger bugs me; they are good pressers though. I do like crossfit a lot, I just think this guys in particular are douches and tought the video was funny, not hating on anything. I'm sure you could make a similar vid about fat powerlifters gasping after swallowing burgers or smth :p
Squat: 190kgx1, 170x3x7 (beltless!!) BP: 120kgx3, 120x2x2, Close grip 90x10, OHP 40kgx10 BTN Press: 20kgx8, 30x8, 35x8, 30x10 (Not trolling I'm this bad at this) Tricep/Curl superset
Switching to high bar is the best I've ever done. My knees are almost fully adapted, my back no longer hurts and my lifetime hiperlordosis has improved a lot. I also think doing a number of full snatches with a bar is the best warm up for squats.
@whoever was chocking with FS
Try to put the bar on top of the shoulder muscles, like 1 cm (or less) away from the cavicle, at the beggining of the delt. When you unrack, keep the elbows close to the center/up and use your shoulders to actively push the bar with your delts.
Also, watching this vid over and over should help you.
Just like in everything, people who generalize are less proficient than those who specialize, but can do a wider variety. Oly lifters have 2 lifts. Crossfit has like a billion (some of them are insane and stupid [rear leg raised split front squat, sumo high pull]), so it makes sense that because they train for more they aren't as good at the Oly lifts as Oly lifters.
Tried to do squats today and after my first warmup set my legs started burning like hell. I foam rolled them a bit and it helped a little then tried my next set and it just got worse so I stopped. My wednesday set was just fine and I wasn't feeling particularly sore between now and then, anyone expirience this before?
This has been poking at my brain for a while. This is my impression on the matter so I'm not presenting this in a partisan manner, but my question is this: If I'm only training for aesthetics or general strength/athleticism (i.e. not a competition), why would I ever do a powerlifting squat over an olympic squat? The olympic is, to me, easier to perform and I want squats to train my anterior; deadlifts are for the posterior. Comments/corrections/objections?
As for Crossfit...I don't want to go into a harangue...It does matter who your coach is and what their programming is. Heck Mark Rippetoe had a Crossfit gym....But the recurring arguments always devolve into whether something is dangerous or pointless, and so many of the things they have you do are idiotic or downright hazardous. Lifting heavy weights or doing olympic lifts for time is prima facie stupid. The sick thing is how they change their arguments: Nobody sat up one day and thought "wouldn't it be cool if we did 35 deadlifts for time?" "yeah, man, that would either be totally pointless or incredibly dangerous". They started off saying that it was the best way to train to be 'functional'. Only once it was pointed out that that was dogshit did they start defending it as a 'sport'. It turns out that being 'functional' only means being good at their exercises. Now we have the Crossfit army calling you a pussy if you think high volume box jumps are a bad idea. Besides their leadership has proven time and again to be full of ignorant fucks, bullies and imbeciles. I'd suggest staying the fuck away from them at all costs.
That's like telling people to stay away from Christianity because Westboro Baptist Church is a bunch of crazy people. The key to crossfit is to find a good gym with good coaches who basically ignore HQ's programming and antics. T
On March 16 2014 22:47 tofucake wrote: That's like telling people to stay away from Christianity because Westboro Baptist Church is a bunch of crazy people. The key to crossfit is to find a good gym with good coaches who basically ignore HQ's programming and antics. T
Jerubaal would never tell someone to steer clear of Christianity
CrossFit has a great idea in concept. They do a lot of stuff really well and have a lot of cool training ideas. However it's poorly executed and doesn't put emphasis on "training." It's more exercise than it is training, and it is really good for just getting in shape. However, if you combine it with high risk exercises and inexperienced lifters, it's a recipe for disaster. I think that if they just did stricter forms for exercises and emphasized pure strength lifts with some running/erging/jumping rope to start with, they'd have a great idea. However, they do things that require lots of power, finesse, and mobility to do correctly with a general population that is largely sedentary..
It's dangerous to do that and they really need to spend more time on building the fundamentals before they teach them harder lifts. Mixing heavy lifts with high intensity cardio and very demanding mobility requirements and you've got a recipe for disaster. I think that if they focused on "easier" movements, mobility, and doing cardio on off days they'd have a great system. Deadlifts, kettle bell swings, squats, OHP, benching, jumping rope/erging/running, rowing and then doing power cleans or something to build power would be a great way to introduce people to fitness.
Edit: Also, I know Decaf always advocates high bar squats. Low bar squats seem to only make sense if all you're doing is going for powerlifting. For everyone else, high bar squats make much more sense. Depending on your goals front squats may also make sense since, but I don't think you'll put on as much mass as quickly as you can with back squats.
As another aside, I feel so good after jumping rope. Like lifting feels pretty good the day after, but today I'm relaxed, in a good mood and overall just much happier than the day after I lift. Is this a normal response to doing cardio after leading a relatively sedentary life?
And I'm saying that because of crossfit's structure and business ethos, every gym is independent, not franchised. There are far more bad gyms than good. My gym has separate programming for people who want to get in shape and for people who are on the actual competitive team. And that's because the head coach happens to agree with you (as do I).
On March 16 2014 17:22 Jerubaal wrote: This has been poking at my brain for a while. This is my impression on the matter so I'm not presenting this in a partisan manner, but my question is this: If I'm only training for aesthetics or general strength/athleticism (i.e. not a competition), why would I ever do a powerlifting squat over an olympic squat? The olympic is, to me, easier to perform and I want squats to train my anterior; deadlifts are for the posterior. Comments/corrections/objections?
Rumor has it the guy I did some mma/self defense classes with (trains special forces etc) is starting a crossfit gym. I'm very interested I may actually have a place to do olympic lifts!
I did massively heavy power squatting for the majority of my lifting career. While I would now recommend oly style squatting most of the time, one benefit to PL squatting is that you end up moving more weight and getting comfortable holding huge loads on your back, which might have benefits for T and GH production if your goal is to be a strong massive beast. That said, I think oly squatting is better for longevity
@decafchicken and IgnE: Everything you say makes sense, I just see so many people doing powersquats that I figured there was something I didn't know.
On March 17 2014 04:19 mordek wrote: Rumor has it the guy I did some mma/self defense classes with (trains special forces etc) is starting a crossfit gym. I'm very interested I may actually have a place to do olympic lifts!
EPT
I may actually have a place to do olympic lifts!
