pushing from rack position in clean and jerk

[Barry Corcoran]

Whats the craic everyone.

Im finally getting the hang of the clean and jerk,but I have another question

When pushing from the rack position,should the palms be open for the initail bump up of the bar and then grip the bar on the follow through or should you try to grip the bar with fingers before the initial bump up,

cheers to everyone for all the help

[Krieger Piloto]

Originally Posted by Barry Corcoran

Whats the craic everyone.

Im finally getting the hang of the clean and jerk,but I have another question

When pushing from the rack position,should the palms be open for the initail bump up of the bar and then grip the bar on the follow through or should you try to grip the bar with fingers before the initial bump up,

cheers to everyone for all the help

[Brian Degenaro]

You should have the bar in the meat of the hands while it's on the shoulders. If you are mobile enough you can have a pretty solid grip on it, but most aren't.

[Barry Corcoran]

cheers brian,ill work on that,

[Veronica Carpenter]

Originally Posted by Barry Corcoran

cheers brian,ill work on that,

And get rid of the idea that you're pushing the bar - you're not. You're driving the bar off your shoulders then quickly getting your body under the bar to a lockout overhead. You never "push" a jerk

[Yahya Kohgadai]

Sometimes there is a very obvious dip and then a big push upward w/a minimal "dropping under". Other times it seems like there's barely any dip. It looks like they're just dropping under the bar and locking their arms out.

I see this both in a push jerk and split jerk.

Anyone care to comment?

[Veronica Carpenter]

Originally Posted by Yahya Kohgadai

Sometimes there is a very obvious dip and then a big push upward w/a minimal "dropping under". Other times it seems like there's barely any dip. It looks like they're just dropping under the bar and locking their arms out.

I see this both in a push jerk and split jerk.

Anyone care to comment?

It depends on how heavy the bar is for the lifter. You don't need much of a dip to jerk the lighter weights (moreso w/push jerks which are typically lighter.) Jerking heavier weights will require more of a drive. IMO, it's best to practice the same pattern every time to develop the explosive drive needed for a heavy jerk.

[Lincoln Brigham]

Sometimes there is a very obvious dip and then a big push upward w/a minimal "dropping under". Other times it seems like there's barely any dip.

I prefer to see the same timing and positioning for light lifts as for heavy lifts. When a lifter drives the bar up high with minimal drop-under or split it's reinforcing a motor pattern that won't work for the heavier weights.

Stand at attention with the bar on the shoulders. Imagine someone taking a Sharpie and drawing a big black line across your forehead. That's where the bar should be locked out in the jerk, whether it's light weights or heavy. That spot should NOT be any higher than the top of the head. That line for different lifters might be at the hairline (top of the head as in bald guys!) or it might be at the top of the eyebrows, but the bar should end up in the same spot everytime.

The dip should be short and sweet. The bar should remain in constant contact with the shoulders and never crash on the shoulders. The bar should have a rapid turnaround, like the lifter is trying to get the bar to bend across the shoulders.

[Jason Peacock]

I prefer to see the same timing and positioning for light lifts as for heavy lifts. When a lifter drives the bar up high with minimal drop-under or split it's reinforcing a motor pattern that won't work for the heavier weights.

Yes! This is exactly my problem. I'm a big guy, so can easily jerk Rx weights w/o any dip. But then when I go to do real lifting, I can never get low enough under the bar

So training yourself to get low is a good thing, please do it and avoid the "big guy can't lift big weight" embarrassment.

[Geoff Archibald]

Let me just say that I am a total noob lifter but I also teach physics so this is actually quite an interesting problem from that perspective. Please correct me if I'm wrong in anything that I say below.

If you hold the bar in the rack position and just drop, you and the bar will fall with the same acceleration and the bar won't go overhead. If you drop down while pushing yourself down under the bar you can accelerate down faster than with gravity alone while also slightly slowing the bar. I've always felt that this was why coaches describe it as pulling yourself down under the bar. I dip and drive off the shoulders but the moment the bar leaves the rack position I'm trying to push myself down into a deep split as fast as possible so that the bar has to move as little as possible to get locked out overhead.

What I've noticed with the split jerk is that the heavier the weight, the faster my feet have to move to get into the same position. The less time I'm able to give myself due to not being able to launch the bar up as high in the drive, the faster I have to be to get down under it which means splitting the feet faster. If I'm not faster then my feet feel like they're hitting the ground too early and they generally are much closer together than my target stance. This is the speed that I try to work on.