first off, i want to say way to go!! i know a lot of people that won't do olympic lifts like that unless the gym is deserted.

i feel that you are not getting low enough on the clean or the snatch. as you bring the bar up, you should be dropping into a full squat. you're trying to muscle up the bar.

Ultimately you want to squat under the bar, but I wouldn't even worry about that now. Get the pull sorted, and I think you'll find that the rest will fit into place much easier. Mainly because in my opinion, by muscling the bar up, you have no opportunity to get underneath it. If you get a decent pull, the bar will be travelling up under its own steam, giving you time to actually get underneath it.

I'll make a video of all this though, as it's probably much easier to take in visually, than in words.

Bump to follow. I'm self-teaching Clean and Jerk at the moment so all tips are of interest.

ARGGH! I wrote loads, and then went to another page and lost it, so here goes again!

I took a couple of videos today, but I want to focus on the first one, from the high hang, and then move on after this is all sorted.


First a couple of points to note.
The weight is about 40% of my max, I used this so I could got slow enough that hopefully you can see the movement, but It does also mean it's not as smooth as a heavier weight, and also the catch is not pretty as it's very high, and I'm trying to get my head out of the way to avoid smashing my jaw! I'm a bit more used to catching in at least a partially squatted position.
Also my extension is not as full\explosive as a heavy weight, if it was the weight would smack me in the neck, I've done this before, and it's not fun, at least for me, you guys would probably enjoy watching me suffer!

I have also concentrated on the clean for now, mainly because the catch is much easier for a beginner, and the snatch pull is actually a bit easier, so if you can get the clean pull, you'll find snatch pulls easy, so you can then focus on the snatch catch which is the hard bit. However thats getting ahead of ourselves, as we want to master this first.

Ok, so onto the video.
In the video I do 2 movements.
The first is just a very slow movement of what powers the bar. Notice my hips, knees and ankles extend, and then fractionally after my shoulders shrug. This is what moves the weight, theres no upper body or arm muscling going on. One point to be aware, in the actual clean my weight will be a little further back in this extended position, however when staying there for a longer time, especially using a light weight, I can't do this as I would fall backwards.

In the second bit, I do exactly the same, just a little faster, this causes the bar to fly up, in fact if you're new to cleans you may be suprised to see how high the bar has gone from such a small movement! Notice how close it is to me, close enough to brush my t shirt. Also note the catch, whilst not pretty at all, you can still see the bar is not being gripped by me, and sits on my shoulders, it is gripped in my hands and my wrists are taking no strain. If I was going to jerk, I would regrip the bar as it pops up off my shoulders on the recovery.

http://youtu.be/M2FAFrZrdrY

Ok, so I think I covered the major points, but I might have missed something that I first wrote, so please let me know what makes sense, what doesn't and anything else that you might want to ask. Once it's clear I will move on to the next example I wanted to show.

Pretty much, basically the extension of the body will pull the arms up, but the arms are passive like rope (once you get beyond beginner stage, this will change, but for beginner purposes, this holds true), rather than actively trying to lift the bar. Eventually you hit the top of the extension, and your body stops, and starts moving the opposite direction to get under the bar, which is still travelling upwards (again for a beginner with a light clean this is true, later on it may not be).

The easy way to visualise the above; imagine a yo-yo thats fully unwound, or a ball on a string. Yank the top of the string, the yo-yo\ball flies up, and your hand holding the string can be under it, before the yo-yo\ball has started falling. The yo-yo\ball is the bar, the string is your arms, the hand doing the yanking is your body, by extending the hips\legs as long as you don't fold at the core, the effect will be the same.


If you look at the arm position when catching, by having the elbows up and catching on the shoulder, your deltoids are raised, so the bar lands on 'meat ' rather than 'bone'.

Hope that helps your practice.

So if my bar is only flying a few inches, how do I get more power? More *kitten* squeezing? Lol

Bigger *kitten*!

Just bumping, as the video has had a few views, so I wondered if it makes sense, and if it's helping any of you guys?

If it is, I'll go into some of the quirks of working towards lifting off the floor and why it is not as simple as a deadlift.

Well based on your front squat, I'd think you should be able to fairly easily clean 100lb if you get it right, and possibly up to 120lb. That's rough, as I work in kg, so I did a rough conversion in my head, thought about it and then did the same back to lbs!

As it's a power clean, the top half of the movement will look like a high pull, but if you can just slowly lift the bar through that range, or hold it there, things are not right. If the bar is in a high pull position, because the momentum has taken it there, that's different.

image deleted per user's request

Have a look at the still from the video above, that's about as high as I have actually been exerting a big force on the bar, from this point on in the video the bar continues to rise upwards because of the momentum it has from the relatively vicious pull. Again think back to the unwound yo-yo, you only need to give a short sharp tug on the string, you don't try pull the string all the way to the height you want the yo-yo to fly up to. I mean you could do it that way, but I bet the short sharp tug on the string gets the yo-yo there faster.

Also look at the insert, that's my hands as the bar is about it's highest point, and I'm rotating my elbows underneath it for the catch, as you can see whatever is supporting the bar at that point, it's certainly not my hands and arms!

Shame we don't go to the same gym, as I'm sure you'd be nailing them within the hour, but hopefully progress is being made.

Let me know if there are more questions.

1) oly lifting stills are so badass. You look so cool!
2) a bajillion thanks, you've been infinitely helpful! I dot think I'll have a chance to practice again until wed or thurs but ill let you know how it goes
3) where are you from? I notice you seem to post super early, and do things in kg... I made sure to put lb above so you didn't think I was a badass lol

1) It's the leggings and white tape on the thumb that does it!

2)Even weirdos like me won't be hitting the gym tomorrow or the day after, enjoy Christmas, take a break and only think about lifting 50% of the time, instead of 100% of the time!

3) I'm form just outside London, in England, I post super early even by UK time, my normal training sessions are 6am-8am. I can deal with lbs or kg generally, but weightlifting is measured in kilos!

I'm definitely not a badass though, if you ever want to be humbled, come along to my gym. This morning when I was training, the guy next to me was the captain of the England rugby team, that really is badass!