TK
Complete as many rounds as possible in 20 minutes of:
8 Strict Pull-ups
8 Box jumps, 36″ box
12 Kettlebell swings, 2 pood

U.S. Army Major Thomas E. Kennedy, 35, of West Point, New York, assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, based in Fort Carson, Colorado, died on August 8, 2012, of wounds suffered when an insurgent detonated a suicide vest in Kunar province, Afghanistan. He is survived by his wife Kami, son Brody, daughter Margaret, parents George and Patricia, and brothers John and George.

Your feet can be your best personal Coaches but most of us just aren’t listening to what they’re telling us. In the beginning, you probably heard from many of the Coaches to get “your weight in your heels” and while that was true it was also a cue that we use to overcompensate for 99% of people’s natural movement patterns, which is to front load the foot. As a byproduct it forced you to engage your posterior chain and reinforced proper sequencing of events (hips going back first). On the flip side, we would never require you to have the weight in your feet so biased towards your heels that the ball of your feet, lift off of the ground. After all, your feet are your foundation with the ground, without which most movements would not even be possible.

Our feet let us know, every single micro-second, how the load that we are moving is being distributed to the ground. The more consistent we can keep this load distribution, or the less we allow it to vary across the foot, the more control, balance, and force we can apply. In gross situations the load can move so far outside the boundaries of the feet that it becomes increasingly heavier and harder to manage. Such is the case when an overhead squat travels forward and we end up failing with the bar falling to the floor in front of us. When in doubt, move in a fashion that keeps the weight distribution in your feet at about 60% heel and 40% ball of foot, or of course, ask your Coach.

In order to hear what our feet are telling us we must move slow enough to listen. This does not mean that we move as if we’re doing negatives or that we can’t move “for time”. It simply means that we need to slow down enough to feel what we’re being told by our feet so that we can make any necessary adjustments. Over time, this new movement pattern will become our “norm” and we’ll no longer have to focus so much of our concentration on it, but until then, we need to put the time, effort, and attention into it to make it our “norm”.

Watch the video above and notice the slight yet differential shifts in weight through the athletes feet during kb swings. How much harder or easier do you think those same swings would be if the feet were more evenly loaded? How do you think that translates to other even more dynamic movements like cleans and snatches?