Advise on My Olympic Lifting Please

Need to really work on my frontsquats, I will do them more often now, I will do them on wednesday and every other week on friday. So I will have 2 times overhead squat per week and 1.5 times back squat and 2.5 times frontsquat since I do another frontsquat on wednesday as well.

With the jerk, I really decided to go for power jerks/squat jerks if I ever get the mobility. Split jerks just don’t go that well and I do more in power jerks even though I jump too much forward. So I will focus on being more on my heels with the powerjerk and also to lower a bit more before jerking up and also to receive the weight, I think like that I can gain some 10-15kg on my jerk.

What do you guys think?

Also any feedback on the clean itself is more than helpful!

I guess I will try 2.5 times per week frontsquats and if it will still be the limiting factor after the 8 weeks of my current program, I might consider to do a program that has a frontsquat emphasis.

[quote]Bart Power wrote:

Need to really work on my frontsquats, I will do them more often now, I will do them on wednesday and every other week on friday. So I will have 2 times overhead squat per week and 1.5 times back squat and 2.5 times frontsquat since I do another frontsquat on wednesday as well.

With the jerk, I really decided to go for power jerks/squat jerks if I ever get the mobility. Split jerks just don’t go that well and I do more in power jerks even though I jump too much forward. So I will focus on being more on my heels with the powerjerk and also to lower a bit more before jerking up and also to receive the weight, I think like that I can gain some 10-15kg on my jerk.

What do you guys think?

Also any feedback on the clean itself is more than helpful![/quote]

Bart, a couple quick things. You’re power IS very good and you DO need to catch the bar lower. Find a weight, probably like 85-90 kilos and do a ton of hang cleans in the full catch. Just enough weight you can’t cheat it, but not enough to keep you from doing a lot of reps. This is great to do last in workout, so you’re too tired to power everything and force yourself to be fast under the bar. Probably 10-15 seconds rest between the singles.

On the jerk, you’re pressing too much.

You need to drive the bar with your body, have a quick press, but then get under the bar and lock your arms against it. Similar deal here, this at a certain moment will just click for you. One key to keep in mind is tempo. Try and time it the same way on each lift. Dip-drive-drop. One of the best jerkers I know is a 17yr girl. Every lift looks identical. (She weighs 53 and jerks 90)

[quote]drewc64 wrote:

[quote]Bart Power wrote:

Need to really work on my frontsquats, I will do them more often now, I will do them on wednesday and every other week on friday. So I will have 2 times overhead squat per week and 1.5 times back squat and 2.5 times frontsquat since I do another frontsquat on wednesday as well.

With the jerk, I really decided to go for power jerks/squat jerks if I ever get the mobility. Split jerks just don’t go that well and I do more in power jerks even though I jump too much forward. So I will focus on being more on my heels with the powerjerk and also to lower a bit more before jerking up and also to receive the weight, I think like that I can gain some 10-15kg on my jerk.

What do you guys think?

Also any feedback on the clean itself is more than helpful![/quote]

Bart, a couple quick things. You’re power IS very good and you DO need to catch the bar lower. Find a weight, probably like 85-90 kilos and do a ton of hang cleans in the full catch. Just enough weight you can’t cheat it, but not enough to keep you from doing a lot of reps. This is great to do last in workout, so you’re too tired to power everything and force yourself to be fast under the bar. Probably 10-15 seconds rest between the singles.

On the jerk, you’re pressing too much.

You need to drive the bar with your body, have a quick press, but then get under the bar and lock your arms against it. Similar deal here, this at a certain moment will just click for you. One key to keep in mind is tempo. Try and time it the same way on each lift. Dip-drive-drop. One of the best jerkers I know is a 17yr girl. Every lift looks identical. (She weighs 53 and jerks 90)
[/quote]

Thanks for the advice Drewc64! That is really useful feedback! I will try to implement it next week with the jerk, I started working with a cord which serves as a line, so that I will try to have my feet land in the same way with every rep with the clean, snatch and jerk. I will add 1 series of a lot of those singles with the rest times that you indicated at the end of a clean workout to really get that deep position comfortable.

Here is the training of the last 2 days, feel free to respond, your feedback is spot on, I am still too much on my toes, and before a lift I tend to lean more and more forward, I will try to get in the right position and just lift it up without leaning more and more forward.

The Jerk is still random, but I will try and work on that, next week.

