Bail

When you're going after a heavy lift, there's several things that you need to have in your mind going into the lift. You need to have your head on straight, where your mindset is to attack the weight. Whether that means yelling, grunting*, making strange and uncontrollable faces^, rocking out to your favorite pump-up song (which may or may not be "Dancing Queen" - no judgement**)... Whatever your process, your mind has to be ready to get after the weight.

Another equally important aspect of lifts that people don't always think about is what to do if shit starts going wrong during the lift. Can you drop the bar? Are there people around you? Do you have a spotter ready to jump in and assist you? Does your spotter know how many reps you're shooting for?

Basically, you need to know when and how to bail.

Here's what your gameplan should generally look like on a lift-by-lift basis...

• Olympic Lifts (Clean and Snatch): If you're cleaning or snatching, you should make sure that there's nobody in your immediate vicinity. Over at the shell, this is especially important. There's always that occasional dickish meathead gym rat that's wandering from his bicep curl bar to the lat pulldown station, headphones blasting Metallica, completely oblivious to anything and everything around him. One of these stray bodybuilders can mess things up in a serious way for everyone (I once had one of these dudes wander right underneath the bar as I was overhead with push jerk number 4 of 5 at 195#; not cool dude, not cool). So, make sure that you've got plenty of room to get ballistic on your snatch. And in case it isn't overly obvious, no spotters for the O-Lifts! If you don't get the bar all the way overhead on the jerk, let it drop. Neither the bar nor the floor will mind...
• Overhead Lifts (Press, Push Press, Push Jerk, Overhead Squat, etc.): Same rules apply from the Olympic lifts. However, with these lifts, you have the option of doing something other than dropping the weight on the ground if you miss the lift. For example, if you don't get quite enough "push" under the push press, you can catch the bar back in your front rack position. Just make sure you have the bar under control, and that you're comfortable catching that weight. Otherwise, letting the weight drop to the floor is always a viable and preferable option over hurting yourself trying to save a shitty lift.
• Squat and Bench Press: Spotters are pretty much a necessity for these lifts, especially if you're going heavy. Make sure that whoever is spotting you knows exactly how many reps your shooting for, and make sure that your spotter is weight appropriate, meaning that if you're going after a 475# back squat PR, you don't want somebody who weighs in at a brisk 110# to be behind you helping you out of the bottom of the squat. Weight appropriateness is always a good thing.

As the title of this video might suggest, this is a good example of how NOT to bail on a squat...

Three things I'd do differently if this were one of our WiscFit crew squatting:

1. Have somebody behind the athlete to spot them! The entire situation that goes down in this video could have been avoided with a good spotter.
2. Make sure the athlete (especially an athlete new to squatting, as was the one in the video) knows what to do if one of their reps goes awry.
3. Use collars! There's some people that advocate using collars for some lifts but not for others, and some who don't like to use them at all. I'm a big believer in always always ALWAYS using collars, no matter what the weight or how many reps.

Just for the record, the "fitness instructors" at the shell have a very low tolerance for dropping weights. I personally have been warned and reprimanded on several different occasions for dropping weights. They've given me every excuse in the book as to why dropping weights isn't allowed, telling me that "its bad for the bars" (FALSE, especially since the bars the do have are already just plain awful), that "its bad for the rubber bumper plates" (FALSE, but dropping the iron plates IS bad for both the bar and the plates), that "it causes cracks in the concrete sub-floor" (SUPER FALSE), and that "its dangerous for the other gym-goers" (FALSE, unless you count Jerkoff McGhee wandering into the business end of your second pull on the clean).

Here's the upshot: Keep the bar under control as often as you can in a safe manner. As long as you drop your weights when it's appropriate (i.e. when your only safe option is to bail out, versus dropping the bar from overhead 30 times during Grace), there is nothing wrong with letting the bar hit the floor. It's safer for you to just bail out than it is for you to risk injuring yourself trying to save a failed lift. If any of the fitness consultants or staff at the shell have a problem with this, please let me know immediately. Emails will be sent, supervisors will be informed, and the uninformed fitness consultants will be educated.

And as far as spotting for the aforementioned lifts go, I'll cover proper spotting technique in tomorrow's post.

*You know who you are...

^You also know who you are...

** This one's all me.

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WOD 101122 Monday

Location: The Shell, 9pm

Warm-up

S/S: Snatch technique work, 3-3-3-3-3-3; go heavy if you'd like, but focus on your technique.

WOD: "Cindy". Complete as many rounds as possible in 20 minutes of:

-5 Pull-ups

-10 Push-ups

-15 Squats

Finish: MobilityWod of your choice.

S/S Results

Donny/Matt- 65-75-85-95-105-105

WOD Results

Donny- 21 rounds

Matt- 13 rds +1 Pull-up