Drop It like A Squat

Many people want to improve their over head or front squat but the root of the problem is usual in their air squat. Ask yourself the following questions.
While in the air squat...
do my heels lift at all?
does my back arch?
does my back round?
do my knees track inside of my feet?
do my knees push forward beyond my toes?

A few easy tricks you can do at home

proper posture and start
Hands on your belly
wall squats
rack squats
staying in the bottom

Getting Your Kip and Keeping It

The first thing you need to understand about kipping is that it is all about technique. I'm going to break it into 7 pieces and then bring it back together for you.

1. Open chest, tight back and PVC Supermen.
2. C position or hollow rock. With your arms overhead contract your abs as if somebody punched you in the stomach. Now pick up a med ball and hold it overhead. You are going to contract your abs as you slam the ball onto the ground. This is very similar to the movement you use to get over the bar. Check out this video of the med ball toss
3. Pull in. As you get over the bar (hopefully eye level or higher) you pull yourself in as if doing a ring row
4. Push out. As soon as you get to the top of your kip push away from the bar as if you were doing a push up.
5. Putting it together with PVC. See this video on kipping with PVC
6. Jumping kipping pullups. This video on jumping kipping pullups will help you practice these
7. Hanging swing.hanging swing video
7. Kipping Pulllups. Put it all together and get on that bar! video of kipping pullups

Hopefully these will help you get you string together some kipping pullups!

Pulling Up Got You Down?

There seem to be a good number of people trying to improve their pullups so hopefully this will help you out. The first thing that you will need is the strength to do a pullup here is a pullup practice video and description to help you out

Pull up Strength
1. Band Selection is key. Did you use the same band for Angie (100 pullups) as you did for Fran (45 pullups)? If so that is the first issue. Use that band that gives you just enough help. Select a band similarly to the way you select weight. If you were scaling fran you wouldn't drop it down to a point where you could do your thrusters unbroken, you would scale it to the point where you had to break them up but were still able to maintain form. Also remember that you can adjust bands during a WOD if you need to and always go chest to bar while using a band.
2. Be a little negative. Do a jumping pullup and try to hold it at the top as long as you can and lower yourself as slowly as possible. Do a few sets of 10 either before or after a WOD depending on what the WOD was.
3. Grip it. So you want to be able to do 20 pullups in a row? You will probably need to hang on the the bar for at least a minute. Practice hanging on the bar for as long as you can to increase grip strength. Also try switching your grip from time to time making it wider/narrower or using a chinup grip.
4. Do Pullups. If you only have 1 than do 10 singles before class, that number will quickly go up. If you don't have any thats ok too. Use the smallest band you can and make sure you get chest to bar on your pullups.  Do jumping chest to bar pullups from time to time giving yourself the minimum amount of jump. The last fun way to practice pullups is with a partner who will give you only the help you need throughout the movement.


Reassess regularly. Don't get into a habit of always grabbing the same band. Every time you do any of these drills it should be challenging. Write down your progress in the logs and look back over them from time to time to see if you are progressing.

Keep an eye out for a post on kipping coming soon!