olympic lifts

[jarrod]

olympic lifts

[61pwcc]

They are are a blast!! It amazes me how much difference of opinion there is on just TWO competitive lifts!! If you can avoid the mental masturbation on the ‘right’ way to do ’em, you’ll have a load of fun and move some serious weight over your head. Semi-regular work can do wonders for your lifting NO MATTER what your strength goals are. I shoot for my Snatch to be about 80% of my Clean and Jerk. My rotator cuffs NEVER felt solid until I started Olympic lifting.
How do I Snatch/Clean? Push feet into floor at start to discourage pulling too much with the arms. Arms are hooks w/elbows pointing out and wrist flexed. I am lifting slowly until bar is just above the knees. Now that legs are not in the way, I both jump up into the bar AND pull my self under the bar with my traps. I imagine I’m a puppet that has strings tied into the tops of the shoulders. When I jump into the bar, these strings get pulled so my traps jump up making me pull up on the bar with my arms straight vs trying to upright row/reverse curl the weight. As those traps are jumping up, I’m pulling my self under the bar rotating myself underneath. I’m spinning the bar abit. Think of being like a whip. Slow start then a big snap. On the clean, think of whipping those elbows around the bar so you end up in a front squat/racked position. On snatches, I spin my self around the bar pushing out when it gets overhead. I imagine trying to stretch bar apart. MOVE YOURSELF around the bar. Imagine you’re on a Smith machine and the bar can only go straight up and down. If you have a hard time coming out of the hole on cleans(leaning over too much) push your knees out as far as possible and push you butt forward to get you hips back under that weight.
To Jerk, keep elbows UP, don’t let them point down when you dip or the weight will be too far in front of you to finish. How do you dip? Quickly sit back and pop the weight up. Push on the bar right away jumping under it. It helps me to think like on a bent press that the bar can’t move. I dip and push hard and jump under catching it at arms length. I try to jump as deep as possible cuz I’m lazy. I don’t want to have to lift that weight any higher than I need. I want to be under that weight with arms STRAIGHT before the momentum is gone. I alternate between split jerks and power jerks due to my strongman training. I forgot to mention on the snatch/clean that when you jump into the bar/pull yourself under, he bar may or may not bump into you. Some seem to accentuate this. For myself if it happens fine if not fine. My goal is to snap that weight in a straight line. I also figure less can go wrong with a straight path. To those who know ten times more than me about Olympic weightlifting…..you are absolutely right that I left out some things but I feel this is a good overview.
I welcome input cuz with a best meet Snatch of 220 lbs and a best meet Clean and Jerk of 253 lbs @231 lbs I NEED ALL THE HELP I CAN GET!!
One of my favorite Snatch warm-ups:standing dead hang snatcheshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjhWRrcwU3Q
Same could be done with cleans. Both teach to focus on getting under the bar pronto. I also find drop snatches helpful. Bar is on back like you’re going to squat with a snatch grip. Now with NO KNEE BEND/DIP for a prestretch jump down into a full squat finishing with the bar at arms length. YEEHAH!! Now go rip some weight!! I call it grip, dip and let ‘er rip!!

[jarrod]

good sum up! thanks for the input. i’m not going to describe how i do it; you can just picture a monkey becoming intimite with a football & get the idea of how it looks at this point. i have been practicing doing a split on my snatch since overhead squats just aren’t going to work for me. besides, i figure it my strengthen my split for the c&j as well.

jf

[61pwcc]

I’m planning on introducing some split snatch and split cleans into my training diet this year. Ya never know what ya do or don’t like about a lift until you try it. I mean give it good 12 weeks or so. Rotate back to what you used to do and compare. Supposedly, from what I’ve read, the squat version favors a lifter with stronger legs vs back. Splits favor those with a stronger back vs legs. I think it ultimately depends on your injuries, your flexiblity and if you LIKE the damn move or not!!
I’m very glad to hear you’re getting there. Nothing beats just plain old feeling good. I’ve been playing lots of hackey-sack this week and it just feels unreal to stretch out and move around. Good luck

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