55kg snatch is getting easier =) I attempted 58kg 3 times but no go tonight. My arms get lazy I think. I’ll post a video.
Edit: Video 55kg snatch and then a 58kg miss
Debra, that’s excellent!
But your second pull trajectory is a bit too far forward just like mine, and I also hump/bump the bar. After I widened my grip (about 2cm each side), it’s now more vertical. But you may find that your snatch is already fine.
[quote]Paperclip wrote:
Debra, that’s excellent!
But your second pull trajectory is a bit too far forward just like mine, and I also hump/bump the bar. After I widened my grip (about 2cm each side), it’s now more vertical. But you may find that your snatch is already fine.[/quote]
Thanks Paperclip! 
The 58kg lift felt just like the 55kg was feeling last week and I hope a couple more attempts it’ll be easy too. I’m not sure what adjusts but when I think about putting the bar behind my head, the trajectory seems to fix itself. But I have a hard time thinking about that when I find the first pull forcing my hips up and I’m trying to keep them down, which seems to happen on PR or max attempts.
The cues that seem to be working are: TIGHT, drive through the heels, HIPS DOWN, push into the ground with quads, finish and fast under. lol that’s a lot of thinking for every snatch! I hope I can get some of those to be more automatic and not have to recite them before each lift.
That’s a lot of thinking indeed. But eventually, you’ll reduce it simply to “finish” or “snatch” 
[quote]lesfayes wrote:
That’s a lot of thinking indeed. But eventually, you’ll reduce it simply to “finish” or “snatch” ;)[/quote]
I hope so!
I have a question for you guys about training. If the jerk is lagging, do you train cleans and jerks separately? I feel like if I only clean to weights I can jerk, I will never progress in the clean and it also seems to me that if I bring my clean up my jerk, while lagging, it still might naturally follow? I’ve been doing rack jerks to get the extra jerk training in too.
On another note, here’s a video of a clean (67kg). Am I cutting my pull? It felt like a good lift but it looks like I’m hitting too low on my thighs. I was a little slow swinging my elbows around. ( For some reason the sound is out of sync on the video. )
Debra, your hips rise a bit too fast and it looks like you are not finishing the pull.
As for the training question, I have the opposite problem, my clean lags behind my jerk. But if my clean were stronger what I would do is work up to a max clean and jerk, and then when I could no longer jerk the weight I would work up to a max clean. The stronger you can make the clean, the less % of a max it will be on the C&J, and so you’ll have more energy left for the jerk.
Rack jerks are also a good way to get in some more work on the jerk. No reason not to throw a few extra in at the end of your session a few times a week if that’s your weak point.
11/12/11 - Sat
Sn- bar
40x3
60x2
80x1
90x1
97.5x0
97.5x1
102x0
102x1
CJ- 40x5
65x3
90x2
102x1
110x1
115x1
120x1
123x1
FS- 100x5
125x3
145x1
155x1
160x1
Thanks Ape! My cleans were better in the summer but now I’m having those issues. Would you believe I was thinking “Hips down and finish!!!” lol I guess I need to work on that.
That’s what I was thinking training wise. Up until now I’ve been just trying to jerk everything I clean but watching the worlds it looked to me that the stronger a lifters clean was, the better a chance they had at making their jerk, except for a few guys who really seemed to have an outstanding jerk.
if you keep the hips lower on the first pull, the second pull is gonna feel waaay better. all you really need to do/think about on the first pull is (from a low hip set position): extend the knees, sweep the bar. then let your hips do the rest.
13/11/11
Snatch
Lots of warming up deep heat on elbow then
40x2,2,2,2
60x2
80x2
90x0
90x0
90x0 SERIOUSLEY soft as sh1t in the recieving position
90x1 thank f0ck
100x0 no sh1t
100x0
100x1
105x0
Clean and jerk
70x2
100x1
110x0
120x1
125x1
130x clean
130x clean
Front squat
70x2
120x1
140x1
145x1
Home and sulk. Hopefully a bigger rest will sort this elbow problem out and I will SMASH it on tuesday!
looking good debra! drooling over your plates…
looks like you still have strength to spare!
