High Rep O-Lifting

[craigrasm]

Rip-

This is something I have been meaning to ask you about. One of the criticisms that I have seen about Crossfit is the use of high rep Olympic lifting and the possible dangers that can occur due to technical breakdown. I'm sure that many of us have all heard that the Olympic lifts aren't very suited to higher reps (usually no more than 5 rep sets are suggested) because of their more technical nature. I am sure that you can put this into context and I am curious to hear any thoughts that you may have on this subject.

Thanks

[Mark Rippetoe]

i think that anyone who can do snatches or clean and jerks with high reps and enough intensity to produce a metabolic conditioning effect is obviously strong enough at the lifts that using weights light enough that this can be done is not either dangerous or counterproductive to good form on heavier work. It is not useful to do sets of 10, or even 5, on these two lifts with weights heavy enough that the last reps are sloppy. But 30 snatches done in a short time cannot be done with enough weight that it could be considered the same problem. I think that if this is anyone's major problem with CrossFit, then that is not much of a problem.