Advise on My Olympic Lifting Please

Hello,

I will be posting the videos of my olympic lifting in my log and here, because I really want to improve my snatch and cleans. Any advise would be awesome. Also corrective exercises would be great, since I feel that, that is more effective for me.

I, Personally think that:

  • I move to slow
  • Need more hipdrive
  • Keep the bar closer
  • Use the trapezius more

Push more with your legs, Push longer (in a lot of the reps you pull under way too early. In the catch, point the crook of your elbow to the ceiling.

[quote]nkklllll wrote:
Push more with your legs, Push longer (in a lot of the reps you pull under way too early. In the catch, point the crook of your elbow to the ceiling.[/quote]

Thanks a lot, I will focus on pushing more with the legs and creating a larger extension and I’ll try to put my elbows better!

Cleans of today, any feedback is more than welcome

  • Still trying to improve my hipdrive
  • Tried to do some more extension of the pull before catching the bar, is it enough???
  • Jerk is going forward instead of going up

Anything else that I should work on?

Extension is inconsistent. Sometimes it’s there, most of the time it’s not. Again, more legs, you’re getting behind the bar early from using your back rather than your legs. You need to keep the bar against your body, it’s way too far away.

[quote]nkklllll wrote:
Extension is inconsistent. Sometimes it’s there, most of the time it’s not. Again, more legs, you’re getting behind the bar early from using your back rather than your legs. You need to keep the bar against your body, it’s way too far away.[/quote]

Ok thank you very much! I will try to be more consistent and to keep the bar closer and push more with the legs.

[quote]Bart Power wrote:
Hello,

I will be posting the videos of my olympic lifting in my log and here, because I really want to improve my snatch and cleans. Any advise would be awesome. Also corrective exercises would be great, since I feel that, that is more effective for me.

I, Personally think that:

  • I move to slow
  • Need more hipdrive
  • Keep the bar closer
  • Use the trapezius more

[/quote]

I can’t tell where the pressure on your feet is, but 2 things I think can help. If you transition to your heels through the pull, it will help you dig in let your hip extension do the work of getting that pull putting the bar overhead.

Where this gets tough is the second thing. You need to finish the pull extended on your toes. This is a much better power position.

[quote]Bart Power wrote:

Cleans of today, any feedback is more than welcome

  • Still trying to improve my hipdrive
  • Tried to do some more extension of the pull before catching the bar, is it enough???
  • Jerk is going forward instead of going up

Anything else that I should work on?[/quote]

Same thing here, I can’t tell for sure, but I think you need to get on your heels. This puts the bar more in line with your spine and when you dip the bar will go up and down vs out in front.

Ok thank you very much Drewc64. I’ll try getting more on my heels on wednesday.

Here is my snatch training of yesterday.

  • Still need more extensions but it is getting better,
  • Had some fingernail issues so I guess that I should tape my thumbs, any tips on how to do that effectively?

[quote]Bart Power wrote:
Ok thank you very much Drewc64. I’ll try getting more on my heels on wednesday.

Here is my snatch training of yesterday.

  • Still need more extensions but it is getting better,
  • Had some fingernail issues so I guess that I should tape my thumbs, any tips on how to do that effectively?

Same thing here. You’re super flexible in your shoulders which is good, but you cheating down a bit. If when you catch the rotation with your weight on your heels, your spine/torso should be more upright, and hips forward. This doesn’t seem to be holding you back now, but will long term.

When you do your drop snatches or snatch balances, you definitely want to focus on this. It turns an overhead squat into a training movement vs excruciating pain.

Also, did you guys know those girls ahead of the workout? You seemed to be making good progress. Good luck with that.

Thanks a lot for your comment drewc64, I guess you are completely right concerning the hips and upright torso, if I want to be able to catch heavier snatches, I should definetely be more upright. I will do my best to focus on that on friday and I’ll upload the video to see if I improved a bit.

One of the girls is my girlfriend the one at 27 seconds, I taught her how to squat and since then more and more girls have started squatting in the gym. Before almost no girl did squats. So thanks for your good luck, but for me everything is going fine :smiley:

Also nice videos you have, I checked your youtube channel and you lift some big weights! I guess that if you work your speed and strength you will really add an incredible amount of kilos!

Need to get the bar back into your hips. This primarily comes from not using the legs during the first pull and leads to not finishing the extension on the pull.

Thanks for the advice olylifter106, I’ll try to use more legs during the first pull.

Last friday I did some snatches and I am getting closer to hitting the bar

And with one rep I actually hit the bar, I think that I should focus on using more my legs and get in a straight position in the power position (Which for my perception is a bit backwards which is probably why I almost went backwards in the one where I hit the bar)

Hey Bart! Thanks for the nice comments earlier.

I see your weight on your heels!!! Very good work. How does this feel to you?

A guy told me one time to cock my wrist back to help me keep the bar into my body. Worked like a charm.

