I Am a Human Catapult

As I have said in the past, I am my own coach.  With that being the case I do occasionally look outside for help (which I need desperately).  This past Saturday I attended about a four-hour weightlifting seminar featuring Don McCauley of CrossFit Savannah.  The training was hosted by Old School Weightlifting in Brunswick, GA.  Mr. McCauley set up his high tech equipment, which included three pre-printed placards taped to the wall.  The laminated posters detailed why the catapult method of teaching weightlifting was superior to the “jump and shrug” version touted by USA Weightlifting.  To be fair, I have been attempting to lift in this manner for months now.  It was however, great to hear it straight from the McCauley’s mouth and clean up what I had been attempting on my own. 

The 30-minute lecture/theory portion seemed to make sense, but who knows how the actual application of the theory would go.  Mr. McCauley pulled out more high tech equipment from his proverbial sleeves… plywood slabs.  We worked a couple of drills with unique names from atop the plywood:  the dirty dancing drill and the rock and roll drill.  The drills applied to both the snatch and the clean pulls.  We performed these drills and most of the others with our toes hanging off the edge of the flat plywood.  This was to ensure we stayed on our heals during the pulls… and it worked wonders!  We next moved on to the jerk.  Coach McCauley had an interesting approach.  He had us all tape an “X” closely behind our rearward moving foot.  His instructions were to jerk the weight and have the rear foot land on the tape.  This felt very awkward, yet like lightning.  The split seemed very narrow, but seemed much quicker, which is the name of the game.  The afternoon concluded with a little discussion of miscellaneous topics.  They ranged from programming to athletes to fun anecdotes. 

 

I can’t wait to employ some of these drills and ideas into training the next several weeks and months leading up to the American Championships.  I will let you know how things progress.