i’m located in northern washington state, literally the dickens about 10 miles from the canadian border. about 100 miles from seattle. the closest thing to a coach in town is the crossfit which offers an olympic lifting class. i’m moving down to oregon this fall for college and ill have access to a coach there.
should i try using some light weights and working from the hang?
yes, start with light weights. Focus like you’d focus if someone was trying to kill you and take as long as you need to get mentally prepared for EVERY rep.
I’m not a big fan of sticking with just the barbell when you don’t have a coach. Go from barbell up to 50 kgs to experiment. Just make sure you are trying to fix at least one thing at a time. Focus on that one thing. For example in the jerk, if I were you, I’d focus on every rep to keep the weight on my heels up and down in the dip and drive and make sure it stays as much as possible on the same spot on the heels. Keep your back tight at all times.
For the clean, I suggest trying to clean from a very high hang. Start with a pull from a very high hang, then do the clean. Don’t use your arms much. The point of this is to first do the pull, which, if done correctly will show you just how powerful your legs can be and that you do have plenty of time to get under. Then you do the same thing, except you just also get under the bar now that you have more confidence.
after being given advice to hang clean i put together a video of part of a training session. again, any advice is great advice. after this i’ll be posting future training vids in the log
gordo1893
The point of this exercise, for you, is to get two positions right: A more efficient clean and a more efficient jerk. Whether it’s from the clean or the floor, you’re looping your second pull. There’s way too much distance between your body and the bar, which is why I call it a loop. In the jerk, you are out of alignment and consequently unable to get the full use of your leg strength in driving up the jerk.
Keep videotaping so we can see improvements. (a) Try to pull yourself down so that you are closer to the bar on the pull and descent and (b) jerk with butt back and body aligned. I’ll try to find pics to illustrate the correct positions. In the pic of you here, note the distance between your elbows and the bar. That distance is inefficient. You have to pull the bar all the way back to you. It’s a strongman clean, and it will never allow you to express your full strength as a weightlifter; you have to minimize this distance.
And here is the misalignment on the jerk. Think butt back and chest out instead.
This isn’t the same angle as yours, but almost. Can you see how Kakhi is pulling himself under the bar, not looping the bar? Notice the wrist position. His wrists are cocked inwards to minimize the space between body and bar even further. That’s a drop-under.
Now that is also possible because he began the pull with his shoulders slightly forward of the bar. You are beginning your cleans, whether hang or full, with your shoulders behind the bar, which is naturally going to force you to loop. Watch more online videos of WLs and notice how starting with shoulders past the bar allows them to pull inwards, towards the body, which then minimizes the distance between body and bar.
Can someone on this forum who trains frequently videotape themselves cleaning from the side so the OP can see the proper positions? Youtube isn’t that great for illustrating these points.
delikurt, probably the most useful advice so far. i’ll try keeping the bar closer and starting with my shoulders over the bar. i’ll post another vid today
g1893
Gordo, good luck. Remember, you don’t have to go way past the bar. Just enough so that, when you stand up, the bar is swinging back towards your body. Now think of a powerlifting deadlift in which the bar goes straight up. That’s what your pull is like right now. Any of the good videos out there show the right starting positions, like the Cal Strength videos.
By any chance, are you lifting with non-weightlifting shoes? Dipping on those will send your weight sideways instead of straight down, which may also be adding to your jerk problems. Get proper weightlifting shoes if you don’t have them. The heel elevation on those shoes will also tilt you forward so that it is easier to get your shoulders past the bar in the starting position.
i am using weightlifting shoes - adidas power perfect II. in the gym and at home i’m trying to conceptualize exactly what is supposed to happen during the lift. it’s definitely an uphill learning process. from a lot of my reading concerning the pull during the clean i’ve had a picture in my head that i am supposed to basically be pulling the barbell into a backwards swing and shrug. i feel like my pull may look more acceptable if i were using 100%+ weights. it seems that if i tried to clean 100kg i would be forced to really dip under the bar and pull with the bar as close to my body as possible. i guess i’ll just keep trucking on though. any sort of progress is good in my book
[quote]delikurt wrote:
you don’t have to go way past the bar. Just enough so that, when you stand up, the bar is swinging back towards your body.
[/quote]
even if your shoulders weren’t in front of the bar…
if your shoulders were vertically above the bar…
wouldn’t the bar still want to swing back towards your body?
i mean… since your center of gravity is behind the bar either way?
even on a deadlift…
with the shoulders directly above the bar, the bar still seems to want to swing back.
at least it does for me.
so it gets dragged up my legs since it starts hard against my shins in the first place and there isn’t anywhere more back for it to go.
everett has some stuff on how starting over the bar sets up a big swing back - like a pendulum.
guess i’d be interested in hearing the other side, though, about why starting with shoulders in front of the bar is the way to go
(if i’ve understood you correctly)
[quote]gordo1893 wrote:
in the gym and at home i’m trying to conceptualize exactly what is supposed to happen during the lift
[/quote]
yeah. i think that is something of an ongoing process. know that it is for me at any rate.
and then there are constraints on good lifting (where the significant majority would agree).
and technique variations that seem more controversial.
and different people have different lever lengths…
and it gets pretty darned complicated.
[quote]gordo1893 wrote:
i’ve had a picture in my head that i am supposed to basically be pulling the barbell into a backwards swing and shrug.
