FuBarbell

Most of the athletes I meet aren’t interested in becoming professional Olympic weightlifters. Usually, Olympic-style weightlifting is just a smaller component of a much larger whole. Understanding this component opens up the doors on how you could repurpose the lifts to match your needs and also find greater fulfillment in the things you do. After all, unless you plan on making weightlifting your career, I hope you are having some fun along the way.

Lester Ho (@lesterhokw) is back this week with a talk on momentum. Coaches will tell you not to “grip and rip” a bar off the floor, but do you know why? The obvious answer might be “to hold/maintain your position”, but what does that really mean? Lester is here to decode these messages in this 2 part series on the role of momentum in your lifts.

Part 1

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“Momentum is defined as the product of the mass and velocity of an object. In weightlifting, the goal is to generate sufficient momentum to displace the barbell overhead.

Missing my friends down in South America (@fuerzacrossfit, @kallpacrossfit, @tuluka). I got to hang out with some pretty great people during my travels. Here is Juan Ruiz Morelo of the Colombian national team making 184kg/405lbs fly. Juan and Carlos Berna came down after one of my seminars to hang out and play. The result? Lots of fun, talked shop the whole night, and I set a lifetime PR on the snatch.

#FuBarbell #ColombianWeightlifting #CrossFit #Olympicstyleweightlifting #usaw #snatch #clean #cleanandjerk #technique #education #motivation #instagramfitness

Spent the afternoon filming our next @codyapp project. Education doesn’t have “rest days”.

Demos by: @brandonw8lifter

#FuBarbell #CodyApp #ReebokONE #CrossFit #Olympicstyleweightlifting #usaw #snatch #clean #cleanandjerk #technique #education #motivation #instagramfitness

Since I’ve been on a squat posting streak, here is Nikita Durnev (@nikita789) front squatting 160kg/352lbs as Vasiliy Polovnikov (@polovnikov105) coaches him through the lift.

#FuBarbell #RussianWeightlifting #ReebokONE #CrossFit #Olympicstyleweightlifting #usaw #snatch #clean #cleanandjerk #technique #education #motivation #instagramfitness

Hung out at Max’s Gym today in Oakland and lifted with Max (@mxaita) and JoAnn Aita (@joannaita7). It’s great to get out of your own club, train in a different space, and also get a fresh pair of eyes on your lifting. Max is a master at the squat. It’s been great being able to pick his brain on squat technique and mechanics. Here he is smashing an easy 270kg/594lbs. Legitsville.

#FuBarbell #MaxsGym #ReebokONE #CrossFit #Olympicstyleweightlifting #usaw #snatch #clean #cleanandjerk #technique #education #motivation #instagramfitness

One of the first concepts Coach Wu (@wuchuanfu) talked to me about when we first started chatting about weightlifting was this idea of balancing the system. Through balance, the body can move with more efficiency essentially minimizing unnecessary muscular activation so that the energy created by the legs can get carried through more readily to the barbell.

Exercises can be repurposed to fit the needs of the athlete. Use lighter loads to hone in technique, dial up speed, increase power; and most importantly (in my opinion), heighten your awareness of interacting with the weight.

What an exciting weekend with USAW nationals! We had over 400 lifters registered equally split between male and female contenders. Each year, we find the number of athletes within this sport growing and also the number of athletes qualifying for national meets increasing. This is an exciting time for our sport.

Here’s a congratulations to my friends down at Superior Athletic Advantage (@crossfitsaa) — Mallory Rawlings (@malrawlings) — for competing in her first national meet. Mallory competed in the 58kg weight class and went 4/6 (62kg snatch, 77kg clean&jerk). Great job!