CrossFit Athletic Group

Loading Order is one of the three things we coach at the Champions Club. When the hips and shoulders do most of the work, things tend to go well, and they can only do most of the work if they bend first.

For the lower body, we exaggerate this by doing box jumps, squats, kettlebell swings, and lunges with our shin vertical. Again, in real life it will never be that perfect, but we hope the more we practice it that way, the closer we'll get to the standard.

Cleans, especially ones from the ground, pose a pretty difficult challenge for Loading Order; the weight is usually heavy, you're tired, the movement is relatively fast, and there are a lot of moviing parts. Depending on the workout I am either very strict about the landing or somewhat strict on it.

Yesterday I was somewhat strict because I wanted to keep the weight on the heavier side while also trying to reinforce the timing going from the ground. Here is what Jesse looked like on his first rep, set of :20, 3rd. round.

I would call this okay for Jesse. We know he's been working on this a lot since he came back from a 4-year hiatus this Summer, and it's my fault for not coaching this as much in his early years. Shins are not vertical by any means, but you can tell there is some semblance of hips loading back. For yesterday's workout, I can live with that.

Two reps later...

Not so much. Imagine if he needed to immediately push this rep over his head; which body shape would give him better leverage to do that?

Remember, the one thing we want to avoid is dead-end positions and movements. The squat position Jesse shows in the second picture is never good for anything. So keep working to reinforce the good shapes, and slowly but surely they will become the default.