The Chief

Last night at CFNZ I finally got to try this one.

'The Chief'
5 rounds of
AMRAP 3
3 Power Cleans (40kg)
6 Pushups
9 Squats
Rest 1 minute between rounds

3 + 1 clean, 2 + 5 push-ups, 3+ something, 2 + push-ups, 2 + 3 push-ups

The push-ups killed me. The time is coming when I'll have to put some effort into bringing them up.
Cleans were OK. I had a practise session working on jumping from the hang with long arms and now I finally understand that it really is about jumping and landing, well the jumping part anyway. A biiiig jump. I put that into practise as much as possible which is why I stayed on 40kg. Going to 50 or 60 wouldn't have slowed my time down much, but it would have forced me into my patented "panicked scramble to get the weight up at all costs" clean technique.
Push-ups were just dreadful. Down to doubles and singles at the end and seriously fighting not to have to go to my knees. Pathetic.
Squats were pretty OK. I've been working since I got back from Brand X to engage my hamstrings when I squat and I cracked it a few months back. Since then the connection has been getting stronger and stronger. Jeff told me in mid workout "keep those hamstrings engaged " and I didn't have the foggiest idea what the hell that should feel like. Last night I fell into quad dominant squats many times, but was able to get my hamstrings into it again and get some pop back into the movement. I'll probably be working for the rest of my life to make hamstring powered squats my default technique, but to prove that I can consciously do it when I'm under duress is extremely pleasing.

After leaving a very nice sweat angel on the floor (something I admit to peer in doing) I peeled myself off to help with the next class. That introduced another dynamic I have to master, how to coach people when you've just finished a WOD. Afterwards Kaz (there were two Karens so I'll use the abbreviation to distinguish between them even though I don't like it) said that she got quite angry doing the workout because it was so hard and said "and he (me) was mumbling something at me about my form but I was ignoring him" She also said if I'd got closer she would have paid more attention, I told her I was too scared to. It was all post WOD fun, or at least I intended it to be so I hope that's how she took it. Her problem was incomplete hip extension in her squats and cleans as she got tired. Next time 'round I'll get in her face more, but with the small number of cleans there isn't much opportunity to do much to correct technique.
I'm seeing more and more the importance of setting your cues both in the athlete's introductory training sessions and in the pre-WOD explanation. Walking up to someone who's tired you can't give a long explanation of what you want them to change, you have to be able to give them a short cue that re-inforces something that has already been explained and demonstrated earlier.
Tamaryn and Darren have been trying to organise a trainer's meeting to start setting some standard practises and I can see that standard cues we all use need to be part of this.
Tamaryn gave a good run-down of the exercises beforehand, but didn't emphasise specific cues and didn't cover off squats and push-ups in detail, so people weren't getting chest to ground on the push-ups as they tired or completely extending hips on the squats and cleans. Understandably she focussed on the most complex movement, the clean and got some really good results tidying form up there.
Something she did that I thought was brilliant (which I am so stealing) is tell people "you're not using a heavier weight until I see those elbows coming up". Several people had their egos bruised by using weights they thought were "beneath" them. Their technique as they tired proved it wasn't. Damn good idea.
One woman asked me for some help with her clean afterwards and that was when post-WOD coaching really hit. I got her jumping from the hang very nicely. Her elbows needed to be more consistently fast, but they were right erratically. It came unglued when I had her deadlift to the hang and then jump. She'd get to the jumping position and know she had to do something different and pretty much panic. I was too fuzzy to think of the approach Charles Poliquin uses where you start from the hang, but lower each time until the athlete is cleaning from the floor. I think that would have worked well for her. In the process of setting her up to clean I'd brought her deadlift stance in quite significantly and that change threw her a bit. I needed to rebuild her deadlift and working down from the hang would have worked I think. I won't see her for a bit, we're away next week, but I hope I get to work with her some more. She was heading toward a very nice clean indeed.