Violent hip extension


Both gymnastics and Olympic Lifting require violent hip extension. Watch the video of one the Games athletes performing muscle ups and visualize the snatch or the clean instead of a muscle up. Can you see using this kind of violent hip extension as a way to increase the weight you can snatch or clean? Watch also how her arms stay long until she nears full hip extension. Does this sound something like, “don’t start bending your arms as soon as the bar leaves the ground?” Or does is sound like, “use the biggest muscles first, and work your way down to the smaller muscles?” Or perhaps, “use big muscles to do big movements?”

And just for the sake of clarity, if anyone at our gym who does not have a strict muscle up even thinks of trying a kipping muscle up before they have a strict muscle up…you will be drug to the river and plunged under water until such time as we are convinced you have erased such evil thoughts from your brain.

Our point here is the transference of movements from one exercise to another and how important body position, force production, and good mechanics are to everything we do at the gym. You have all heard this, but in the heat of the workout it’s sometimes easy to forget, form is the first and most important thing we focus on. Form, then speed, then weight.

Enjoy the video and your visualization skills…and happy Olympic weightlifiting. See you Monday night at 6pm at our Olympic lifting class.