Another terrific bunch of guys and gals dropped by the Blackboard gym this afternoon, for the first olympic lifting masterclass of the year.

Sally and I took the willing crew through the famous CrossFit London Squat Workshop before getting into the details of the snatch, and clean and jerk.

As usual, there were plenty of bad jokes, ill-conceived mental images and people landing on their bottoms!

On behalf of CrossFit London, thanks to everyone who pitched up this afternoon. You did a terrific job, and it was a pleasure working with you all.

So it all begins with some Crossfit London burpee philosophy:

Whats in a burpee? Surely a burpee, by any other name, would still be as sweet (thanks to Juliet for the inspiration for this line…shame about the dying thing)

Because it has a (heels down) squat,

We actually came up with some interesting names for this position: Angry Gorilla or Happy Alsatian. But whatever the name, and whatever coaching points used,  top marks go to Carolyn, Sophia, Kirsty and Kate for some beautiful lumber curves and proud chests. And to be truthful, a few “cough-cough’s” go to some of the boys, who need to be watching less mobility videos and focusing more on enforcing proper squat form. We had a few people deciding to book a place on the forthcoming mobility workshop.

Then it’s a simple jump back into the perfect plank.

Then a perfect push up (everything to then floor), a jump back to a squat position, then a hip-extending drive into the air with a shoulder mobilizing clap above the head.

A burpee is one thing! It’s the opportunity to express perfect movement, co-ordination and mobility, time and time again.

On to “Team Grace”: 60 clean and jerks (30 each). Some great efforts: the Superman award goes to Tom Henry, who was recently promoted to the Crossfit London Coaching team. More of him later!.

Sophia, Kate, Carolyn and Kirsty all cleaned and jerked beautifully. A mention in dispatches has to be made of Cian and Matt, while Efe and Alex threw the bar around as if it was a rag doll (a 60kg rag doll of course).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOnvzyO1NJY

After that is was muscle-up drills with box push ups, the muscle-up push ups, armchair muscle-ups and Frenchies: then some full muscle-ups by Simon, Efe, Alex, Tom and Ruarie.

Fabulous!