Topic: Update from Malaysia, Day 4, Part Deux

[Mark Cannella]

While we only trained once today, I wanted to share some more observations from the training hall that were on my mind that I saw in a different session for other countries based on the training schedule. 

Yes, the bat was still roaming around and also, Malaysian men were setting up the main platform for the competition right next to us.  Jeez, no lie, they needed Dan Bell today.

All lifters as a group that happened to be training from various countries, started the set-up for both snatch and clean to initiate the bar coming off the floor from their big toe where the knuckle was directly underneath the bar the moment the bar was ready to be pulled.

The shin was forward and the weight was toward the front of the foot in a jumping manner. Those that swept the bar back as they pushed through the floor, hit easy successful lifts, those that did not, did not.

Guess what, lol, most did with precision and verve that reminded me of a bad "Boys from Brazil" movie with their like minded emphasis on technique.

While this might sound like technique 101, it got me thinking of how difficult it must be to get lifters to be on the same page as we embark to improve our status in the World rankings.  I have heard Zygmunt in the past talk about our feeder program to create our Senior Open lifters and the changes we must make to be successful.  He stressed this at last year's German symposium.

Another interesting aspect was the bar path on the clean. The smaller guys and girls training right now hit a large percentage of cleans as high on the hip as their snatch.  This is a tremendous advantage if done correctly and you could see lifters setting themselves up with this high hipshot and even bending their arms slightly to achieve this aspect.

Another girl, a Philippine lifter did pulls at the end of the workout with the arms bending, but she didn't drop down under the barbell like the earlier Chinese lifter.  She simply drove her hips through the bar and stayed on her feet or balls of feet while rising up off the floor.

All did their jerks almost the exact same way.  The dip drive split you see that make jerks successful, is what you'd see out of everyone, again with precision and steadiness on the way down of the drive and then an instant change of direction and then a punch down. Footwork is perfect. Everytime.

Most finished the workouts with some kind of squat, bsq/fsq and a light remedial back movement.  Most warmed up with the bar across their legs and is something to stress in the Level 1 Sports Performance Course for a specific warm-up exercise.  (just saying, lol)

Till tomorrow.  Again, just some observations in the training hall during a later session that I was fortunate to witness.

Mark