I saw a lot of this lift at the CrossFit NorCal Qualifier over the weekend. One of the workouts was:
For time: Row 500m 30 Burpees 10 Shoulder-to-Overhead (Men: 165#, Women: 95#) It's up to you to decide on the technique to employ for the shoulder-to-overhead movement (shoulder press, push press, push jerk, etc.). Efficient technique will be rewarded.Of course, the push jerk is one of the most efficient ways to get a weight overhead - because you use the hips and legs to drive the weight up, instead of just the shoulders. According to the CrossFit Journal, an athlete skilled in the push jerk can lift 70% more than they can press. That is a dramatic increase. While I've worked the press a bit, especially with kettle bells, I have minimal experience with the push jerk. Yesterday's push jerk WOD, then, was welcome practice! One of the sticking points for me is shoulder flexibility - I find it very hard to keep my arms locked out overhead with the weight centered over my spine. I need to work on both the flexibility - with more shoulder dislocates - and on the movement itself. Since I don't have a rack, I of course need to clean the weight up off the floor before I can jerk it. I found this excellent video on both power clean and then push jerk technique:
Niall O'Higgins is an author, event organizer and software consultant. He wrote the book MongoDB and Python, published by O'Reilly. Events he organizes include We Have Tablets, the #1 Bay Area Tablet Computing Meet-up and PyWebSF. He also offers consulting services for Mobile, Tablet and Cloud Computing.
