MOVEMENTS

The Teaching Movement course will help you refine your teaching skills and get new ideas about how to run an effective and fun class for every level of athlete. Gain access to a video library of teaching progressions that can be used in group classes or personal training sessions.

The Teaching Movement course will help you refine your teaching skills and get new ideas about how to run an effective and fun class for every level of athlete. Gain access to a video library of teaching progressions that can be used in group classes or personal training sessions.

"The snatch balance begins in a narrower stance, with feet directly under the hips—the pulling stance that is the starting position for the clean and the snatch (what Coach Burgener often calls the “jumping stance”). The snatch balance requires the athlete to initiate the movement with a strong dip and drive, then dive under the bar and move the feet to land in the slightly wider catching stance with the bar overhead—all explosively and in an instant." (CrossFit Journal, 2005).

The cardiorespiratory benefit of mixed modal, high-intensity functional movements, a la CrossFit’s WOD, is a better, more useful, broader cardiovascular stimulus than any monostructural activity like biking, swimming, or running—even in combinations.

Though the hip flexors are the primary movers in the GHD sit-up, the abs play a strong role in stabilizing the torso to prevent hyperextension of the spine. This is, in our opinion, a more functional role for the abs than trunk flexion. Carefully introduced and practiced, the GHD sit-up is a potent tool for reeducating the athlete to use the hip flexors more efficaciously and safely.

Dan Bailey offers tips for beginner-level athletes who are learning the double-under.

The muscle-up is a movement that begins from the hang, passes through portions of a pull-up and a dip, then finishes in a supported position with arms extended.

"The lesson we’ve drawn from the GHD sit-up is that in spite of the primacy of hip flexors over trunk flexors, or the abs, in this sit-up it recruits the abs powerfully in two ways. First, the movement takes the trunk from hyperextension to full flexion, albeit with negligible load. (No crunch can match this range of motion.) Second, the role of the abs in this sit-up is powerful and largely isometric—i.e., they stabilize the torso from undue extension."

Two-time Olympian Chad Vaughn dissects his 315-lb. clean and jerk via slow-motion footage.

There is a strong consensus among scientists that our heritage is deeply rooted in both climbing and bipedalism, i.e., both swinging from the trees and functioning on two feet. While nearly all our regular movements today are bipedal, the value to survival, fitness, and combat of climbing skills is critical and largely undeveloped even in "elite" athletes.

"[The dumbbell lunge] serves a couple purposes. First, it is rare that an athlete comes to me with a perfect balance of bilateral strength. Lunges address that difference with a functional, gait-oriented movement. Second, the lunge involves the kind of single-leg support, bilateral transfer of force, and trunk stabilization that are required for most sport, so it has broad carryover." (CrossFit Journal, 2006).

Requiring more stability in the shoulders and the midline, while also increasing depth, the ring push-up is significantly more difficult than traditional push-ups on the floor.

To learn more about human movement and the CrossFit methodology, visit CrossFit Training.

Jeff Martone teaches the kettlebell Turkish get-up. Check out the CrossFit Preferred Course Kettlebell Rx 1.0 and accelerate your ability to learn, apply, and master essential kettlebell movements, adding variance to your CrossFit® training.

To learn more about human movement and the CrossFit methodology, visit CrossFit Training.

Coach Mike Burgener instructs his daughter, Sage, through the hang clean exercise. Originally published - 2005.

To learn more about human movement and the CrossFit methodology, visit CrossFit Training.