The White Unicorn

This post shares some similarities to a Jon Gilson article written a while back. In it, he refers to one of his clients as "a white unicorn, completely untouched by the evils of the world." The client in question had never heard of a leg press machine or a pec-deck or any of that other malarkey. CrossFit was the guy's first fitness endeavor and at age 32 that's pretty remarkable.

I met my own white unicorn less than a month ago. Her name is Sai and yes, that name is totally badass, too. Sai's story isn't as drastic as the one Gilson tells and I won't riddle it with flowery language and wannabe-Shakespearean prose. Basically, she joined Balance and had three intro sessions available to her. She wanted to work on the Olympic lifts (the snatch specifically) and was referred to me. Sai had performed the clean, but had little experience snatching. On her first day, after only 45 minutes of work, this was the result...

Now, this isn't some post to make me look awesome (far too late for that), but it perfectly demonstrates why it's important to learn good technique before developing bad habits. Sai was "untouched by the evils" of poor form. And while she's already equipped with good mobility and body control, I'm now on a quest to make her an Olympic lifter (it has so far been unsuccessful). The point remains: with the Olympic lifts, get your technique in order first. Take your ego out of the picture before putting too much weight on the bar. Some of us will have to struggle through correcting bad habits and form errors, but it will pay dividends in the end. Unfortunately, we're not all as lucky as Sai...