OCS Assistance Exercises

[casey]

Coach Sonnon (or other qualified experts),
Would the three exercises specified for assistance for the two OCS events also serve well as general conditioners (GPP)? For instance, I want to raise my work capacity as much as possible before the event, and in fact at all times regardless of any events. Often after completing as many Swipes and Mills as possible I still feel I can do 'more', at least for my torso and lungs. That is, my arms will be finished first. Due to an injury I did no upper body training for the entire last month and this might explain the discrepancy. So after finishing Swipes and Mills would more Swings, Cossacks, Short whips etc. (which use much less grip/arm endurance) serve to improve my work capacity in general, or would it be better to focus on other GPP improvement methods? My question could be broadened to ask whether the OCS assistance exercises are specifically for improving your coordination at OCS lifts or whether they are useful exercises by themselves.

Thanks

Casey

[Coach Jones]

Casey,
You'd be hard pressed to find any Clubbell exercises that aren't usefull conditioning tools in and of themselves. My take on the OCS assistance exercises is that these are the exercises that have the most direct impact on improving the form, technique and strrength/endurance that one needs for the OCS events.

-Brandon Jones, CST

[Scott Sonnon]

Casey,

I don't know how I missed your post. Probably because we've been flooded lately. Brandon's right on with his post.

I would add though that at this point, you should focus on form practice and pre-creating the event (your target volume) rather than any conditioning.

[Doug Szolek]

I agree with both coaches Sonnon and Jones, and to add my two cents:

the assistance exercises for the two OCS Swings were designed not only address the form and technique of the Swipe and Mill but also to condition the systems of strength required for high volume performance of each of these exercises. The Cossaks and the Taskmasters are the two assists that focus more heavily on conditioning than anything else though as Coach Sonnon said it's a bit late in the game to stess your conditioning adaptation much.

For now keep pre-creating the event leaving time to recover and remember the only way to get better at doing something is to do it.

[casey]

Thanks Coaches Sonnon and Szolek for the advice. I hear what you are saying about concentrating on the competition disciplines. I only felt that since I effectively missed an entire month of training with only one month left before the competition I needed some kind of 'extra' work. However, now working the Swipe and Mill in competition form, i.e. ten minutes at a time, I don't feel as much like doing anything else afterwards. :wink:

Casey

[Scott Sonnon]

Any additional work at this time will push you from the Performance Zone (precreating the event) into Toughness Training. And you don't have sufficient time to recover from Toughness Training at this point. To do better at the event, pace yourself, practice your technique, precreate your target volume 2-3 times before the event, and rest... It'll be a long ride in the car with Doug talking. :wink: