Oly Lifting and Power
Many of you have heard me say that the olympic lifts are the most powerful movements we do. This picture (which is also a link to a great instructional book on the oly lifts) depicts the exact portion of the movements that I am referring to when I say that. If we were to rewind this pic a few frames so the athlete’s feet were on the ground and his hips still slightly in flexion we would be at the beginning of what we refer to as the second pull. This is the (straight armed) explosive jump portion of the lift. The best oly lifters in the world can clean approximately 580#. 1 Horsepower equals 550# moved 1 foot in one second. The length of this second pull is more than one foot and probably takes a half a second. So lets use some simple round numbers to do some power calculations. We’ll say the record clean is 550# instead of 580# and during the second pull that weight is moved one foot in half a second. These assumptions are all probably underestimations. This conservative calculation would have the athlete generating 2 horsepower during the second pull of the exercise. That type of power output by humans is not found anywhere else in life or athletics. That is only the second pull! The front squat portion would generate decent power and the jerk would also generate another horse! This type of power production is an extremely significant stimulus on the body. And we all know that significant stimulus elicits a significant response and that is why we train. We want our bodies to respond. That is why the oly lifts are worth doing and doing right. Check out this article for some really simple reading on the oly lifts, their impact on sports and why they should be done properly.
All Classes
“Nicole“
Complete as many rounds in 20 minutes as you can of:
Run 400 meters
Max rep Pull-ups
Post number of pull-ups completed for each round to comments.
Filed under: Girl WODs, Olympic Lifts Tagged: | Nicole
As rx’d: 30, 19, 15, 15, 11, 14
That’s a 4-rep PR on the pullups.
6 rounds (same as last time) with same bands, but did 45 more pull-ups total today than last time.
Last time doing this workout was 7 weeks pregnant—now 13 weeks along and feeling great—a HUGE thanks to Jeff for the encouragement and to Crossfit!
Nice work you two. Awesome efforts. Brooke that is a testament to your hard work. Casey nice mental fortitude fighting through a torn callous in the first round! That makes for a tough 20 minutes and you still PRed.