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Different Strokes

As some of you guys may have noticed, CrossFit is a very individual experience. When we give a whole class of 10-15 people the same cue for a movement such as ?stay on your heels? it may help some people and some people it may not. After you initially learn a movement and start performing it in a metcon, the cues that the coaches give you may not help you as much as they help someone else. So what do you do when you are struggling to find a cue that will help you perform a little bit better in a metcon?

I?ll tell you about what I did and some cues I?ve found help me. Let me just start this part off by saying that I hate deadlifts in metcons, because I?m horrible at them. I am strong enough to lift 225 lbs. easy but for some reason in metcons they crush me. It use to be that anything over 5 reps or 185lbs I would look like an angry cat on Halloween. So the first thing I did was think about where in the movement I was having trouble. I was having trouble with letting my back go when I was bringing the bar down and then I wouldn?t reset at the bottom. ?I had identified my problem area. Next was looking at the whole movement. Where does the power come from in a deadlift? Does it come from your back moving the bar up and down? No. The power comes from your hips. So what should your hips do in a proper deadlift? Do they move up and down? No there is not really a whole lot of vertical shift in your hips. Instead, you see them moving horizontally. You drive the bar up and down by your hips moving in and out. That was it for me! ?That was the cue that really completely changed the way I think about deadlift. The next time we had deadlifts in a metcon as I picked up the bar I thought to myself ?hips in,hips back,hips in, hips back? so on and so forth. That was the first workout I had ever done 21-15-9 deadlifts unbroken at 225 lbs., let alone with good form.

If you’re having trouble with deadlift I hope that cue helps. If it doesn?t help your deadlift dilemma or you are struggling with other movements, then think about where you are specifically struggling in the movement. Then take a step back and look at the movement as a whole and trying changing your perspective a little bit. Maybe you just need to reassess where you are trying to get your power from, or what you are trying to pull with. Everyone reacts to different cues so don?t be afraid to use a different cue than what a coach may give you. It may also help to youtube different videos of the movement. ?Be careful some people act like they know what they are talking about when really they have no clue. ?Whenever we post a WOD we try to put up a good video to help you, because their cues may be different from the ones you hear our coaches say. ?Sometimes a different cue resonates better with different people. ?What are some helpful cues you guys have discovered over the course of your CrossFit voyage? What are some good cues that you would give to a CrossFit beginner?

-Chris aka TI

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