i thought that jerks tended to be limiting… and that it was as you say with respect to the easier the clean the more likely the jerk is to go up. but my coach said he had had people who struggled most with the cleans and they were reliable at getting them (and more) overhead even if the clean was a fight. guess it depends on the person a bit… but maybe those are the exceptions to the general rule. like how i knew a guy who could (full) clean more than his max front squat whereas most people (myself included) certainly aren’t able to do that.
i’m only training oly lifting 3x a week now since it is a bit of a commute to my new gym…
my coach seems to have saturdays for ‘everything’ days. we train snatch. then we train clean. then we train jerk (from the rack). then we do squats. mondays seems to be snatch, snatch pull, squat. wednesdays seems to be clean and jerk, clean pulls, squat.
it would make sense to me that if jerks were limiting to do them separately… and maybe to prioritize them, too. do them first or something. my push-jerk has got a lot stronger since i’ve been training it separately. since i’ve started doing triples, too. the weight seems to start feeling a lot heavier as i get fatigued and i think it is basically teaching me courage to really drive it up hard even when it feels hard (which has carryover to driving it up hard after i’ve fatigued myself with a heavy clean).
somebody had a rant somewhere…
quite happy to see that, actually. thought i was the only one who had problems… in my old gym people used the oly lifting platform for deadlifts. i think people actually thought that that was what the platform was for. it used to piss me off no end that i was expected to do my oly lifting someplace with only about half a meter of free space in front and behind because some jerk-off thought he deserved the platform with his 200kg deadlift.
i think that often people have no conception of what can happen in oly lifting if one misses (as in how far the bar can be thrown back in particular). people don’t understand you need an uninterrupted line of vision as the weight becomes challenging. they probably can’t tell the difference between a relatively light warm-up where it doesn’t really matter and a challenging weight where focus becomes crucial. i used to think guys were being assholes in standing close in front of me or walking in front of me or whatever. came to realize that they thought they were giving me adequate space (it was a lot more than the bodybuilding space where people sometimes do clip each other with weights).
i told the staff that it would be better if they removed the mirror off the back of the platform… i bet people would have chosen to deadlift by the squat racks for the mirrors then. they said something about how the mirrors were important for safety… i said the back was probably more important than the knees and you can’t see that in the mirror… but old habits die hard, i think.
i hate mirrors. loathe and detest them. especially for general strength training. it might well be true that guys do better when they can look at the mirror… but what i tend to see is guys actually getting distracted from their training because they are too busy admiring themselves (even when i know skinny-fat old me pumps up better than they do). i hate it because my upper body does pump up significantly when i train it. and my neck gets bigger than my head when i do heavy squats or deadlifts. apparently studies found that mirrors were incredibly offputting for females (shifts the focus from what you are doing to how you are looking and chicks tend to feel insecure whereas guys tend to think they are hot shit no matter how they look). my current gym has lots of mirrors… i kinda want to get a sheet or something and cover them all up 
sorry for the rant.
Alexus your pretty much described my gym. One day I almost killed a guy, he literally walked under the bar as I was dropping it he was a few inches from death or a coma. I would have been shocked but it wasn’t the first time.
i’d miss a snatch one day and stumble into the mirror and shatter it haha. every time i see one of those small 8x4 platforms situated right next to a wall i wonder how no one has gotten hurt. i’ve stumbled backwards 10 or 15 feet probably before i got my balance after losing some snatches. you really do need a lot of space. the bar can go flying pretty damn far, and so can your body
3days no training, a mates wedding
13/11/2011
FS
Bar x6
60 x2
100
130
150 hmmm felt a tad heavier then usual…
160 better, 160 on days I’m not on it, 150-170 too big a jump when not feeling it
170 nice, but still no 182 in here today…
175 nice, high sticking point, I get a sweet stretch & bounce at the bottom of my FS
177.5 nice, again a high sticking point, grinder through nice
167.5 x2 nice
167.5 x3 glory lift! New 3rm!
