I’m pretty dysfunctional - lots of mobility issues and muscle imbalances. Currently all I can do is power hang cleans. I’m working hard on gaining the mobility needed for the rest. I am very serious about learning to do this properly though so the bits I can do I want to do properly. It’s taken a few months to get this far. Biggest issue is getting my hips to work - my legs want to take over. I struggle with the hip hinge.
Two clips. One starting with the bar above knees and the other with the bar just below the hip crease. Both normal speed and slow-mo to make it easier to see. Any advice appreciated!!
You are rowing the bar in to your hips/ upper thighs = bad
Use your lats, to sweep the bar in to hips/ thighs with STRAIGHT ARMS. Your arms only bend after making contact and to CONTROL THE BAR TO KEEP IT CLOSE TO YOUR BODY.
Keep the bar closer after contact, it comes away from you.
Get faster under the bar as it spends quite a lot of time above your shoulders. This comes with practice and experience.
[quote]susani wrote:
Thank you Koing - I’ll get to work on fixing those things :)[/quote]
Work on your mobility and start incooperating the full squat clean. Just use the bar or even a broomstick. The more you practice the movement the easier it will be for you to do it. 3reps x 6sets at the start of every session with the broomstick/ empty bar and then build up to a moderate working weight.
I have been working on front squats and I’m starting to get the depth but it’s a HUGE effort to make my body move the right way - it wants to do weird stuff! I couldn’t do it explosively yet. But as you say - it’s just a matter of practice.
I’ve had on and off help from various people with oly lifting. The thing that drives me NUTS about it (and I’m sure it’s the same for all beginners) is constantly being told - “You’re thinking about it too much - stop thinking!”. And when I finally manage to do that (very difficult for a control freak) I get “think about keeping your arms straight”, “think about keeping the bar closer to your body” … Arrrrggggghhhhh!!!
I love it though. I really want to learn to do this well
[quote]susani wrote:
Thank you! I’ll do as you suggest.
I have been working on front squats and I’m starting to get the depth but it’s a HUGE effort to make my body move the right way - it wants to do weird stuff! I couldn’t do it explosively yet. But as you say - it’s just a matter of practice.
I’ve had on and off help from various people with oly lifting. The thing that drives me NUTS about it (and I’m sure it’s the same for all beginners) is constantly being told - “You’re thinking about it too much - stop thinking!”. And when I finally manage to do that (very difficult for a control freak) I get “think about keeping your arms straight”, “think about keeping the bar closer to your body” … Arrrrggggghhhhh!!!
I love it though. I really want to learn to do this well
Thank you again :)[/quote]
haha
I coach a few people and a girl I coach has gotten up to Sn 42.5kg and CJ 52.5kg at 58kg. She’s been with me for about 9/10months. She’s 20. Another lifter is a 18yr guy. He’s CJ 72kg at 75kg. He’s been with me for about 18months. He was f0cking around with BB before and he is now focusing more on his olifts. My superstar lifter has Sn 100kg twice this year at 87kg. He doesn’t need much coaching as he’s been with me for 4yrs. Technique is very good now. Just needs to get strong.
THE SINGLE BIGGEST THING that separates a n00b from a coached athlete is the amount of bar work the person does. Coached lifters will generally do much more bar work than a random person learning the olifts. 3reps x 6sets EVERY SINGLE SESSION. 2reps x 6sets for CJ. You have to get your 500reps in to get to a certain level. So the more frequent you do the bar work and lifting the faster you learn to do the lifts better.
I’ve seen it all too often where online lifters/ uni lifters are lazy and don’t do enough bar work. It is very evident after a few weeks how little they have done and they won’t progress far and can’t move well with the bar.
I never tell my lifters that they are thinking too much. The only time I say that is when they max out. Just lift it when they max out. Otherwise they focus on 1 or 2 things that I am correcting with them.
You can do the bar work on off training days as well. Dynamic stretches as well. This will make lifting much easier. I’ve always been flexible so no issue for my coach to fix. I knew nothing of nothing so it was easier for my coach to coach me. I’ve never tried learning to lift on my own as I’ve always had a coach. I don’t think I even knew what the Sn or the CJ was before I met my coach!
