Clean & Jerk Rep Scheme

Recently whilst training clean and jerks at my gym I was told by a trainer I had good form. But should narrow my grip to shoulder width and do 6 consecrative reps with no pause between as this “increases explosiveness” he claimed. Previously I had been training them with a grip about 1.5-2x shoulder width and doing sets of 3 with about a 5-10 second pause between reps. Now I am no pro and so I could not dismiss what the trainer said but at the same time it went against most of what I had read online and in magazines.

The trainer was an idiot. 6 reps in the C&J is plain stupid. Singles, doubles and triples is what you should be doing (so you got that right). If you can do 6 reps it’s too light.

Grip width is highly individual. It’s dependent on numerous factors: arm length and proportions, flexibility, leg length, torso length, lifting style (lifters who open up early will have a different grip to those who open up late). Many lifters use a narrower grip for the clean and then pop their hands out for the jerk, some even out to almost a snatch grip (see Dabaya). Some maintain a narrow grip throughout the entire lift (see Boevski). Basically, you need to find a balance between the stronger pull that a narrower grip brings and the need to drive the bar to a lower height in the jerk that a wider grip allows (hence why many lifters change grips to get the best of both worlds).

2x shoulder width does sound very wide though, unless you’re about 8ft tall. Where are your hands in relation to the power rings?

Yeah I realise that now it would be more then double. I am about 6 foot, my grip is about an inch inside of the power rings I would say. Happy to know that 6 is too many, the thought was running through my head as he explained how this is more explosive… Makes no sense I know. Anyways thanks for the feedback.

I’ve never seen a world class athlete do a clean and jerk at shoulder width. It’s always slightly wider or way wider. It has something to do with the bar resting on the shoulders. With shoulder width grip, the bar would rest on the wrist.

And 6 reps of clean AND jerk? Even 6 reps of just cleans or just jerks is pushing it too far. The clean and jerk is ideally done up to doubles only.

[quote]noofa wrote:
Yeah I realise that now it would be more then double. I am about 6 foot, my grip is about an inch inside of the power rings I would say. Happy to know that 6 is too many, the thought was running through my head as he explained how this is more explosive… Makes no sense I know. Anyways thanks for the feedback.[/quote]

An inch inside the rings sounds fine for a 6 footer. I’m just under 5’8" and my grip is about 2 inches inside the rings.

[quote]undeadlift wrote:
I’ve never seen a world class athlete do a clean and jerk at shoulder width. It’s always slightly wider or way wider. It has something to do with the bar resting on the shoulders. With shoulder width grip, the bar would rest on the wrist.

And 6 reps of clean AND jerk? Even 6 reps of just cleans or just jerks is pushing it too far. The clean and jerk is ideally done up to doubles only.[/quote]

Ditto on the grip and CJ reps. The only exception on high rep CJ or other Olympic lifts is if you are using them for metabolic overload workouts - in which case it is the same movement with way less weight for developing an entirely different type of athleticism – explosiveness not being one of them.