Today we are going to talk a little bit about how you can make yourself stronger by just altering your approach to different lifts and movements that we do in the classes! Many movements that we do involve big large momentum based actions. Think cleans, push press, kipping pull ups, handstand push ups…. The list can go on and on. It is easy to put the priority on going faster and getting reps done faster and easier. It’s true that we teach you to use your whole body and how to use your core to make yourself stronger. It’s common to see people opting to tap n’go deadlifts, push press… using big bounces in their squats. While connecting reps in these fashions may help you get a few more reps in or add a few extra pounds… those extra reps and pounds don’t mean that you are actually getting stronger. What it means is that your coordination is improving and you are learning to take advantage of your muscular stretch reflex. I’m not going to talk much about what that is, if you would like to read more about that, here is a link.

I want to talk about how we can build the strength that is the base for a better body. Let’s look how we can make your squats stronger. When we squat it is common for people that have been around a little to ride down and then drop and bounce out of the bottom, unless you have spent lots of time building your bottom position and your muscles know how to stay engaged and fire correctly you are probably using 90% quads and bouncing off your knees. I would say that most every person in our gym would benefit from taking their bounce out of their squat. Controlling the eccentric phase of the lift and manually turning over as hard as they can or being even crazier and pausing below parallel will produce better strength improvements and stave off injury. Focusing on standing up with maximal speed out of that controlled bottom can work wonders. This will make your squat feel harder and not as strong at first so a lot of people won’t like it and ditch this approach for their bounce. Remember that percentage work days are for getting stronger not for testing. We spread our squat testing out pretty well here at Outlier, if you spend a few months with pausing instead of bouncing… then when the test comes around and you bring the bounce back… you will be riding the train to PR’sville guaranteed. Every athlete that I have worked with that has had a stalled squat or stalled olympic lifts that has been able to follow through and stick with the controlled squats has seen great improvements in their performance.

This same principle applies to any other lift that we do for multiple reps in the strength portion…deadlifts, cleans, dips, press, pull ups. Unless we specifically say to link reps or tap n’go I would say you will get more from it with dead starts. The people with the biggest deadlifts don’t tap n’go, they drop and reset their hand and backs every time. The lifters with the biggest cleans don’t practice tap ’n’go they do a fresh start every time. Your kipping pull ups will get way better if on our strict pull up days you make sure to go alllll the way down and pause before you re-pull into your next rep. Remember that all those types of movements are the foundational exercises for the bigger lifts that we do. Taking the time to put the ego aside and build these movements with a strict non bouncing approach will lead to a stronger you.

Does this mean that we don’t ever want you to bounce or be dynamic? No! There is entirely a place and time to work on max weight for a triple tap ’n’go clean. To practice you max kipping pull ups. That is what the coach and the programming is for. Those movements are more of a test of coordination and accuracy. Unless you have spent the time building your movements strength and familiarity, the fast lifts aren’t going to be able to excel like they should. There will never be someone that has a better looking five rep max then there one rep max. Someone that has a terrible max power clean will probably have a terrible looking max speed “Grace.” So wait till the programming and your coach call for you to work on the test that call for more coordination.

Build your base stronger and sturdier so your CrossFit journey can go higher and farther in the long term!

Coach P