Hey! I have quite a bit of experience in weightlifting if you ever wanted someone to bounce ideas off of. I’ve snatched over 200 for reference. If you want someone to check your form without using the minefield that is reddit, feel free to tag me.
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Dude! Great! Thanks so much. I will do so.
I’m new at my current gym and feel a bit awkward grabbing videos, but I know I need to take some form checks soon - so I’ll definitely tag you when I post them up.
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10/18 Friday
Lost my voice. Thought I was totally over this sickness but now I have a lingering crud. However it’s not going to keep me down!
Up at 4:30, left the house before 5.
Both platforms were taken at first so I switched up the order of exercises, and reduced the front squat work, so I could be ready for C&J once a platform opened up.
Abs
3x8 twist full monte
3x16 back extensions with 10lb plate
Front squat
5x3x135lb
(A rack with no platform was available, then after these I actually swapped with a guy that was on the platform but needed my rack haha)
Clean and Jerk
Singles:
95, 105, 115, 125, 135, 145, 155, 155, 155, 165. Whereas last week I stuck with 155 for the last reps, this week I got 165. Thing is I don’t feel like I’m at a hard limit with 165, but the movement as a whole is difficult and I may fail it at 175 - or I may not. But on 165 I messed up the clean, actually caught it with my left arm not turned over so it was like a reverse curl until I shimmied under it! Ridiculous! So by the time I stood up I was getting tunnel vision and the world was fading.
I just took a couple breaths and jerked it succesfully but yeah, like @magick said, it can be scary! And this is just 165 lbs- I expect better of myself soon.
Jerks
Jerked 135 for a triple after that, just for the practice
Accessory - legs
Leg press, then 2x10 or 3x10 BSS with bodyweight only. Pretty sure it was 3x10…
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Get those videos man! You’re already doing one of the most WTF exercises possible - who cares what the fellow gym goers think about you recording it!
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Damn then i missed a good opportunity today, snatching 135lbs which is about the most i can control.
Lol if things had gone poorly it would have been a spectacular fail video!
Perhaps Friday. Or maybe I’ll set something up at home…
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10/21/2024 Monday
Still sick, amazingly. It’s affecting sleep. And this makes a full week.
Regardless: Up at 4:20 and get started.
After warmups,
Snatch plus extra OH squat
10 minutes EMOM 95
8 minutes EMOM 115
4 minutes EMOM 135
135lbs is about the most I can control in the snatch, still catching high with my feet a mile apart and toes pointed almost straight out…
Squat
5x5
135, 155, 175, 185, 195 and somehow this felt better than last week
Abs
3x10 twisting full monte
3x16 back extensions with 25lb plate
Extra
Ran out of time and just did a few rounds of a chest-supported “front raise” to a full overhead extension position. No idea what to call these.
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10/23/2024 Wednesday
Snatch Balance
3x5x85lb.
Cleans
Worked up from 135, 145, 155, 165. Around 165 they became power cleans and I decided to go with it. I can power a LOT more than I can clean.
175, 185. Did 4 singles at 185. Catching very tall. From here IDK if I should try to go heavier to FORCE a low catch, or what; @BrandonCrawford do you have thoughts on that?
I feel like I’m not at the limit of my ability to bring the bar up; but I’m at the limit of my technical ability / confidence-in-my-knees to drop under for a catch. Plus when it’s that heavy if I half-ass the pull it’s not going anywhere. If I full-ass the pull, it’s coming up high enough!
Overhead squat
8x95, 5x115, 8x115.
Pullups
3x8 SS with the OH squats
Abs
3x10 full monte twist
3x16 back ext with 25lb plate
Accessories
3 rounds of 8-8-8 with 50lb:
Tricep ext, strict press, BTN press.
30 reps of light machine curls
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Yes, this is super common. It sounds like 155 is the max weight you can do full cleans at without it going haywire? Guess what, stay there and just hammer that weight with a ton of sets - like 10-20 singles going every 60-120 seconds depending on your work capacity. Only add weight when you can make it look like the pros. Going heavier with subpar technique right now isn’t going to accomplish anything but ingraining bad motor patterns. The best weightlifters in the world are like robots - every set looks the same from the empty bar all the way to their max.
This will suck in the short term because you have to swallow your pride and use less weight, but until you do it you will always be kicking the can down the road. In the meantime, keep training those front squats and high bar squats to develop the specific leg strength you will need when your technique catches up.
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Thanks, will do. Will have to keep ego in check because id set a goal of a bodyweight c&j by end of year. (Around 185lbs). This may delay that.
So do you feel the same about the snatch? Because i had finally come to terms with the idea of just doing it with a high catch and too-wide foot position, until the weight is so heavy im forced to drop further.
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Don’t shelve your goal just yet - if you start practicing right the technique will catch up quick.
And yes for same approach to the snatch. Going heavier will not solve your problem of catching too wide, you will just start missing lifts in front because you can’t drop down with your feet out wide.
Don’t be afraid to practice both lifts twice a week, even if the volume has to be lower in each session for time constraints. If you really wanted to go all in you could get a pvc pipe at home and practice the movement pattern on off days.
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10/25/2024 Friday
Based on @BrandonCrawford 's advice above, I changed the approach a bit today. Normally it would have been C&J, then front squats. Instead:
Light Snatches
20 reps going one every 30 seconds.
First 10 at 65lb, then next 10 at 85lb without stopping the clock for the plate change.
Clean and Jerk
95, 105, 115, 125,
4 at 135
145
4 at 155
4 at 135
Actually forgot about front squats here but I would have run out of time for something anyway.
