Week 2, Day 1

Hang clean: 3RM; 95% (of 3RM) x 3, 90% x 3 x 2
Back squat: 5RM; 95% x 5, 90% x 5 x 2
Power jerk: 4RM; 95% x 4, 90% x 4 x 2

Industrious lifters at the Def Jam Championships.

Today begins the second week of our new program. The goal on each of the movements should be to increase the loads used from last week. This will be a tough week...note that there are two drop sets at 90% of the heaviest load used instead of only one drop set each at 95% and 90% like we did last week. Do not underestimate the value (and difficulty) of these drop sets! Maintain focus and perfect positioning on each of these!

This reminds me of a blog post I read the other day by Spencer Arnold (thanks to Rachel for pointing me to his blog). He was talking about learning from others, and one of the things that had struck him early on from watching Chad Vaughn was that he treated every set, every rep as if it were a PR attempt. Now, this doesn't mean ringing the cowbell after every make at 50% of your best snatch, but rather taking each rep seriously and with the same focus you would bring to a PR attempt on your 3rd and final attempt for the win at the Olympics, World Championships, Nationals, the American Open, a local meet, or whatever. Those warm-up and drop sets are much more important than you might think...the warm-up sets especially at loads well below your max are where you can really work on cleaning up technical faults and reinforcing good technique that will allow you to make those big PRs. If you are sloppy at the lighter weights because it's light and you can get away with "muscling" the bar into position or whatever, you are only practicing and reinforcing bad habits that will make hitting your potential impossible.

This carries over into your CrossFit WODs as well (if you do them). If when you hear "3, 2, 1, GO!", you close your eyes and "grip it and rip it" with no thought to your technique, you're almost certain to be reinforcing bad movement patterns and habits, and those bad habits will without a doubt carry over into your lifting. Any time I coach a CrossFit class with lots of high-rep barbell movements (yeah, it's been a while...), I always try to stress that it is an opportunity to do one of two things: a) reinforce good technique and movement patterns with lots of precisely executed reps at lighter loads that allow such precision, or b) reinforce bad technique and incorrect movement patterns with lots of sloppy, poorly executed reps. The choice is yours.