Finishing the Pull

Cognitive breakthrough!

I know when I’m tired I have trouble finishing the pull. Have realized that it isn’t only when I’m tired, though, I seem to have trouble more generally. I found this:

He takes a little while to get going…

But the basic point is that you need to have the ability to use your glutes to extend your leg behind midline without hyper-extending your spine. I tried the stretch and DAMN. Took 3 minutes before I could even get into the position for the stretch. After the stretch I tried kicking my leg back using glutes and not spine and things seemed much better.

Hopefully this is helpful for others since I’ve found that a lot of people seem to have trouble finishing the pull. Maybe partly because of this.

That looks helpful. Thanks.

cognitive breakthrough round two:

you need to have slightly externally rotated legs for olympic lifting. to help the bar clear your knees. you also need to have slightly externally rotated legs in order to use hip drive to get up your snatches and cleans.

a lot of women in particular (maybe guys with long femurs too - not sure?) have slightly internally rotated femurs when they think they are in neutral. this might be a problem more for women because of the greater q angle (because of the wider hips).

glute medius helps to stabilize the femur in the hip socket.

ya know, so you don’t start developing something like anterior femoral glide syndrome (femur rubbing painfully against the front of the pelvis).

x band walks for the win!!!

all that anatomy stuff sounds gibberish to me. I wish I would learn it all so I would understand half of the videos and articles about injuries and stretching. What do you do that helps with that 2nd breakthrough?

I’ve been trying the stretch in the video the last few days. its pretty nice. Although I do it on the coach so my knees don’t hurt. innuendo yes.

x band walks:

i’m trying to do them with my hips rotated like in my avitar.

i’ve also been putting a micro-band around my knees in both air squats and my warm-up sets of back squats to help cue me to drive the hips forwards / knees out.

i did bodybalance today (lol) and think some standing balance stuff would be useful, too. leg raises (especially to the side) and i’d probably benefit from one-legged squats, too. to really get my knees, ankles, and hips stable for squatting.

[quote]alexus wrote:
cognitive breakthrough round two:

you need to have slightly externally rotated legs for olympic lifting. to help the bar clear your knees. you also need to have slightly externally rotated legs in order to use hip drive to get up your snatches and cleans.

a lot of women in particular (maybe guys with long femurs too - not sure?) have slightly internally rotated femurs when they think they are in neutral. this might be a problem more for women because of the greater q angle (because of the wider hips).

glute medius helps to stabilize the femur in the hip socket.

ya know, so you don’t start developing something like anterior femoral glide syndrome (femur rubbing painfully against the front of the pelvis).

x band walks for the win!!![/quote]

My legs are definitely externally rotated because I walk like a duck.