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10 thoughts on “Sat, Mar 29th”

1. i look focused in the pic but need to get my elbows higher. severly missed kyles humor this morning as we all know i am not funny.

   Ruairi: 15.06

   Dan: 24.05

2. Colm/Kyle,
   How did you guys approach the progression of building up to high reps of 40kgs overhead squatting? Over the last few weeks I have been working on shoulder flexibility. I can now do broomstick squats no bother and have been for the last few weeks, the other day I tried the oly bar on its own and can do sets of 8reps. Big improvement from when I first started I couldnt even get knee flexion with the broomstick.. I do find though I need a stool or something to touch my backside off when I hit the bottom phase if I dont have this my form is dodgy!

   How did you guys approach this and how long has it taken you to overhead squat the loads you are currently doing?

   Liam..

3. Liam,

   You jumped from a broomstick, essentially zero weight, to 20Kg? That’s a massive jump in terms of weight – you wouldn’t do that with any other lift (barring the squat in a early novice stage)

   I would get rid of the stool, as it will become a crutch. The Overhead Squat exposes a variety of athletic weaknesses, some of which will be corrected faster than others. Take your time with this one.

   When can you make an Open Day dude?

4. Colm,
   I know patience was never my strong point. The broomstick lifts I dont need a stool for nor would I want one. When I attempt weight though I find a stool helps me its a security feature I find, but yes I do need to get rid of it.. I’m available whenever.. You mentioned a Saturday on a previous post thats fine by me meant to make the last one but was sick..

   Yes wouldnt mind some instruction from yourself in terms of some of the specialist lifts.. Again I am a personal trainer but I don’t claim to know it all and would appreciate exchanging knowledge and getting some first class instruction.

   Thanks again
   Liam

5. Liam,

   I wish I had some great advice for you, but the only formula I used was consistency + time. I had the same progression you seem to be going through. I started with a broomstick for 30 reps then jumped to the 20k bar (shoulders were also my limiting factor). I think I could only bang out about 6 the first go around but I kept at it at least three times a week, adding a rep about every week or 2. Once I hit the reps I was after, I upped the weight in 5k increments. It’s hard to say how long it took as I went in fits and starts, but easily several months. The one piece of advice I will give is be patient–for me it’s far too easy to let form slip to try to get up in weight too quickly. I hope that helps, for whatever it’s worth.

6. Kyle,
   Thanks for that yes whenever I decide to take on a new exercise its all or nothing. But your right particularly with this exercise its a dangerous one from a safety point of view! I will continue with the oly bar for now without the stool and progress from there 5kg increments may be optimistic 2.5kgs I think I will stick with.. Its the alignment I have the problem with ensuring the bar stays behind your head also the extremely wide grip puts stress on the shoulder joint patience is the key..

   I was impressed with the 30reps the other day very nice.

7. Liam,
   As long as you know how to safely dump the bar on failure the OHS shouldn’t present too much of a safety hazard. Practice bailing with an empty bar/broom/enemy overhead to get the brain acquainted with the process so that when a problem arises with some decent weight overhead you won’t wil-e-coyote yourself into the earth. It’ll also serve to make your fellow gym goers keep their distance for fear of having a barbell shaped dent in their heads. Removal of that particular barrier should provide for and encourage more frequent and heavier overhead squatting, which is a good thing. Having said all that, I’m still mildly disturbed by snatches.

8. My max weight snatch / OHS are about the same- 55kg. I think the limiting factor has got to do with how much I can press more than anything else. Can’t strict shoulder press the weight I’m doing as max overhead squat so already I’m having to do a push press or push jerk to get the weight up there, and it feels hard to stabilise it.

   In regards ditching from OHS or snatches- I had this conversation with Kyle last time we were doing heavy snatches as a WOD and my theory is that in order to actually brain yourself properly your arms would have to buckle inwards and you’d have to remain in place. Not that I’m eager to test that theory. When I lose an OHS or snatch then I find that I’m always tipping forwards, I would be more worried for the sake of my shoulders if I were going backwards.

   —

   Incidentally, today’s workout was quite a satisifying one. Running in the rain feeds my masochistic streak.

9. I think coach B advises that you get your ass out of the way if the snatch goes backwards. Just walk forward and let the bar smash behind you. You’ll have to have a wide enough grip to facilitate the shoulder movement required for this. There’s a video somewhere on the main site showing how to do this but I forget where it is. This is gonna make me start youtubing weightlifting accidents again. There goes another saturday night.

10. Colm/Will,

    Just thought I’d drop you guys a line on here. Been looking through some of the previous daily posts and comments – nice resource!

    Was great to meet and chill this weekend. Thanks for the squatting/MU help too – will let you know when I smash my current squatting PB CrossFit Ireland style

    Course all the squatting will be done in the Smith machine, haha

    Nice one guys – cheers.

    Chet
    http://www.FuncKey.co.uk