Get Under It

Mark Leach doing some barbell work in class.

I love this write-up from one of our members about "getting under it." It perfectly captures the beauty of the craft of CrossFit. It's a journey, and no matter how long you are in it, there is always something new to learn or perfect. The concept of infinite progress, regardless of your starting point, is deeply profound. How powerful for Mark to latch on to a concept in Olympic lifting, seemingly suddenly. In reality, his mind, body, and spirit had been working to this a-ha moment. He "got it" at just the right time in his journey, where all parts, mind, body, and spirit, came together. Read on to hear how he describes "getting under it."

-Leah

My top passions in life all have one thing in common. The quality of infinity.

Ask any musician about infinity, for example. Music is infinite – there’s always something new to learn, new discoveries to be made and new challenges to face.

A practice is like that. CrossFit is my practice and to me, it’s infinite.

My awareness all started a couple of months ago. Jurney was coaching a WOD and we were doing power snatches. She coached me that I was completely muscling the move and that wasn’t the point of power moves. That piqued my curiosity big time, because I had obviously missed a crucial concept. CrossFit is infinite.

With an Olympic move like the power snatch, you deliberately take on more weight than you can muscle.

The power snatch involves using power generated from the hips and posterior chain to extend your arms overhead. With a side view of the movement, you would see how the weight travels up and around you as you drop into a partial squat – to get under it.

Once your hips explode and you shrug, the weight should feel like it’s floating up weightless on the velocity you’ve created, until you catch it at the top. Your arms and hands are just holding the bar.

Keep in mind that your feet will naturally stay planted on the ground if you’re muscling the weight. But, when you hear shoes thump on the mat, it’s a sign you are generating maximum power to jump the weight up.

I’m in my fourth year of CrossFit and I am just beginning to build in an awareness of the concept of getting under it. I’ve heard the term used all along, but I thought it was another way of saying get the weight overhead.

Coach Sarah's ponytail capturing the speed she uses to "get under it."