Don’t Neglect Your Warm-up

The most important aspect of training that many people neglect is the warm-up. Without a proper warm-up, the entire subsequent training session will be affected. Often times, people are eager to get into the gym and begin their training immediately – whether it’s due to the fact that they are short on time, or just their overall enthusiasm to begin weightlifting.

Without warming up properly, your body will not be prepared to move in the fashion that it needs in order to perform these complex exercises correctly. The need to warm those areas up further is incredibly important, especially for athletes who have had injuries or are tight in specific areas. I tell people all the time that if they have an hour allocated for training, it is more beneficial to spend forty-five minutes warming up and fifteen minutes lifting rather than spend five minutes warming up and fifty-five minutes lifting.

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Inversion Seminar for Beginners

Handstands, walking on one’s hands, and inversion in general are fun skills, but generally, and unnecessarily, limited to gymnasts and the “elite” athlete.

The legitimate concern of falling over backwards is what thwarts most people from mastering handstands. This nagging apprehension, lurking at the periphery of the psyche prevents one from fully committing to the movement. Happily, a few simple principles can ensure falling safely, even gracefully.  This 3-hour course has 3 main objectives:

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Keep Swinging Low

Weightlifting is a sport where you’re constantly fighting against gravity. Gravity is a force that we face in our every day lives that we must constantly counter and resist. When trying to hoist more kilos overhead, our bodies are always going to be fighting harder against the effects of gravity.

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Patience is a Virtue

Much like building a house, the establishment of a good foundation is requisite for the structure above. In weightlifting, the same principle applies. All too often I see videos posted of people performing the lifts and they miss a few small but essential pieces that have a great effect on their body and the barbell once it is broken from the floor. Instagram is loaded with videos of people attempting heavier weight, as well as series of videos and reviews by coaches or other athletes. In all The videos that I have witnessed I have never seen one that actually addresses properly approaching the body to the barbell. If the body is not aligned properly from the start any error will compound the further the bar gets from the floor.

 

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NYWA @ The Nutmeg Open

This past weekend, the New York Weightlifting Academy participated in the Nutmeg Open in New Haven, Connecticut. The contest was split over two days, with one women’s session on Saturday and two men’s sessions on Sunday.

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Olympic Weightlifting Coaches Course

The New York Weightlifting Academy will be offering an instructional Coaches Course on Saturday, June 4th. This comprehensive course for both coaches and athletes is designed to increase the understanding of coaching and training in Olympic Weightlifting. Coaches and athletes will learn the fundamental tenets of Olympic Weightlifting, as well as how to properly instruct them.

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