Moonboots:
Everyone’s body is different so there is not one “correct” place to grip the bar. I love watching Ilya Ilin lift, however, I don’t have his build, which is short with even shorter arms.
God, like Jordan’s body was made for basketball, Ilin’s body was made to weightlift (he even said so much). I’m roughly 6’ with long arms n’ legs (for olympic lifts). When i started out i gripped the bar as narrow as Ilin, and made good progress at first, because i was drawing on strength, not technique. However, as the weights got heavy i screwed up my wrists and shoulders, until i stumbled on Kelly Starrett’s videos. Which make alot of sense.
You have to listen and think about what he’s saying. Not just go as wide as Diana Fu did in the video.
Specifically, stand and let your arms hang down naturally. Now, if your thumbs are pointing towards your body your shoulders are NOT rotated back into their most stable position. Rotate your shoulders back and your thumbs should be pointing straight ahead or even slightly outwards. Now curl arms up like your doing a barbell curl. Your hands will be facing your body. Now without moving your arms flip your wrists around and THIS is where YOUR shoulders will be most stable with regards to the front rack for your clean catch or Front squat.
Kelly did that very quickly with Diana in the video because he’s done this in other videos.
The point is, if he did this with Ilin, his rack position would be narrower than Diana’s because of his anatomy.
What i do now, is look for video’s of lifters who are “tall” for their weight class, like i am and ask:
"is my anatomy like theirs? and where do they grip and how do they lift? Can i mimic them?
God i love watching Ilin, but i can’t use his style. He is a couple inches shorter than Lu Xiaojun and Lu Haojie and they are nearly 20 kg lighter.
Now, when i first tried Kelly’s technique for where to rack, it did NOT feel comfortable and i had to swallow my pride and back off on the weight. But most important, both my wrists(which i use to have to wrap) and my shoulder, that my surgeon was considering doing a 2nd surgery on have healed on their own. And my PR’s are going up again. And i’m fuckin 54 years old.
But again, going wider did NOT feel EASY at first. Its just i started lookin at video and anyone who was tall like me was going alot wider than i was…and lifting alot more weight :o)
I will post a front squat video of Ilin and Xiaojun note the two different widths.
I will also post a video of Haojie, who is even taller than Xiaojun,note how wide he C&J’s.
You have to believe he goes just as wide on the front squats.
And if ya want an anglo, i’ll throw in David Bedzhanyan as well, who goes pretty damn wide…and C&J’s 240.
LB
