07 Aug The G-Force Source: hints, tips, and reference pics
“The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.”
– Barack Obama
Each week, we publish the Source as an informative, educational and thankful blog which revolves around G-Force, its members, movements that you will perform in our gym and CrossFit, and other topics beyond. We then ask people when they walk into the gym or ask about a specific movement: “Did you read the blog?” The answers we receive aren’t always surprising because the movements being asked about are those that were covered in a recent edition of our blog.
We refer to Barack Obama’s quote where he asks that you don’t wait for things to happen or things to fall straight into your lap. Life doesn’t always work that way. If you want something; if you want to learn something, you want to better yourself, and you want to learn new things in your chosen form of physical exercise, seek the knowledge provided to you. We don’t publish this blog because our fingers get restless and need to bash a keyboard. We publish this blog as a benefit to our members and to everyone else who wishes to read it. The movement advice we give, the news we publish, the PBs we highlight, it’s all for you.
Use what we give you. Take initiative, and don’t rely on last minute advice when you walk into the gym and have not yet warmed up one minute before the class starts.
In this week’s edition of the blog, we’re going to provide you with a few hints, tips and movement advice for exercises that you will be performing in the G-Force programming during the week. What we provide tips on is what we teach in class. We hope you all take something away from this information. Let the educating begin!
HANG SNATCH
– We see many of you cutting your hang short. Be sure to lower the bar all the way down to the top of your knee, rather than stopping your hang at mid thigh. You’re cutting the potential extra power you can get from the extra descent to the top of the knee. More pulling means more power. And we all love power!
– Keep the bar close and slide it down your legs rather than letting the bar hang away from your body.
– Don’t pause at the bottom of your hang. Be like an elastic band. Slow descent to the top of the knee then immediate explosive pulling back up.
– In the image above on the left, a lot of the pressure is on the back and hamstrings. Back pressure and use of hamstrings is good, but you will be stronger if you also load up your quads. To achieve that, when you reach the bottom of the hang at the top of the knee, slightly shift your knees forward for more knee bend, and you will have loaded up your quads as well. Pull the bar back and up and use all of those explosive legs!
HANG CLEAN + JERK
– Same with the snatch: be sure to descend the bar to the top of the knee. Don’t cut your hang short! Shorter is more difficult.
– Notice the high brush point in this image. We don’t expect you to change your brush to that high, but higher brushing is better than lower brushing below mid thigh. Higher brushing means higher pulling.
– Some of you struggle with overhead mobility. If that’s the case, after you clean and stand it up, move your hands out further on the bar for your front rack for a wider-gripped jerk. It will feel more comfortable than a closer grip.
– Short, slow descent in the jerk dip with weight on the back of the heels. Don’t drop forward in the jerk dip. Then exploding up really hard and fast, thrusting that bar off your front rack.
BACK & FRONT SQUAT
– Tight backs, just like Lü Xiaojun. Both in the front and back squats, we don’t want to see any hunchbacked Quasimodos in class.
– Slow and controlled descent, but not too slow. A quick drop from the top of the squat will oscillate the bar, causing it to feel heavier during your descent because of the bounce of the bar on your back.
– No pausing in the bottom of the squat. Bounce out and come up fast.
– Think about pushing through your arms when coming out of the squat. It will give you more drive. But you can’t do this if you grip your front squat with just your fingertips. Which takes us onto the next tip…
– A fingertip-only grip for front squats is a weak rack position. Gripping the bar with your hand, or as close as possible, makes for a stronger rack position and will also give you a pressing push out of the squat.
PULL-UP
– Tight is light, loose is heavy! LEARN IT!
– Keep your feet together, and don’t let them be floppy like an out-of-control rag doll.
– Practice the hollow position on the floor. That’s your tight pull-up position.
– Tight bellies, and switched on lats.
– Tight is light, loose is heavy!
Congratulations to two ladies during the week who achieved new personal bests. Ash performed a 35kg power clean + push jerk, and Shaz hit 52.5kg. Well done ladies!
See you all in the gym.
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