Friday, February 01, 2013

Fun & Games

Quick one here.  A great way to get some variety in your training is to have "games" on your heavy days.  I learned this from Glenn Pendlay when I trained with the team at Cal Strength on Fridays.  They would do stuff like 90% for 5 singles in both lifts, and the lifter with fewest misses wins.  That's a fun one.  Here's one our team is doing tomorrow that I think will be great.

Weightlifting H-O-R-S-E

Randomly decide an order of lifting, and the first lifter will decide a percentage of his best snatch to start with. The following lifters must successfully match this percentage of their best lift, or be given a letter. Once you have H-O-R-S-E, you're out. Repeat this on the clean & jerk.

Last lifter standing wins. If there are different winners in the snatch and clean & jerk, the lifter with the fewest TOTAL letters at the end wins. Thus, if lifter A gets H-O-R in the snatch but only H in the clean & jerk, and lifter B gets H-O-R in the snatch but H-O-R-S in the clean & jerk, lifter A wins.


*IMPORTANT STIPULATION: If you are knocked out, you may attempt a PR. You must take this lift immediately, without any attempts before it. If you are successful, you are back in the game, and the other lifters have to go for PRs at the same percentage!


These games are a good way to put some pressure on the lifter, not only to go after big weights, but to actually have to MAKE attempts. I thought this was a cool idea because the strategy is similar to a meet - you have to pick the lifts not only based on what you think you can make, but also on what the other lifters can/can't make.

Give it a shot!