[/quote]
my understanding is that you don’t need to pull the barbell into a backwards swing. the barbell will go into a backwards swing all by itself if you pull it correctly from the floor. your center of gravity is a bit behind the bar. if you transition your weight (this part is, i think, a bit controversial) from your midfoot to your heel and you initiate the pull by knee extension (keeping your hips down) then the bar will move back (or you will fall forwards on your face) either way minimizing the difference between your and the bars center of gravity. i think you might want to transition your weight onto your heel so you don’t fall on your face. but sometimes i fall on my ass so i’m not quite sure.
i heard people say ‘anyone can pull heaps of weight - but the elite are fast under the bar’. the shrug isn’t about pulling the bar up (c’mon forceful hip extension is in theory more powerful than your traps are ever gonna be) the shrug is about forcefully pulling yourself down under the bar fast, fast as you can. you only need to pull the bar high enough to fit your ass down under it. but you gotta move your ass or it won’t. you can always (in theory at least) squat up more than you can powerclean.
[quote]gordo1893 wrote:
i feel like my pull may look more acceptable if i were using 100%+ weights. it seems that if i tried to clean 100kg i would be forced to really dip under the bar and pull with the bar as close to my body as possible.[/quote]
for your own peace of mind you might want to try it. take a vid of it. then take a look for yourself and see if it seems better. most people find that technique is best trained at around 70% or whatever. personally… i find a broomstick keeps me honest. moving a broomstick properly is harder (for me) than moving the bar. 70% actually feels easier. i think it is because my muscles aren’t working in a properly co-ordinated fashion yet.
actually i think dan john says something about this (though i might be misremembering). that one shouldn’t worry too much about the bar looping out at the hip drive because it will sort itself out as the weights get heavier.
but… instead of wasting hip drive effort on sending the bar out in a loop… wouldn’t it be more efficient to expend that effort on sending the bar up into the air? also… i don’t think the issue does sort out properly at heavier weights. instead, people either seem to miss the catch forwards (because the bar is in front) or delay their descent waiting for the bar to come back to them - which means they don’t get the chance to get under and squat up weights they would be capable of otherwise (assuming they can lift more with their legs than they can pull).
[quote]alexus wrote:
actually i think dan john says something about this (though i might be misremembering). that one shouldn’t worry too much about the bar looping out at the hip drive because it will sort itself out as the weights get heavier.
[/quote]
How heavy? Near-perfect technique, which allows for huge cleans, will require the clean not to be looped, unless you are Andrei Chemerkin circa 1997. Other than Chemerkin, I can’t think of anyone who has cleaned an elite weight with a looping style. It’s just too inefficient.
Starting past the bar means having more momentum when you go into the second pull. A lot of force is generated when the upright torso swings in that pendulum motion. However, if you have longer arms relative to your torso, I think you can get away with a less conspicuous over-the-bar position. As a short-armed lifter, I find I have no alternative but to start with shoulders past the bar if I hope to pull the bar inwards right off the ground.
Guys who don’t pull the bar inwards from the break sometimes have to come forward several inches to catch it. Have you ever seen Reyhan Arabacioglu snatching? I mean, yes, it can work (Sagir did it too), but the snatch is that much harder when you are coming 4 inches forward to meet it. I’m just noting that a lot of the really elite snatchers are obtaining a backwards bar path right from the break and that the shoulders past the bar position enables that best (at least for me). Your mileage may vary.
Dan John was talking to people who had little experience with the oly lifts at that time I think.
There are many reasons why the bar loops around. If it loops around cause you pull it a bit out with your arms, that will fix itself eventually
If the bar loops around cause you smash it on your thighs/hips you are losing a LOT of power that could be using to send the bar in a path that is much closer to you. This is the main thing I’m trying to fix on my cleans and I’m SURE that when my numbers are back to what they used to be I’ll be cleaning 10 kilos more.
[quote]delikurt wrote:
As a short-armed lifter, I find I have no alternative but to start with shoulders past the bar if I hope to pull the bar inwards right off the ground.
[/quote]
aah. maybe that is it.
as a long-legged lifter, I find that I have trouble clearing my knees if I start out with my shoulders well over the bar. Unless I let my hips shoot up (get a more horizontal back angle) which sets me up for a big loop of a second pull.
i tried and i tried and i tried to not get that happening - but couldn’t seem to figure it out.
i can get the bar moving back from the floor sometimes… but not as well as i’d like (yet!) admittedly.
can predict fairly accurately how well the rest of the lift will go from what happens for me in that first inch off the ground.
crappy most of the time, tis true 
[quote]lordstorm88 wrote:
Dan John was talking to people who had little experience with the oly lifts at that time I think.
There are many reasons why the bar loops around. If it loops around cause you pull it a bit out with your arms, that will fix itself eventually.[/quote]
ah. yes, that makes sense.
[quote]alexus wrote:
as a long-legged lifter, I find that I have trouble clearing my knees if I start out with my shoulders well over the bar.
[/quote]
You could consider the frog starting position. Only the frog stance lets me keep the bar very close in the snatch; it matters less in the clean, since the bar can be a little in front whereas in the snatch the bar has to end behind your ears. Right now I am snatching exactly 75% of my front squat, which I consider a decent marker of technical proficiency. Without the frog style, this figure would be closer to 70% or even less.
yes, i need to frog leg as well.
unrelated, but a friend and i got into an argument today about whether new zealand is a part of australia or whether it doesn’t belong to a continent. any help alexus?
and, (more topical) i’m still having trouble pulling the bar correctly. i’ve been power cleaning as in the videos for about 10 months… so i’ve learned to pull about 90kg incorreclty… pulling 55kg just doesn’t seem heavy enough to have to actually drop under the bar.
if you do them from the hip or a very high hang, you’ll have to drop under. maybe not with 55 still but once you get to 75 or so I’m sure you’ll have to.