CrossFit Oakland

« Get That @#$%^& Camera Out of My Face! | Main | CrossFit Oakland: Soft & Cuddly :-) »

September 30, 2006

CFO Team Spotting Method for Heavy Squat

Here we see a nice spotting method for squats, assuming four people of reasonably close strength are working together.

Spotters shadow the bar up and down and assist if athlete fails in the bottom of the squat.

The third person watches the athlete from below and calls "go" when the athlete breaks parallel (when the fold of the hip crosses below the knee). On the call the athlete goes back up.

Pictures are of Jonathan, Franklin, Max and Sam doing the WOD from the CrossFit National Site.

Max Lifts:

Franklin 255x2 (1.2x bw)
Jonathan 255x2 First time with no belt (1.2x bw)
Max 235x2 (1.25x bw)
Sam 235x2 PR (1.4x bw)
Sharon 110x2 First time heavy (.8x bw)
Nicole 110x2 First time heavy (.8x bw)

Note that the weights don't tell the whole story, pound for pound Sam has significantly more power than anyone else. He has much less inert metabolic material than anyone else in this lineup too.

The next goals for each athlete, taken from the CrossFit North Standards List, are as follows:

Franklin, Jonathan, Sam, Max: 1x1.5x bw (level 3: advanced athlete)
Nicole, Sharon: 1x1x bw (level 2 intermediate athlete)

Since these were doubles it is conceivable that at least Sam might be able to pull this off: He needs 252 pounds.

There is an interesting tradeoff here: for Me, Sharon, Nicole, Jonathan and to a lesser extent Franklin, getting rid of metabolically inert material (fat) with no other adjustments is going to put us pretty close to this goal. For example, if I go from my present bw of 188 down to 175 I only have to put another 27.5 pounds on this lift to meet the standard (262.5 pounds).

On the other hand, Sam has no (or very little) fat to lose, so it is possible he might need to go up in weight to meet the standard, perhaps getting 255 pounds at a bw of 170.

By the way, the Level 4 standard (elite athlete) is 2x bw, or 420 pounds for Franklin and Jonathan at the weight they are at now. Achieving this standard for any of us would be a 3+ year undertaking and would involve having more muscle, less fat (except Sam) and vastly increased neuromuscular efficiency and technique (skill). And, of course, to truly be in the CrossFit elite we would need we would all need a five-minute mile and a bunch of other stuff too. I for one am looking forward to pushing towards these goals.

Some minor form notes for real geeks:

Picture one, top left: bar is slightly too high on back, lordotic curve too shallow (Max).
Picture two top right, bar is much too high on back, almost on neck (Sam).
Picture three bottom left, not bad, do it like that! (Jonathan)
Picture four bottom right: feet too wide (Franklin)

Posted by Max Lewin at September 30, 2006 12:45 PM

Comments

Posted by: Nicole Okumu at September 30, 2006 3:27 PM

Posted by: Max Lewin at September 30, 2006 3:57 PM