Shirts and Etc.WOD
Work up to a 1 rep max for:
1. Clean
Annie Cleans Heavy [wmv][mov]
Clean Faults, Mike Burgener [wmv][mov]
Finishing the Extension, Coach Burgener [wmv][mov]
2. Floor Press
Setting up the Overhead Squat, Lisa Ray [wmv][mov] » Oct 9 09
Overhead Squat Basics [wmv][mov]
Overhead Squat Elements [wmv][mov] » May 20 07
The Overhead Squat - (video), Again Faster
The ultimate goal under athletic and real world loading is to be able
to keep our spines in a neutral and stable position. Imagine if you
will, that your spine is contained in a rough cylinder of meat, not
unlike a hotdog with a toothpick running down the middle.
To
create stability, we want our athletes to tighten up their trunks as if
they were squeezing their spines in a 360 degree direction, aiming the
contraction force inwards, there by crushing the toothpick. The human
body has a few different integrated muscular and soft-tissue systems
that make this possible and remarkably effective.
To take care of
the bottom of the meat tube, we need our athletes to pull up on their
pelvic floor, and we accomplish this by cuing them to "pull sphincter
to belly button."
The last piece of the equation then, comes from
getting our athletes to jam their diaphragms down thus "capping the
tube". This pressure from the diaphragm comes from taking an enormous
breath and holding it during the performed movement (old school name is
valsalva). Not only does this make the spinal system initially stable,
but breath holding also increases spinal rigidity during peak movement
compression by effectively supporting the hotdog from the inside,
through the rising compression force of the air trapped in the lungs.
In effect, taking that big breath and holding it allows for internal
trunk support to augment the external support we are already
generating. This is good.
If you have a heart condition should
you hold your breath? Maybe not. But humans hold their breaths all the
time as a normal stabilizing strategy. (Picture your niece taking a
poo, bet she holds her breath as she pushes. Or a pregnant woman
pushing during childbirth. Or a man with back pain breathing in short
gasps.) Bottom line is that holding your breath during movement and
effort is normal and functional. So let's make sure we are doing it
right. Besides, when you take that big breath and compress it under
load, you also temporarily supercharge your nervous system which does
things like; temporarily raises blood pressures (this is good as you
want blood to keep getting to your tissue when stressed ....bad if you
have congestive heart failure) and increases neural output by creating
nervous system overflow.
Bottom line, take a discreet,
distinct big breath before you lift on your next squat, press, clean,
deadlift etc. And, don't let it out until you are sure you are in the
clear. Too often, we see athletes miss the tail end of what would be
successful lifts because they breathed out and lost trunk tension.
Go hold your breath and PR. Your spine will thank you.
Coach Kstar, San Francisco CrossFit
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