Skip to main content

Cues

So, I like to stay active, and that sometimes involves CrossFit. If you've never tried it for yourself, one of the hallmarks of this particular style of workout is that you're constantly doing something different. I've been asked to perform all sorts of new movements that I'd never considered before. Now, before you start questioning this, I've always been taught proper technique and form long before I had to actually perform the exercise with any kind of weight in my hands. So, it should be fairly safe if done properly.

That said, constantly having to do new exercises means that I routinely get coaching for the proper form for a movement. Even for things that I now take for granted, someone is always watching and calling me out if I'm starting to slip. It's not uncommon for someone to tell me to keep my chest up (so you don't put a heavy strain on your lower back). For someone as anal and detail oriented as me, that is incredibly helpful. I generally prefer doing things "the right way" anyway, but having it prevent actual physical harm to my person is even more motivation to get it right.

Regardless, a while ago, I was working on a hang power clean, which is basically an Olympic lift. Now, I'm not going to compete in the Olympics any time soon, but as you can imagine, it takes a fair bit of coordination to do properly. It is very easy to do that movement incorrectly, and you will either be incredibly inefficient or hurt yourself if you do so. As I was doing it, my coach spotted something I was doing wrong; I was using my hips to generate momentum in the horizontal direction instead of vertically. It sounds strange, I know, but just roll with it. I just wasn't pulling straight up, basically.

Now, I wasn't doing it completely wrong, but I was losing some power by doing it the wrong way. It's much harder to lift something straight up when some of your strength is pushing it sideways. So, he suggested that I pretend I was trying to hit someone behind me with my elbow. That mental image helped me understand what I was doing wrong, so I started trying to build in the muscle memory by doing what looked like really aggressive shoulder shrugs.

Remember, though, I'm the kind of person who can easily get something stuck in his head, so I found myself thinking about this even after the workout was over. And you can do that particular motion without weights in your hands, even if you're just walking around. So, I found myself walking to lunch and starting to throw my shoulders and arms around in the proper position. I actually didn't exaggerate it much, but I imagine it must've looked funny to anyone walking by.

Of course, that wasn't the only thing that I needed to work on. The second cue that my coach gave me was to try to bring my lower body straight up and down. He knows I've done a bit of martial arts, so he likened the path to the same one that an uppercut would generate. Basically, it's like a bounce to your step, only far more pronounced when you come up. You know what else is very easy to inadvertently do when you're mulling it over? Yup, a "bounce to your step." So, for a couple of days, I was walking around with occasional shrugs and a bounce to my step in order to try to get my technique for the hang power cleans right.

I sure hope I get the technique down right soon. I might start drawing funny looks if I keep bouncing or shrugging while walking.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Pink

Way back in high school, there was a male teacher that all the girls thought was attractive. It was an open secret that a bunch of them had crushes on him. In fact, the school newspaper even did an article about him that quoted some girl saying, "he's so cute, he even makes pink look good." Yes, he had worn a pink shirt to school one day, and it had apparently been a big hit. I was reminded of this story when my sister-in-law suggested that she would choose pink as the color for her wedding and bridal party. I don't think I've ever made a color look good before, but I remember thinking, "well, I know it's possible to not look stupid in pink as a straight guy, I guess I can try." And I think that's almost exactly what I told her. I also happened to own a gray suit, so I figured the combination would look all right. However, I was pretty much the only one willing to play along. My sister-in-law's brothers wanted absolutely no part of th...

Dreams

Normally, I don't eat very many sweets. I tend to eat pretty generous portions, but I generally prefer savory food over sweet. In fact, I usually prefer things half as sweet when possible. My preference doesn't have anything to do with health reasons, it's just one of those things that I've always liked better. That said, I do inevitably eat dessert, particularly if I'm out with other people. My stance towards dessert is roughly equivalent to those who are social drinkers . If other people want to munch on something for dessert, I'm not about to cross my arms and refuse. That'd be just a tad gauche. So, I do eat some dessert. I even have a few standby favorites that I'll usually order when presented with them (brownies, creme brulee, and apple pie). But left to my own devices, I'm not about to go hunting for dessert. Apparently, this means that the sugar can really mess with my system under the right circumstances. As I've discovered, ...

New York City Trip (Day 1)

After my crappy flight , I was now in Newark, New Jersey at 7AM on a Friday morning. I had done a little bit of reading up, so I knew which bus I needed to take and where I was going to get off. All in all, getting into the city was surprisingly easy. I suppose speaking the language does make things simpler. Through no real planning of mine (a theme of the trip, at least on my part), I picked one of the later bus stops at which to get off, Grand Central. I actually just figured that getting off at Grand Central would give me options, and heck, it's called Grand Central. That just screamed "decent place to disembark that might be close to some stuff" to me, so that's where I got off. However, it also meant that we drove down 42 nd St to get to my bus stop. That just happens to be a big street, and it gave me a glimpse of Times Square as we drove by. My bus stop choice had accidentally given me a rough layout of the city. Go me. I had about 6 hours to kill...