The power of your pull comes from extension (lengthening/straightening) of your hips. When you’re in the hang, your shoulders, knees, and hips have some space like a backwards triangle. You’ll close that distance and right when you do that will trigger your shrug and pull that will move the bar overhead. When you do it at the right moment and position, you transfer all the power from your legs and bag into that pull and the bar goes flying up. Then you try and get under the bar as fast as possible of course.

You do want the bar to touch your body, but you don’t want to slam the bar in to your hips or vice versa. You want all force on the bar to be applied in a vertical plane for the most efficient lift.

Keep up the good work man, Im looking forward to seeing some PR videos.

Hey Drewc64,

Haha it was quite some effort to get on my heels, when I did athletics some years ago, I always had to be on my forefeet.
Yeah I am really trying to keep it close, but that still needs some work, but I am starting to have it closer and closer. Yeah I am really getting that lengthening of the hips, but it is not completely there yet, I drop down before finishing my extension.

Ok thank you for the tips, I’ll try and see if they work for me tomorrow! I’ll keep you posted!

Starting to hit the bar a lot more often and with some reps the extensions looks pretty good but it still needs to be better. My thumb still has a wound that has closed well, but I decided to do one more week without hookgrip. I feel a lot more stable with hookgrip, so I did not want to force too much.

[quote]Bart Power wrote:
Starting to hit the bar a lot more often and with some reps the extensions looks pretty good but it still needs to be better. My thumb still has a wound that has closed well, but I decided to do one more week without hookgrip. I feel a lot more stable with hookgrip, so I did not want to force too much.

Cool to see someone training the olympic lifts. You nailed the back squat too. Great job. How long have you been lifting for?

Hey Yamato, thanks for the nice comment. I have been doing olympic lifts for around a year and like 3-4 months, but without a coach. I already had quite some power from track & field, but my technique was dramatic, as you can see in this old video

Now I still don’t have a coach but I have decided to upload more and more videos and ask for advice on the internet which is helping a lot.

Besides Olympic lifts, I also do some powerlift movements such as the bench press and I train with gymnastic rings and well kind of doing all kinds of things including jumping and running.

[quote]Bart Power wrote:
Hey Yamato, thanks for the nice comment. I have been doing olympic lifts for around a year and like 3-4 months, but without a coach. I already had quite some power from track & field, but my technique was dramatic, as you can see in this old video

Now I still don’t have a coach but I have decided to upload more and more videos and ask for advice on the internet which is helping a lot.

Besides Olympic lifts, I also do some powerlift movements such as the bench press and I train with gymnastic rings and well kind of doing all kinds of things including jumping and running.[/quote]

Huge improvement from that video to the ones above. Especially if you don’t have a coach!

I am looking to start training the Olympic lifts next year once my contract at my current gym runs out. Just focusing on mobility and fat loss for the mean time.

I have been watching some online videos and experimenting with snathces at home and found this one interesting. Don’t know if it is any help to you though:

When you started did you follow the rippetoe advice of thrusting and shrugging the bar for cleans? I am confused as his advice seems to be completely different to lots of olympic lifters advice.

[quote]YamatoDamashii92 wrote:

[quote]Bart Power wrote:
Hey Yamato, thanks for the nice comment. I have been doing olympic lifts for around a year and like 3-4 months, but without a coach. I already had quite some power from track & field, but my technique was dramatic, as you can see in this old video

Now I still don’t have a coach but I have decided to upload more and more videos and ask for advice on the internet which is helping a lot.

Besides Olympic lifts, I also do some powerlift movements such as the bench press and I train with gymnastic rings and well kind of doing all kinds of things including jumping and running.[/quote]

Huge improvement from that video to the ones above. Especially if you don’t have a coach!

I am looking to start training the Olympic lifts next year once my contract at my current gym runs out. Just focusing on mobility and fat loss for the mean time.

I have been watching some online videos and experimenting with snathces at home and found this one interesting. Don’t know if it is any help to you though:

When you started did you follow the rippetoe advice of thrusting and shrugging the bar for cleans? I am confused as his advice seems to be completely different to lots of olympic lifters advice.

[/quote]

That video is pretty good, the Chinese weightlifters have very good technique, but there are different schools of weightlifting you have to be really mobile for the chinese type of weightlifting. Some Eastern-Europeans also have some very nice videos.

I personally, did not follow Mark Rippletoe, his advice is somewhat difficult to understand and I personally think that there are better coaches out there. If you look at the Russians and Chinese for example, they have a lot of exercises that help with your technique. For me it works better to do exercises than to listen to abstract advice, of course that does not mean that I don’t take into account the advice and I try to implement it. But the biggest improvement was with exercises.

You could add some squats in your current gym, if you do some Frontsquats with a 4 seconds lowering phase, 2 seconds pause and 1 second up, you will create a lot of stability for receiving your cleans!