Hey, ok so my growing love for Clean Grip Muscle Snatches has led to a burning performance goal alongside my aesthetic goals.
I only CG Muscle Snatch once a week but i’m trying to make the other workouts work for this exercise..
obviously SGHP are helping with the initial pull (i’m doing power muscle snatches), put i want to work on my lockout.
as an idea, i’ve started doing push presses as my ‘other’ press. one thing i’ve noticed though is that the wrist position (almost hyper extension) is starting to hurt, and psychologically i’m not lifting as much as i could. my clavicles are also starting to bruise.
my idea was to use the foam shoulder pad provided by the gym (the tube shape fitting on the bar during back squats) to alleviate the stress on my clavicles, as well as making the bar rest higher up -less extension in the wrists!
is this a good idea?
if not, do you have any technique suggestions for the push press?
Your issue with clavicle bruising is a result of your rack position. When push pressing, to ensure maximum energy is transfered from the leg drive to the press you need a solid platform to thrust off. This platform should be created by bringing your shoulder forward and up allowing the bar to be suported by your shoulders with the clavicles as a 3rd point of contact. This position can be much easier for guys with greater chest and shoulder development as they already have a natural shelf.
For smaller guys like myself you really have to focus on bringing the shoulders up and resting the bar across the shoulder. To help with the transiton i would suggest lowering the bar slowly down to your forehead and then dropping it the last portion to your shoulders until you have the rack position nailed and can catch in on your shoulders with ease each time (probably the hardest part)
Your second issue of risk pain could be one of two things:
Flexibility- If you lack the wrist flexibility then the only answer is to increase flexibility. This can be done with many exercises but i feel the most simple is to just practice the rack positon with some decent weight on the bar (killing two birds with one stone)
Elbows to high- Although high elbows is exactly what you want when cleaning and front sqauting, this is not actually the ideal arm angle for pressing off. Instead you will do better to just bring your elbows down slightly and therefore reducing the angle your wrists must maintain and inturn allowing a better transfer off force to the bar from the drive giving a more efficient pressing pattern. However, although you are bringing your elbows down YOU MUST MAINTAIN THE RACK POSITION otherwise all gains made by said technique will go down the drain.
Lastly, using the squat pad, i have to say, would be a very bad idea and could potentially be dangerous as it will completly shift the centre of gravity of the bar from down the centre of your body, to out in front. There is also the risk that when you rack the bar the pad could rotate causing it to fall away from you.
I hope that helps in some way. Keep plugging away with the push press. I must say i find it to be once of the most rewarding exercises and along with the high pull has made the greatest changes to my physique and athleticism.
Not a problem lboro, I have just spent a long period focusing on push press chasing down my goal of a 1.25 x bw press so i know how you feel and have been through the same problems.
With regard to engagement, i would try not to think about it, they ill naturally engage as you are holding the weight on your shoulders with your arms supporting it. The key to the push press really is about the way you approach the lift. It is a movement not a muscle you are training and this is very important.
If you try to break it down into sections and think about engaging each muscle in a sequence it will not be fluid. The only points you should be consiously thinking about what your engaging should be just before you lift (weight on heals, driving through heals whilst keeping them grounded) and the end of the lift (holding the press at the top and supporting the weight with your lats and traps).
Regarding hand placement, This will tie into what i said about the rack position, by slight rotating your arms down and reducing the angle at which your wrists are at you should be able to hold the weigth in the palms of your hand with your wrists slightly cocked but not alot. This will give you a strong platform to press off and will allow a good tranfer of force straight down the arm rather than behind it.
If you want to see this in action, watch some videos of klokov push pressing, he is an unbelievable press with very efficient technique. You should be able to find plenty of youtube.
well i’m fairly light for my height, and i’ve always had strong shoulders from OHP and basketball specific conditioning.
i’m 69kg (push pressed 85kg).
i hadnt done them in a long while, i think i was on something like 70kg before but not too sure… all the clean grip muscle snatching i’ve been doing has obviously helped substantially! but coming back to push presses with more weight has led to my OP of clavicle bruising and wrist pain lol.
i’ve been watching a lot of videos on technique, unfortunately CT’s videos seem to use light weights, so the technique isn’t a true representation.
[quote]lhuse23 wrote:
well i’m fairly light for my height, and i’ve always had strong shoulders from OHP and basketball specific conditioning.
i’m 69kg (push pressed 85kg).
i hadnt done them in a long while, i think i was on something like 70kg before but not too sure… all the clean grip muscle snatching i’ve been doing has obviously helped substantially! but coming back to push presses with more weight has led to my OP of clavicle bruising and wrist pain lol.
i’ve been watching a lot of videos on technique, unfortunately CT’s videos seem to use light weights, so the technique isn’t a true representation.[/quote]
Sounds like you have things covered to be honest. 1.23 x bw push press is and extremely good level of strength. 1.5 x bw is getting up to the realms of top level Olympic lifters (klokov is around the 1.75 mark). Whats your strict press like?
the last time a did strict OHP was round about when my push press was ~70kg… (stopped OHP work due to shoulder problems, and layer system not including OHP).
back then i think it was round about the 60-62.5kg mark, but i probably weighed round about 64-65kg.
i think i might start layering my OHP day like this;
Strict Press; ramp to max
Push Press; ramp to max
Push Press 90% straight sets.
if i do this, i’ll let you know what my strict press comes out as! haha. i imagine it’ll be around 67.5-70, but not too sure as i think my push press gains have largely come from lower body explosivness built up on the layer system
