Today we learned shoulder movements: shoulder press, push press, wall ball, and the push jerk.
Shoulder Press
- Stand up tall, core tight, bar beneath your chin, supported by clavicle and hands. Have elbows slightly pointed forward.
- Pull head straight back, keeping eyes level, while the bar travels straight upward.
- As the bar passes above the head, return head to neutral position and lock the elbows.
- Leading with the elbows, lower the weight while moving your head backward again to make way for the bar. Return to starting position.
Push Press
This is very similar to the shoulder press, but is a power-generating movement that allows you move more weight and move it faster than a standard shoulder press
- Drop hips straight down, as though somebody pressed the back of your knees to cause them to break.
- Straighten legs and drive hips upward while executing shoulder press.
- The finishing position should be the same as in the shoulder press.
Wall Ball
Wall ball is pretty fun! We didn't do too many of them, but I can tell it would make for a pretty tough workout.
- Stand in front of the wall.
- Starting in a squat position, hold a medicine ball in front of your face (almost close enough to kiss it).
- Drive upward while performing push press movement.
- Release the ball at full extension. Ball should get enough height to touch the line painted on the wall. (I do not know how high up it is; I'll be sure to ask next time)
- Catch the ball and absorb its impact by lower back into squat position. Repeat.
This is sort of a variation on classic olympic lift. Of the presses discussed today, this one enables the lifter to the most amount of weight. This link sorta distinguishes the shoulder press, push press, and push jerk. One small difference is that we split our feet, like this woman. (N.B. her execution of the clean and jerk is far from perfect, so I don't recommend the video as a reference guide).
- Perform a push press.
- As the bar travels up, split the feet apart to get beneath the bar.
- Retract the feet to neutral starting position, starting with forward foot then the back foot.
I found that I slightly prefer my left foot to go forward, but it didn't matter much. With respect to foot position, the toes should be pointed slightly inward for stability's sake. Also, the rear foot's heel should not be bearing weight; focus the weight on the ball of that foot.
That said, my WOD was the following:
3 RFT:
10 push presses
20 sit-ups using the Abmat
400m dash
I finished in 11:37 I believe, push-pressing 45 lbs. My classmate beat me by a pretty good margin, having powered through the final bout's sit-ups and proving to be a far better runner than me. The dude is a 32 year old father (plus or minus), so I'm a little peeved about losing to him. But hey, it's only the beginning.
After watching the video of the girl do a clean and jerk, it reminds me why I'm so hesitant to do these exercises. I have always had a really bad habit of cheating on form on exercises (skullcrushers, curls, bent over rows... to name a few). When I'm doing that on those sorts of exercises, I'm only cheating myself. But if I can't figure out how to get a complex movement correct, now I'm hurting myself.
ReplyDeleteThe father is going down.
I just watched a bunch of videos on the clean, and there seem to be huge disagreements on how your arms should work into the motion. i see some people catching the weight with their elbows perpendicular to their body while others have their arms almost tucked in close. thoughts?
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to maintaining form, I think we've all been down that road before. I still worry about severe injury to myself, but luckily the instructors are there to coach me on form and make sure I don't get stupid with the amount of weight.
ReplyDeleteMy instructor told me that elbow position is a function of your overall flexibility. The vast majority of men do not have the flexibility to extend their elbows outward to make that tabletop with the underside of their forearms. Women, on the other hand, commonly have no issue with this.
That said, I think the most important part is getting underneath the bar in such a way that your tail remains pushed out as far as you can get it while keeping your chest as high up as you can. Ultimately, the bar should be resting on a combination of your chest and deltoids. In other words, your hands and arms shouldn't really be supporting the weight much if at all. As long as you maintain strict form in the upper and lower body, it seems to me that what you do with your extremities is of less consequence.