About front squats, and power clean rack position

[Eric Montgomery]

Originally Posted by Brent Sallee

If you're just front squatting, it takes a lot of strain off of your wrist to let your other fingers out. It's not very functional on a movement like the clean and jerk though since you need to maintain your grip after the clean to complete the jerk. The author, writing in reference specifically to the explosive lifts, is correct because you want to be able to get your elbows high to complete a clean while maintaining your grip for the jerk. If you're just doing reps of front squat, there's no point in stressing your wrists to a great degree (especially for those with sensitive wrists).

Lifters typically reset their grip after the clean before the jerk, or use the "pop" off their shoulders to get their hands under the bar. For the clean itself, you'll have a hard time finding someone gripping the bar while it's in the rack position because of the strain on the wrist and the fact that gripping the bar makes it hard to keep your elbows up where you want them.

[Guy Erez]

Originally Posted by Brent Sallee

If you're just front squatting, it takes a lot of strain off of your wrist to let your other fingers out. It's not very functional on a movement like the clean and jerk though since you need to maintain your grip after the clean to complete the jerk. The author, writing in reference specifically to the explosive lifts, is correct because you want to be able to get your elbows high to complete a clean while maintaining your grip for the jerk. If you're just doing reps of front squat, there's no point in stressing your wrists to a great degree (especially for those with sensitive wrists).

I probably won't be attempting C&J, but the loose grip should do the trick for the front squats and Power cleans right?

[Brent Sallee]

Originally Posted by Eric Montgomery

Lifters typically reset their grip after the clean before the jerk, or use the "pop" off their shoulders to get their hands under the bar. For the clean itself, you'll have a hard time finding someone gripping the bar while it's in the rack position because of the strain on the wrist and the fact that gripping the bar makes it hard to keep your elbows up where you want them.

Almost every elite weightlifter I watch maintains the grip throughout the lift. Here's two videos that comes to mind:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yBvGcb-83c (WFS)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi6kf...eature=related (WFS)

Resetting your grip is often difficult and troublesome. If you catch the lift too low, it's not in a great position to bounce it back up and reset your grip. If you do try to bounce it, you'll often rack it higher, resulting in a no-lift. I'm not the most flexible person, but I maintain full grip throughout the clean and jerk with high elbows as well.

[Brent Sallee]

Originally Posted by Guy Erez

I probably won't be attempting C&J, but the loose grip should do the trick for the front squats and Power cleans right?

It's certainly fine for the front squat. For the power cleans, you'll have to dump the weight each time so that's up to you.

[Guy Erez]

Originally Posted by Brent Sallee

It's certainly fine for the front squat. For the power cleans, you'll have to dump the weight each time so that's up to you.

Well I don't got any squat rack, so I have to dump the front squat's weight as well.

[Sean Dunston]

Originally Posted by Brent Sallee

Almost every elite weightlifter I watch maintains the grip throughout the lift. Here's two videos that comes to mind:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yBvGcb-83c (WFS)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi6kf...eature=related (WFS)

yes, experienced (and especially world class competitive) Oly lifters can do it. Novice CF'ers - not so much.

[Brent Sallee]

Originally Posted by Sean Dunston

yes, experienced (and especially world class competitive) Oly lifters can do it. Novice CF'ers - not so much.

It's certainly something worth working up to. It's not like we say "Oh, you can only do quarter squats because of inflexibility. Stick with that. You'll be fine doing those." You can't just NOT hold on because you're not flexible. You need to actively strive toward this goal, via stretching, warmups, and using correct form. Sure, it'll be a process, but it's not something that should be ignored.

[Eric Montgomery]

Originally Posted by Brent Sallee

Almost every elite weightlifter I watch maintains the grip throughout the lift. Here's two videos that comes to mind:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yBvGcb-83c (WFS)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi6kf...eature=related (WFS)

Resetting your grip is often difficult and troublesome. If you catch the lift too low, it's not in a great position to bounce it back up and reset your grip. If you do try to bounce it, you'll often rack it higher, resulting in a no-lift. I'm not the most flexible person, but I maintain full grip throughout the clean and jerk with high elbows as well.

You could easily point to these examples too (all WFS)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byhIkytdERk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBUP3NGYAXU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUD4xH0FSDM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOWcrqOSevs


Some pop coming out of the squat, some do a separate pop after they've stood up. The benefit there is that you can keep your elbows as high as you want to squat out of the clean without having to worry about keeping your whole hand on the bar.

[William F. Burgess]

Originally Posted by Brent Sallee

Almost every elite weightlifter I watch maintains the grip throughout the lift. Here's two videos that comes to mind:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yBvGcb-83c (WFS)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi6kf...eature=related (WFS)

Resetting your grip is often difficult and troublesome. If you catch the lift too low, it's not in a great position to bounce it back up and reset your grip. If you do try to bounce it, you'll often rack it higher, resulting in a no-lift. I'm not the most flexible person, but I maintain full grip throughout the clean and jerk with high elbows as well.

How so? is this one of the disqualifying criteria set forth by the IWF?

[Sean Dunston]

Originally Posted by Brent Sallee

It's certainly something worth working up to. It's not like we say "Oh, you can only do quarter squats because of inflexibility. Stick with that. You'll be fine doing those." You can't just NOT hold on because you're not flexible. You need to actively strive toward this goal, via stretching, warmups, and using correct form. Sure, it'll be a process, but it's not something that should be ignored.

Don't get me wrong, Brent, I never said it wasn't something to strive for. I just said that world class lifters have that flexibility and newbs likely do not. I've been working the O Lifts for almost 4 years now, and I still don't have it. Granted, I came into this game in my mid 30s, but I just do NOT have that flexibility. It has gotten better, but I'm pretty sure I'll never be flexible enough to ATG in squats, nor will I ever have a full grip on the bar in the rack position.

It hasn't stopped me from working the lifts though. And I do use a "pop" at the top of my lift from the rack position, to reset my hands after a clean for the jerk, which, as I understand it, is totally legal as long as I do not improve the rack position and only reset my grip.