Abs
3x10 full monte twist superset with
3x16 back ext with 25lb plate
Leg accessory
Tried a new-to-me glute isolation machine.
5 sets of 12, working my way up the weight stack. Even with the full stack 12 reps was OK. Will monitor glute soreness to see how it went.
Non-gym related. This week has been insane, next week will be insane. Stuff going on in my professional life and it’s a lot. Keeping a good attitude and honestly proud of myself. But the level of insanity is beyond anything I have a reference point for in recent memory.
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Nice work man. That’s right - don’t sweat the weight, just focus on making each rep look like Klokov or Lu or whoever inspired you to give this a try. If you have a decent strength base already it should catch up pretty fast as long as you aren’t cripplingly immobile or something.
Side note - I would cut abs/glutes instead of front squats if I was low on time. Maybe you were REALLY low on time, or out of gas, or whatever. But front squats are going to be really important to build the confidence to get under heavy cleans.
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Yes sir you’re absolutely right.
I honestly forgot about FS until I was already into my abs. And by that time, gassed enough. If I’d done them I would have kept it light, to be honest, because what I’d already done was a lot of work.
Glutes are weird for me because I don’t have any, I go straight from back to hamstrings down my posterior chain LOL, so siezing the opportunity to maybe wake that muscle up. But ultimately you’re right, and I know it - that bottom-of-front-squat position is somewhere I need to be comfortable.
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Videos:
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@BrandonCrawford @magick or anyone else who can comment feel free. The camera angles aren’t great I know.
In the clean, you can’t see my wrists because of the plates, but I felt like my turnover was awful and it’s more of a reverse curl until, later, I lever my elbows under.
Snatch at 95, c&j at 155.
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I honestly don’t have a ton of problems with the clean. You are jumping forward a little bit to meet the bar, but not a crazy amount. I want you to really focus on pulling the bar “up”, and not exploding “out” like a hip thrust. Look at this funny explanation from Klokov on the subject (start the video at 1:15).
The jerk, it looks like you are executing everything right, you just need to get comfortable moving your front leg out more and dropping that back knee to get lower in the split. On your warmup reps, hold the bar overhead while your legs are in the split position for a few seconds to build some confidence. Look at how Hui’s legs form 2 right angles. You probably won’t ever get there, but that’s what you want to shoot for.
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Same thing I said for the clean applies to the snatch, although it doesn’t show up quite as much there. For both lifts, consider adding this as quick warmup.
And consider using this as a jerk warmup (just use empty bar).
Let me know if anything didn’t make sense. I tried to give you just one thing to focus on for each. I can’t stand coaches who give 8 different pointers and expect it to stick.
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Brilliant, thanks!
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10/28/2024 Monday
Alarm at 4:20, in the truck at 4:55 this morning so I’d have time to get this in before a hellacious workday with an early start.
Warmup with a complex of: Empty bar.
8 RDL, 8 muscle snatch, 8 hip snatch, 8 overhead squat, 8 Sots press.
Something like that anyway.
Snatch
Moved fast and didn’t write it down as I went, but basically:
Doing plenty of reps at each weight, worked up through 85, 95, 105, 115, 135 (Forgot to do 125 in between, so the jump to 135 caught me off guard and I caught the first one as a power snatch).
Topped out with 6 reps at 135 and plenty of volume at the lower weights. Pretty happy with the form (getting better at the lower weights) and not terrible at the 135.
Squat
5x5:
135, 185, 195, 205, 185.
Amazingly this wasn’t bad at all. Like last week.
Accessory
Had a severe time constraint so took the advice above and didn’t do abs or isolation work. Instead:
45lb plate waiter’s walk - each arm, one “lap”.
65lb barbell snatch grip overhead carry, three “laps”
No estimate of how far a lap was, except to say that there are two 180 turns per lap and that this was HARD, by the end of each lap I was trying to hustle so I could get to the spot before I dropped it.
So it was the appropriate amount of challenging.
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Wednesday 10/30/2024
Warmup
Basic snatch complex with empty barbell.
Snatch
20 reps going once Every 30 Seconds.
I didn’t write down my weights and I’m in such a fog now I can’t remember where I topped out… Probably 115lb. I did a few plate changes without stopping the timer, moved fast enough to stay on track with the timer.
Cleans
12 reps, mostly going once every 50 seconds. But the first and last rep were off the timer - first rep because I botched the timer, and last rep because I took a form check video. I felt like I had a very clean clean going on by the end.
Overhead squat
Serious PR. 8x115, 5x135, 5x135.
So I was trying to do 8x95, then 2x8x115, to slightly beat last week; but I had 35s loaded which I thought were 25s. The first set felt too heavy but didn’t make me reconsider. The second set felt way harder than I expected to get overhead, and then I only got 5 reps - I’m thinking, “Why can’t I beat last week’s effort? This shouldn’t be that hard!”
Then i saw the plates and realized - I was setting a PR haha.
With 135 overhead I’m losing stability quickly, 5 reps was OK but if I’d gone for more the chances were high I’d drop it.
Accessory
A few strict presses in the split jerk position with 95lb.
Did a few reps of DB C&J with 80lb, nothing crazy. Then made 5lb DBs very, very heavy by doing I’s, T’s, and Y’s with them on a flat bench. Horrible, horrible, and oh so sweaty. I need to do more of this.
A few triceps extensions and a set of biceps.
A set of 13 pullups.
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The 5lb dumbbells made my upper back sore, and all the overhead work made my shoulders sore. If soreness indicates adaptation occurring I’m stoked. This has been good for me and I’m excited to keep going.
Form check video of the last clean yesterday at 135.
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