[quote]Bart Power wrote:

[quote]drewc64 wrote:

[quote]Bart Power wrote:

Need to really work on my frontsquats, I will do them more often now, I will do them on wednesday and every other week on friday. So I will have 2 times overhead squat per week and 1.5 times back squat and 2.5 times frontsquat since I do another frontsquat on wednesday as well.

With the jerk, I really decided to go for power jerks/squat jerks if I ever get the mobility. Split jerks just don’t go that well and I do more in power jerks even though I jump too much forward. So I will focus on being more on my heels with the powerjerk and also to lower a bit more before jerking up and also to receive the weight, I think like that I can gain some 10-15kg on my jerk.

What do you guys think?

Also any feedback on the clean itself is more than helpful![/quote]

Bart, a couple quick things. You’re power IS very good and you DO need to catch the bar lower. Find a weight, probably like 85-90 kilos and do a ton of hang cleans in the full catch. Just enough weight you can’t cheat it, but not enough to keep you from doing a lot of reps. This is great to do last in workout, so you’re too tired to power everything and force yourself to be fast under the bar. Probably 10-15 seconds rest between the singles.

On the jerk, you’re pressing too much.

You need to drive the bar with your body, have a quick press, but then get under the bar and lock your arms against it. Similar deal here, this at a certain moment will just click for you. One key to keep in mind is tempo. Try and time it the same way on each lift. Dip-drive-drop. One of the best jerkers I know is a 17yr girl. Every lift looks identical. (She weighs 53 and jerks 90)
[/quote]

Thanks for the advice Drewc64! That is really useful feedback! I will try to implement it next week with the jerk, I started working with a cord which serves as a line, so that I will try to have my feet land in the same way with every rep with the clean, snatch and jerk. I will add 1 series of a lot of those singles with the rest times that you indicated at the end of a clean workout to really get that deep position comfortable.

Here is the training of the last 2 days, feel free to respond, your feedback is spot on, I am still too much on my toes, and before a lift I tend to lean more and more forward, I will try to get in the right position and just lift it up without leaning more and more forward.

The Jerk is still random, but I will try and work on that, next week.

[/quote]

Two changes I would consider making. When you do your drop snatches/snatch balances. Do at least a portion of them where the bar moves up from drive of your body. You want to simulate the catch of the snatch as you lock your arms against it over head. Basically you need a moment where you don’t have 100% control of the weight of the bar.

Similar adjustment with your hang cleans, create some space by lowering the bar from your power position. There should be a triangle there that creates power as you straighten your hips. Anyway, create that space so when you close it, you initiate the overhead pull by leading with your rear deltoids. As you lead with those, you’re pull with be a quick snap that completes the pull.

Now, the way you are doing them CAN be used to train specific parts of those movements, but I think a few of the adjusted methods will be helpful to you overall.

[quote]drewc64 wrote:

[quote]Bart Power wrote:

[quote]drewc64 wrote:

[quote]Bart Power wrote:

Need to really work on my frontsquats, I will do them more often now, I will do them on wednesday and every other week on friday. So I will have 2 times overhead squat per week and 1.5 times back squat and 2.5 times frontsquat since I do another frontsquat on wednesday as well.

With the jerk, I really decided to go for power jerks/squat jerks if I ever get the mobility. Split jerks just don’t go that well and I do more in power jerks even though I jump too much forward. So I will focus on being more on my heels with the powerjerk and also to lower a bit more before jerking up and also to receive the weight, I think like that I can gain some 10-15kg on my jerk.

What do you guys think?

Also any feedback on the clean itself is more than helpful![/quote]

Bart, a couple quick things. You’re power IS very good and you DO need to catch the bar lower. Find a weight, probably like 85-90 kilos and do a ton of hang cleans in the full catch. Just enough weight you can’t cheat it, but not enough to keep you from doing a lot of reps. This is great to do last in workout, so you’re too tired to power everything and force yourself to be fast under the bar. Probably 10-15 seconds rest between the singles.

On the jerk, you’re pressing too much.

You need to drive the bar with your body, have a quick press, but then get under the bar and lock your arms against it. Similar deal here, this at a certain moment will just click for you. One key to keep in mind is tempo. Try and time it the same way on each lift. Dip-drive-drop. One of the best jerkers I know is a 17yr girl. Every lift looks identical. (She weighs 53 and jerks 90)
[/quote]

Thanks for the advice Drewc64! That is really useful feedback! I will try to implement it next week with the jerk, I started working with a cord which serves as a line, so that I will try to have my feet land in the same way with every rep with the clean, snatch and jerk. I will add 1 series of a lot of those singles with the rest times that you indicated at the end of a clean workout to really get that deep position comfortable.

