I see olympic guys with big jerk press or even press where they dont seem to dive at all
Personally I have never been able to clean or jerk anything, something with diving under a weight that short circuits my motor pattern, it feels too weird
These guys dont have big shoulders at all, as a matter of fact it is hard to tell that they lift for most of them
It puzzles me a bit because I have been growing my shoulders with barbell presses (among other things) with slight leg momentum
I press in the high 200âs and I have very good shoulder development (I am natural)
These olympic lifters have next to none, but some of them would have press/jerks over what I can do. Of course they dont have good dumbell presses and are not strong in any other shoulder pattern but I dont think it would explain
Oly lifts require techique and use a lot of inertia. Similar how arm wrestling uses technique and leverage, so many 150lbs guys with skinny arms can beat strongmen champions.
As @hankthetank89 stated, they are not completely ââpressingââ the weight, but instead, they pull it with a specific bar path and quickly get under it. If you were to watch professional weightlifters on a slow-mo from a side view, youâll see bar staying ridiculously still in a particular time interval, exactly where the lifter goes under the bar and stabilizes it afterwards. Amazing stuff. This is also why strict press records are way lower than clean&jerk and snatch. Here is a great video demonstrating it. Watch 1:35 closely.
Thatâs an awesome video. Itâs crazy how the bar âfloatsâ as he jumps under it. As someone desperately trying to get better at these lifts, itâs really hard to mentally do that. Most learning these lifts from more traditional strength work will tend to catch the snatch with slightly bent arms and press it up to lock out, rather than squatting deeper under it to catch it with arms fully locked out. Itâs so beautiful and âeasyâ when you see an pro do it, and so frustrating and forced when I do it.
Bro, I canât really imagine myself moving a weight THAT heavy to a deadlift level, let alone bouncing it on my hips, getting under it, and doing an overhead deep squat. Whatever level youâre on, I think youâre doing an amazing job just for attempting these lifts.
I had an oly lift coach for a little while way back when.
His acceleration off of the floor and explosive strength was sick! By the time the bar got up to about the nipple line it was just floating like that too.
As mentioned, they use a lot of momentum and arenât necessarily activating the muscle as much as a bodybuilder might.
Genetics also play a role, I would think. I press in the mid-200âs and my shoulders are my weakest link from a size/aesthetics point of view. I feel presses equally if not more prominently in my traps anyways, and theyâre well developed.
Lots of O-lifters have incredible traps as well. It may be a technique thing where the focus is on moving the weight more so than âcatchingâ a muscle and intentionally feeling it.
Even with strict presses, I begin generating the push in my abs and sort of transfer it up my body, ending in arm extension with a slightly arced pattern. Best way to explain it is like throwing a punch from the hip (minus leg drive) and the rest of the pattern is essentially follow through with a touch of acceleration. While I feel my shoulders working, theyâre not the primary muscle group for me. I have to really isolate them to make them grow.
The jerk isnât really a shoulder movement. Rather, the bar is driven up primarily by the legs through the body. The shoulders need to be strong enough to support the weight once the arms are fully locked out, but a lifter who relies on shoulder strength for the drive upward is really limiting himself. Look at the worldâs strongest weightlifter, Lasha Talakhadze. He jerks nearly 600 pounds. There is no way he could jerk even close to that relying on shoulder strength.
