Resting heavy on your shoulders

The rack position has the barbell resting on the meat of the front deltoids, elbows up and slightly in front of the bar. It allows proper execution of the front squat, press, push press, and jerk.

When learning the rack position, people often default to trying to control the bar with just their arms, avoiding contact with the shoulders (as in the photo on the left). Notice that most of the load is on the wrists. Ouch. Progress and performance will quickly stall for those who use the arms to rack the barbell. This must be corrected. We do this by loosening the grip (opening the fingers) a bit to allow the bar to drop back onto the shoulders, working with an empty barbell to get the feel for the placement, and adjusting the grip width to find the best position current flexibility limitations will allow (photo on the right).

The rower bites back

One day a guy walks into a gym and sees on the whiteboard:

500m row x 3
Rest as needed between efforts.

“500-meter row--that’s it?” he says with a dismissive smirk, and saunters off to change clothes.

On the first one, he embraces the spirit of the sprint and throws himself into it fully.

It pays off with an excellent time, but not without some...discomfort. Fortunately his friends are there with support and encouragement in the aftermath.

Congratulations, William, on your 1:29 personal record :-)

Dumbbell line-up

Three, two, one--go!

Moving bodyweight

CrossFit benchmark "Lynne"

Five rounds for max reps of:

Body weight bench press

Pull-ups

Visit from Chelsea

Every minute on the minute, perform 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, and 15 squats.

Can you continue for thirty minutes? Twenty minutes? How about 10? If you fall behind the clock, note the time and then keep going for thirty minutes to see how many total rounds you can complete.

Team 6 - CrossFit classic "Chelsea"

First pull-up

Sophie gets her first unassisted pull-up!

Hips over shoulders

With continued exposure, this will work into a freestanding
hips-over-shoulders handstand.

Strong play

In honor of Sean's birthday, Friday evening's workout was a strongman-style event, with an added metabolic boost at the beginning, courtesy of our Concept2 rowers.

For time:

1. 1000-meter row.

2. Plate carry - Move about 450 pounds of bumper plates from one end of the gym to the other. With a 60-pound D-ball cherry on top.

3. Farmer's walk, 100 pounds per hand, out across the parking lot and back into the gym.

Clock stops.

4. For reps: Fat-bar overhead push-presses or jerks, with about 100 pounds on an Apollon's Axle bar.

Just getting that devil of a bar up to the rack position for pressing was a mighty big challenge for some of us.

One minute rest.

5. For reps: Lift a 130-pound sandbag from the floor to the platform and back down.

Everything was scalable to individual strength and ability.

Much fun was had by all (except maybe the slightly horrified chiropractor observing from the sidelines). Way to hang with the heavy stuff, y'all—and to get over your fears of it, for some of you.

You'll have a chance to do more of this kind of thing if you want (and pull a big red bus!) this summer at the Mt. Rainier's Strongest Man contest (and all-around good time) down in Sumner, WA. It's a fantastic event and fundraiser hosted by our friends at Rainier CrossFit on July 21, 2007.