Hey guys, the angle is not the best on this video, but I was just looking for some tips on my form. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Hi ape,
I am not the best Olympic Weightlifting coach out there, but I know what I’am talking about. SO! Here’s what I see. Do you do any cleans from the floor? Your flexibility looks good in the wrists and triceps and forearms as you can catch the bar with the elbows high.You do a novice mistake by the width you catch the weight in the clean. Plus you have to go deeper than this. Try to think about pulling yourself under the weight. You have to think speed under the bar. At the angle of the camara I will give the benefit of the doubt that your back is braced.
Your jerk needs a little more work. It looks like you have a lot of ankle flexibility which is great but you need to know how to use it in the dip and drive phase of the jerk. This is what you do.
1)When you dip, feel the movement on the heel more. With a lot of flexibility on the ankle most people tend to move towards the ball of the foot. Not a good strong position.
2)When you drive upwards again stay on the heel more as this puts the bar in line with the ears.
You really have to drive harder than this film shows as your lock out is weak. So drive the weight up like your life depended on it. Controlled slower downward dip, fast controlled upward drive. And take your time when you recover from the split position. If this was any heavier you would probably loose it. Front leg back first and then back leg forward last.
Two questions. 1)How long have you been doing this for.
2)How tall are you.
There are a few other things but hopefully this helps you a bit. All in all it is not bad.
Good luck,
Andy
[quote]lulupuff wrote:
Hi ape,
I am not the best Olympic Weightlifting coach out there, but I know what I’am talking about. SO! Here’s what I see. Do you do any cleans from the floor? Your flexibility looks good in the wrists and triceps and forearms as you can catch the bar with the elbows high.You do a novice mistake by the width you catch the weight in the clean. Plus you have to go deeper than this. Try to think about pulling yourself under the weight. You have to think speed under the bar. At the angle of the camara I will give the benefit of the doubt that your back is braced.
Your jerk needs a little more work. It looks like you have a lot of ankle flexibility which is great but you need to know how to use it in the dip and drive phase of the jerk. This is what you do.
1)When you dip, feel the movement on the heel more. With a lot of flexibility on the ankle most people tend to move towards the ball of the foot. Not a good strong position.
2)When you drive upwards again stay on the heel more as this puts the bar in line with the ears.
You really have to drive harder than this film shows as your lock out is weak. So drive the weight up like your life depended on it. Controlled slower downward dip, fast controlled upward drive. And take your time when you recover from the split position. If this was any heavier you would probably loose it. Front leg back first and then back leg forward last.
Two questions. 1)How long have you been doing this for.
2)How tall are you.
There are a few other things but hopefully this helps you a bit. All in all it is not bad.
Good luck,
Andy
[/quote]
Andy,
First off thanks for the response. I’m 5’6 and I’ve been doing cleans for probably about 3 years. I did intentionally catch the bar as high as possible on the clean because I was going more for a power clean and less for a full clean. I have done full cleans in the past, but lately I’ve been focusing mostly on power cleans. Also, I’ve never attempted a clean from the floor, only the hang. This is mostly because I don’t compete and so I never bothered to learn the extra step of doing the two pulls consecutively. I see what you mean about the width of the stance during the catch, that’s something I’ll have to consciously focus on to stop myself from doing at heavier weights.
How can you tell the lockout is weak? It felt pretty good when I did it, I was able to receive the bar at arm’s length. But ya, now that you mention it, it does look like I move out of the split too quickly before I’m fully recovered and could easily lose my balance. What are the few other things you noticed? Again thanks for analysis.
Alec
Very hard to tell from this angle, but it does look like you are cutting off the pull and not fully extending at the hips.
For a non-competitior it looks pretty decent. I would still practice keeping the feet closer on the catch as you will be better able to not miss lifts on higher sets of 3, 4 or 5 [as you get fatigued your pull will slow and the easier you can get an inch or 2 lower will mean the diff between having a set of 3 become a set of 2 and completing all 3].
Also big cred for:
1] explosive lifting in vibrams[? i think]
2] using standard metal plates
3] Lowering the bar and not dropping
that type of shit is hard on your body but makes you look tough as goat balls in the vid.
-chris
Hi Alec, I agree with laujik you are cutting the pull. This is at the shrug part of the pull. You have to pull those shoulders up to the ear lobes in the hang position. I think your hips are close to the bar as you pull but certainly a view from right or left side would tell us better.
Please don’t think I was berating your lockout it’s just if you have competed for 15 years and coached for 22 you can see things that athletes at your level can’t pick up. When you drive the bar to overhaed just as you start to recover you slightly finish the lockout by a press just enough to get away with this kind of weight. As I said early on any heavier you would loose it. It looks like to me that you are lifting in bare feet.
I would really try and get a pair of lifting shoes. Gives you a more solid stable base. I agree with Avacado in lowering the bar. My age group were taught to lower the bar this way. It is eccentric training at it’s best. If you could show a video from the side it would help us tweak it even more. Oh! get squating even if you don’t compete.
Again good luck
[quote]Avocado wrote:
For a non-competitior it looks pretty decent. I would still practice keeping the feet closer on the catch as you will be better able to not miss lifts on higher sets of 3, 4 or 5 [as you get fatigued your pull will slow and the easier you can get an inch or 2 lower will mean the diff between having a set of 3 become a set of 2 and completing all 3].
Also big cred for:
1] explosive lifting in vibrams[? i think]
2] using standard metal plates
3] Lowering the bar and not dropping
that type of shit is hard on your body but makes you look tough as goat balls in the vid.