Sn
Bar work
50 x2
70
90
100x
100 xx wtf is wrong? Shoulders feel better, timing is off
100 better
110 x
110 xx
110 xo getting the 2nd rep straight away I got it, bro said it was terrible, just muscles it, rounded back and got under it
115 x
115 xo same as the 110 getting it on the 2nd rep, most in 2 weeks
120 x
120 xx close, should be able to double this
125 x
125 x
125 booyah!!! Finally! 3rd time in training,
14 misses from 100-125, shocking, I’m Mot finishing properly and trying to get under it fast, before my shoulders were battered but they feel much better now, bro said I barely broke parallel on it, I really finished this one properly, nitery is on finishing tomorrow
Cj
Bar work
50 x2 feeling fast feet on the jerks
90 fast feet
110 fast feet
130 fast feet
140 fast feet
152.5 stuck it! Booyah! Fast feet solid dip & drive new PB! 152.9 really as the metal collars are 0.2kg…
155x close jerk, waited too long after the jerk close
155x failed the clean, ox said huge pull but I was too concerned with getting under my back was rounded forwards = can’t rack that!
If I didnt fail so many Sn id have more in the tank for the cj, bro said 157.5 wasn’t out of the question if I didn’t fail so many lifts…
Feeling explosive, fast and strong, need to dial my Sn in, jerk fast after my Cn, not wait around long.
Since my FS % has improved I just feel so much stronger on my lifts. I can hammer more lifts and more jerks. The bar feels so much light for the jerks now. I can hit 170 often and have hit 177.5, 175 and 177.5 every other session pretty much.
125/152.5
277.5 best training total!
155 would have edged me to 280! Gutted I didnt do the 155!
FS going well! Only a matter of time before I crack 182.
Cj strong
Sn is getting better but I’m failing way too many lifts but at least my shoulders are better.
Debra hammer your cleans up after you fail the cj at least 2-3 x depending on if you think YOU CAN DO IT. If you think you can’t do it, clean to max. A big clean makes the jerk easier, less effort needed to do it. I cleaned 167.5 last Sunday but my PB cj is only 152.5. Addin some rack jerks/ jerk assistance to fix it. Some guys are just great jerkers and can jerk well after a gut buster of a clean. Uncle says if your crushed by a clean the chances of making the jerk is slim.
Koing
[quote]debraD wrote:
I have a question for you guys about training. If the jerk is lagging, do you train cleans and jerks separately? I feel like if I only clean to weights I can jerk, I will never progress in the clean and it also seems to me that if I bring my clean up my jerk, while lagging, it still might naturally follow? I’ve been doing rack jerks to get the extra jerk training in too.
On another note, here’s a video of a clean (67kg). Am I cutting my pull? It felt like a good lift but it looks like I’m hitting too low on my thighs. I was a little slow swinging my elbows around. ( For some reason the sound is out of sync on the video. )
Wow looks really good, nearly perfect imo. Add more weight, SURELY you went for more weight after an attempt like that?! Try and catch the bounce, helps a lot when you Jerk, the more you save on the Cleans the more you have for the Jerks.
Hips hike a tad but a lot of people hike a bit, but it’s nothing too crazy.
Sn looks good also, looks a tad forwards but if your in balance your in balance and you stuck it well. Show more failures as you learn more from what you did wrong then what you did right with the lifts. Have at least 3-4 attempts at max if you feel good. If you feel terrible cut it to 2.
Looking sharper and sharper with each video you post, good work!
Koing
Thanks!!! 
I did try 3 attempts at 70kg but I psyched myself out and clarked the bar each time so I called it quits and will get it next time. I think I’m good for 75kg and I’m going to keep thinking that
I will give it another shot tomorrow. I really wanted to lift tonight but I’m overdue for rest day because the new weights showed up and I wanted to play with them.
I need to be more aggressive with the jerks.
Alexus your rant makes me really appreciate my basement lol
I have a mirror in front of my squat rack but that’s so I can check out my quads in between sets
14/11/2011
FS
bar x6
60 x2
100
130
150
160
170x felt heavy
170 better
PS
bar work
40 x2
60
70
80
90
100x miles away terrible
80
80
90
95
100
102 haven’t hit over 100 in agessssssssssssssss
104x
104x
PC
50
90
110
120
130x
130x
130x
Push Press
100
CJ
130kg
Okay squats, poor PS to start, form is pants but I don’t do them so that is expected, PC were rope city…Jerk was good, Clean on the 130 was poor…
Going to switch it up on Wed and lift first then FS at the end.
Koing