CrossFit Athletic Group

In my opinion, nothing we have taught has changed more than the clean and jerk over time. When I first started CrossFit I used to skip any workout with Olympic lifts because I didn't know how to do them and Brian wouldn't teach me. Then after we got a decent hang of them we tried them out on the Champions Club. Dip-Shrug-Drop-Stand was the method. But it rarely looked good unless a kid just happened to get a natural feel of it (aka, just Ryan Richard or Lauren Higgins).

Lauren. Fieldhouse - Summer 2011.

Then we tried to really exaggerate the drop so the kids would stop being afraid of getting under. This helped in that respect but often made position less than desirable.

Bubs. New Old Weight Room - Winter 2012.

After we moved out, I tried to simplify things into just JUMP and DROP... but mostly JUMP. Again, it accomplished an aggressive upward motion we were looking for, but the overall movement just looked choppy to the naked eye.

Tara. Summer 2012

So when Dr. Romanov's video came out we transitioned into the unweighting method we still use today. I notice a much quicker learning curve in the most difficult part of the lift: the core to extremity principle. In other words, let your hips do most of the work and your arms follow through.

Summer 2015. Kyle and Mrs. Anderson were rookies and Lauren's looks way different than 2011.

Now that I've seen this over the course of a few years, the positions need to be fine-tuned. So we have been introducing a lot of pauses at whatever pose we want to emophasize. To make matters more difficult, you guys are often required to alternate feet on the split jerk because you are humans and you have two of them.

Shakes and Blob. April this year.

As with anything, the specific variation and point of emphasis on the movement depends on the purpose for the day. It's always a slow, experimental process with lots of working parts. Hang with me!