-chris[/quote]
hahaha thanks man, ya they are vibrams. i would love to buy some bumper plates but those sons of bitches are way too far out of my price range. so i have to lower the bar so i dont, 1. destroy my plates, 2. destroy the floor of my garage lol.
[quote]lulupuff wrote:
Hi Alec, I agree with laujik you are cutting the pull. This is at the shrug part of the pull. You have to pull those shoulders up to the ear lobes in the hang position. I think your hips are close to the bar as you pull but certainly a view from right or left side would tell us better.
Please don’t think I was berating your lockout it’s just if you have competed for 15 years and coached for 22 you can see things that athletes at your level can’t pick up. When you drive the bar to overhaed just as you start to recover you slightly finish the lockout by a press just enough to get away with this kind of weight. As I said early on any heavier you would loose it. It looks like to me that you are lifting in bare feet.
I would really try and get a pair of lifting shoes. Gives you a more solid stable base. I agree with Avacado in lowering the bar. My age group were taught to lower the bar this way. It is eccentric training at it’s best. If you could show a video from the side it would help us tweak it even more. Oh! get squating even if you don’t compete.
Again good luck
[/quote]
I see what you mean. My friend has told me a couple times that it looks like I’m not shrugging high enough on my cleans. I’m really gonna have to work on that because I feel like I’m shrugging as hard as I can already and if I don’t clean or snatch for a few weeks my traps are sore as hell the next day. So that’s deceptive.
I actually do own a pair of VS Athletics Oly shoes, I just didn’t feel like putting socks on the day this was taken so I ended up lifting in my Vibrams instead lol. I think it would be cool to be able to drop the bar haha, but I’ve also read a lot about how Olympic lifters used to be a lot more muscular in the upper body simply because they didn’t have bumper plates and had to actually lower the bar. So I think I will continue to do that.
Next time I have someone with me when I’m doing some C+J’s I’ll be sure to have them take a video of me from the side on one of the relatively heavy attempts. Thanks again. And don’t worry, I do plenty of squatting.
Alec
Not bad at all.
Power Clean from the Hang.
Jerk your front foot doesn’t go out far enough and your back foot goes back too far. Watch out for this. On heaiver weights the weight will just drop after you lock it out as you will move backwards. Not so bad when it’s light ish as you can hold it, but when it gets to 95% it’ll just fall back down mate.
A bit more extension on the 2nd pull, but it’s not bad imo.
Your fast under so it’s good, solid high elbows, good whip = good
Why not learn the 1st pull and connect the lift up properly? People ‘always’ say they don’t do it from the floor because they can’t be f0cked to learn it, BUT you ALREADY do it anyway, you just pause it and setup the lift from the hang. It isn’t as if you take the bar off a rack already. Also you can LIFT MORE WEIGHT by taking it off the floor!
You take the bar off the floor so it shouldn’t be an issue. Just take off 20kg and dial in a few doubles x 6sets and then increase the weight and you’ll be pushing heavier weight in no time mate.
Koing
[quote]Koing wrote:
Not bad at all.
Power Clean from the Hang.
Jerk your front foot doesn’t go out far enough and your back foot goes back too far. Watch out for this. On heaiver weights the weight will just drop after you lock it out as you will move backwards. Not so bad when it’s light ish as you can hold it, but when it gets to 95% it’ll just fall back down mate.
A bit more extension on the 2nd pull, but it’s not bad imo.
Your fast under so it’s good, solid high elbows, good whip = good
Why not learn the 1st pull and connect the lift up properly? People ‘always’ say they don’t do it from the floor because they can’t be f0cked to learn it, BUT you ALREADY do it anyway, you just pause it and setup the lift from the hang. It isn’t as if you take the bar off a rack already. Also you can LIFT MORE WEIGHT by taking it off the floor!
You take the bar off the floor so it shouldn’t be an issue. Just take off 20kg and dial in a few doubles x 6sets and then increase the weight and you’ll be pushing heavier weight in no time mate.
Koing[/quote]
You may have just convinced me to attempt to connect the pulls. Thanks for the advice man.
Alec
[quote]ape288 wrote:
[quote]Koing wrote:
Not bad at all.
Power Clean from the Hang.
Jerk your front foot doesn’t go out far enough and your back foot goes back too far. Watch out for this. On heaiver weights the weight will just drop after you lock it out as you will move backwards. Not so bad when it’s light ish as you can hold it, but when it gets to 95% it’ll just fall back down mate.
A bit more extension on the 2nd pull, but it’s not bad imo.
Your fast under so it’s good, solid high elbows, good whip = good
Why not learn the 1st pull and connect the lift up properly? People ‘always’ say they don’t do it from the floor because they can’t be f0cked to learn it, BUT you ALREADY do it anyway, you just pause it and setup the lift from the hang. It isn’t as if you take the bar off a rack already. Also you can LIFT MORE WEIGHT by taking it off the floor!
You take the bar off the floor so it shouldn’t be an issue. Just take off 20kg and dial in a few doubles x 6sets and then increase the weight and you’ll be pushing heavier weight in no time mate.
Koing[/quote]
You may have just convinced me to attempt to connect the pulls. Thanks for the advice man.
Alec[/quote]
f0cking do it man!
The goal is to lift a f0ckton of weight right? So lift from the floor and lift MOARRRRRRRRRRRRRR weight 
After your use to the floor you can play around and do lifts from the hang.
Koing