[quote]Koing wrote:
You are rowing the bar in to your hips/ upper thighs = bad
Use your lats, to sweep the bar in to hips/ thighs with STRAIGHT ARMS. Your arms only bend after making contact and to CONTROL THE BAR TO KEEP IT CLOSE TO YOUR BODY.[/quote]
I agree that you’re bending your arms too early, but I would say that your arms shouldn’t bend until your hips have finished extending, which should be right around when the bar leaves contact with your upper thigh/hips. So I guess basically the same thing, just worded differently.
TheJonty - the more ways things are explained to me the better my chances of getting a thought in my head that works!! So thank you. Next training session tomorrow so hopefully I can get my head around it!!
Koing, I actually started training with the Scottish National Coach , Chick Hamilton - so alongside Peter Kirkbride, Georgie Black - who you no doubt know as you’re in the UK? They were awesome - really were good to me and went out of their way to help. It took me ages to pluck up the courage to phone to see if they could teach me - “Hi, I’m 50, can’t squat more than about 2 inches, the docs say it’s hip OA but I know it’s not. I want to oly lift - can you help?”. I honestly thought they’d laugh but they were brilliant.
The problem was I just had too many weird movement impairments. In many ways I’m extremely strong and fit then things that you’re 90 year old granny can do I just can’t. They were all half my age and less and obviously EXTREMELY good at what they do. Just with my nature, in that environment I tried to do too much too soon flexibility wise and ended up with sciatica for 6 months which put a stop to pretty much all training!
There’s a PT at my gym and he’s worked as a coach with Sport Scotland so he’s picked up some decent oly lifting knowledge. I have the odd session with him and he’s very good at understanding what my restrictions are and finding ways to break things down safely. But it’s good to have some actual oly lifters look at what I’m doing and give some feedback.
I’m hoping when I get all the mobility issued fix and I can train safely amongst normal people that they’ll take me back at Shortleas. I really did love training there. Very inspiring!
[quote]Koing wrote:
You are rowing the bar in to your hips/ upper thighs = bad
Use your lats, to sweep the bar in to hips/ thighs with STRAIGHT ARMS. Your arms only bend after making contact and to CONTROL THE BAR TO KEEP IT CLOSE TO YOUR BODY.[/quote]
I agree that you’re bending your arms too early, but I would say that your arms shouldn’t bend until your hips have finished extending, which should be right around when the bar leaves contact with your upper thigh/hips. So I guess basically the same thing, just worded differently.[/quote]
Yes after being the most important word. Full extension for most beginners lifters and it’s too late as the bar will tend to swing away as they keep their arms straight for too long. But yeah just keep the bar in. Cleans are easy when you have it dialled in.
[quote]susani wrote:
TheJonty - the more ways things are explained to me the better my chances of getting a thought in my head that works!! So thank you. Next training session tomorrow so hopefully I can get my head around it!!
Koing, I actually started training with the Scottish National Coach , Chick Hamilton - so alongside Peter Kirkbride, Georgie Black - who you no doubt know as you’re in the UK? They were awesome - really were good to me and went out of their way to help. It took me ages to pluck up the courage to phone to see if they could teach me - “Hi, I’m 50, can’t squat more than about 2 inches, the docs say it’s hip OA but I know it’s not. I want to oly lift - can you help?”. I honestly thought they’d laugh but they were brilliant.
The problem was I just had too many weird movement impairments. In many ways I’m extremely strong and fit then things that you’re 90 year old granny can do I just can’t. They were all half my age and less and obviously EXTREMELY good at what they do. Just with my nature, in that environment I tried to do too much too soon flexibility wise and ended up with sciatica for 6 months which put a stop to pretty much all training!
There’s a PT at my gym and he’s worked as a coach with Sport Scotland so he’s picked up some decent oly lifting knowledge. I have the odd session with him and he’s very good at understanding what my restrictions are and finding ways to break things down safely. But it’s good to have some actual oly lifters look at what I’m doing and give some feedback.
I’m hoping when I get all the mobility issued fix and I can train safely amongst normal people that they’ll take me back at Shortleas. I really did love training there. Very inspiring!
[/quote]
I’ve been around Chick, Peter and Georgie since 2003/04 when I started to go to U23 British Champs. I worked alongside Chick at the 2012 Games loading. I’ve been competing for 15yrs so I know loads of coaches and lifters.
Chick is a really good guy so I’m not surprised they went out of their way to help you out
Just take the weightlifting one thing at a time. Work on it and then move on another aspect that needs work. You can’t fix 5 things at a time.
