Constructively Critique My For

Bigger Stronger Leaner Beginners
1

Hi Guys,

I lift at home and haven’t had a chance to get feedback from someone more experienced. I started doing clean and press a while ago and have kind of hit a wall. On occasion i tweak my back…

I had the movie 300 on so please excuse the noise:

2

There’s way better coaches than me. Hopefully they will chime in. Here’s my first impressions:

First things - you probably don’t want to do Olympic lifting in a place where you can’t drop the weights. The reason is, if you’re lifting and the bar path is kind of out of the groove - it’s ususally safer to not catch the bar and just let it fall on the ground.

  1. At the start your lumbar spine was slightly flexed. Extend your spine before you start by imagining someone holding a peice of ice… or a knife against your spine - you’ll naturally extend to stay away from it.

  2. There should be 2 distinct pulls in the lift. The first one is slow to get the bar past the knees… then the second one is much more explosive. Your hips, knees, and ankles should straighten out.

  3. Arms need to stay straight before and during the second pull. You shouldn’t have the temptation to reverse curl it.

Your second pull should/will put a krapload of force into the bar. Now right after your massive pull the bar will be “floating” for a brief moment before it starts really accelerating toward the ground. It is at this point that you should drive your elbows up and let the bar fall on your collarbones.

  1. You’re catching it on your hands. Trust me, the wrist is way to dainty to want to catch a waivering bar. Let the bar rest on your front delts and collarbones. You should feel like you’ve been slightly choked when it lands. Yes it will hurt, but there’s no way around it.

  2. If your goal in the press is to get good at overhead pressing, then when you lean back, maybe it’s not such a bad thing. If your goal is to get tougher/build muscle, then you need to bring your head “through” your arms just a little bit earlier.

3

Great feedback! Thanks. I’m going to work on this with just the bar so i can get it down.