Here is the training of the last 2 days, feel free to respond, your feedback is spot on, I am still too much on my toes, and before a lift I tend to lean more and more forward, I will try to get in the right position and just lift it up without leaning more and more forward.

The Jerk is still random, but I will try and work on that, next week.

[/quote]

Two changes I would consider making. When you do your drop snatches/snatch balances. Do at least a portion of them where the bar moves up from drive of your body. You want to simulate the catch of the snatch as you lock your arms against it over head. Basically you need a moment where you don’t have 100% control of the weight of the bar.

Similar adjustment with your hang cleans, create some space by lowering the bar from your power position. There should be a triangle there that creates power as you straighten your hips. Anyway, create that space so when you close it, you initiate the overhead pull by leading with your rear deltoids. As you lead with those, you’re pull with be a quick snap that completes the pull.

Now, the way you are doing them CAN be used to train specific parts of those movements, but I think a few of the adjusted methods will be helpful to you overall.[/quote]

Alright, I will do on my half with drive and the other half without drive. It will simulate more the snatch for sure.

Do you mean hang cleans or hang snatches? I definetely should pull more with my rear deltoids, it will keep the bar closer.

I will focus on those things, you are right I think that just a few good cues will be better to focus on that a whole lot of cues. And once an error is solved, focus on another error and little by little getting a better Snatch and clean & Jerk.

So I tried to start straighter yesterday and it did seem to work. @Drewc64 I did not film the drop snatches, but the ones with drive were so much harder to catch and after that I think that my snatches went better, so thanks a million for that tip.

I tried to dip lower with the jerk and going straighter, but I still need to go lower, also I need to get more under the bar after the drive phase, but for now I will focus on dipping lower and going straight, once that goes well I will focus on getting lower under it as well.

My clean technique seems to be improving, but I need to stay more on the heels, extend the legs a bit more and be more upright in the power position. That’s how I see it, any comments from you guys?

Great to see some oly lifters in here!

  1. You need to work on full extension. I always liked exercises like clean high pull, snatch grip high pull etc. and I think they helped me a lot with extending my body. You can try and go heavy on those (you can use straps too), trying to high pull weights over 100% of your snatch/c&J, just to get a feeling for the pulling. Try to explosively squeeze your butt at the end of the pull, this helped me, even just thinking about squeezing my butt.

  2. be patient during your first pull (floor to knee). This is where most get it wrong and screw up their lift. You don’t need to go all out from the floor until you catch the weight. Be patient, maybe lift a bit slower until the bar is over your knees and you reach the power position, then explode! Almost everyone I watched in our classes messes up his technique if he’s trying to lift at max speed/explosivness right from the floor. This brings me to my second point:

  3. practice the hang variation of the lifts. From the hang (power position, bar above the knees), you only have to focus on exploding upwards and need not to worry about how the bar gets up to your knees.

Snatch specific:

  1. try pulling the bar along your thighs, thinking about the bar pulling your shorts up.

Clean specific:

  1. It looks like you are quite strong, but “muscle-ing” too much, bend your arms too early and kind of reverse curl the bar (not a lot, but it looks like your losing power this way). Keep your arms straight, extend knees and hips, shrug and catch it.

Jerk specific:

  1. I like the visual cue with the band to avoid jumping forward during your jerk. I had the same problem too in the beginning, this one helped me! DO NOT donkey kick with your feet! I know some coaches tell you to make some noise with your feet to ensure your aggressivly using your legs but don’t just stompt the floor for making some noise, you don’t get any reward of it, it even throws you off balance a bit. Everytime you lose contact with the floor, you cannot control the bar! It may happen at a point when you pull explosively, but only your heels come off the floor. Think of it more as an explosive move of the feet to the side (damn I think I can’t write down cleary what I’m trying to see, I’m still working on my English, just ask^^). You can even try and place 2 45lbs (20kg) plates before your feet but position your feet like 3-4cm behind it. I’ve yet to see somehow who actually jumped on the plates or hit them hard. Everybody was too afraid to jump forward, so nobody actually jumped forward haha. But try it first with a light weight you can drop in front or back easily, safety first!

Let me hear what worked and what didn’t!

Hey Manee thanks for the advice!

I will be sure to apply it in my lifts, I have been focusing a lot on improving my extensions and going up straight and it is getting there, but i still have a long way to go. It was a great deal of advice that you gave and I will try to implement it all step by step!

I’ll keep you all posted!

Here are some more snatches, they are getting more stable, but still not to hit the power position as well as use the trapezius more