Farmer girls

Farmer's walk.

Work your grip--and everything else.

Shown here are loads of 105 and 140 pounds.

Taking a dip

Moving the dip from stationary bars to rings adds a humbling degree of difficulty.

Resting heavy on your shoulders

The rack position has the barbell resting on the meat of the front deltoids, elbows up and slightly in front of the bar. It allows proper execution of the front squat, press, push press, and jerk.

When learning the rack position, people often default to trying to control the bar with just their arms, avoiding contact with the shoulders (as in the photo on the left). Notice that most of the load is on the wrists. Ouch. Progress and performance will quickly stall for those who use the arms to rack the barbell. This must be corrected. We do this by loosening the grip (opening the fingers) a bit to allow the bar to drop back onto the shoulders, working with an empty barbell to get the feel for the placement, and adjusting the grip width to find the best position current flexibility limitations will allow (photo on the right).

Cranking

A penny for Dani's thoughts?

Post your two cents to comments.

Gear

Lifting real weight in running shoes is like swimming in a parka.

Unlike cushioned running shoes and their squishy brethren, weightlifting shoes, which feature a slightly raised, wood heel, give you a stable base for lifting. The heel doesn’t compress or wobble on you, the footing is flat and solid, the heel is slightly raised, and they efficiently transfer force between you and the floor, which is what lifting is all about.

They’re definitely worth having if you plan to squat, deadlift, press, clean, jerk, or snatch anything more than a dowel.

The right tool for the job.

You can't buy them in your local shoe store, but Todd Lyons will ship them to you virtually overnight: Adidas weightlifting shoes. You need to get some!

Up and over

Fundamental, functional, and fun.

Turkish Get-up