Positioning

Here's Kelly, Tanya and Arthur from the 8a.m. today. Watch how they all get great extension by jumping, nice work! There are what seem like an infinite amount of positions to talk about in the Clean and Jerk. It is not possible to try and cover them all in an hour class, so what we did today was pick out two important aspects of each movement; one for the Clean and one for the Jerk. We focused on the mid-thigh or jumping position in the Clean and the shelf for the jerk. Hitting the mid-thigh position correctly means the bar will be in contact with your body and your shoulders will be over the bar. If the bar is not in contact with your body when it gets to mid-thigh (this is very common to see), you are producing a mechanical disadvantage by creating an extra lever you'll have to resist against. Extreme examples can help. Try cleaning any weight with the bar a foot away from your thighs, there will be a huge amount of leverage to overcome in order to move the weight effectively. The goal is to keep the bar as close to your center of mass as possible at this point (mid-thigh) so there aren't any extra levers you have work against. Also, if the bar is out in front at this point, in order to land in the right spot you may have to chase it forward. Shoulders over the bar means your hips will be flexed and in a loaded position with the potential to create force. A common mistake would be too much flexion in the knees and not enough in the hips, e.g. an upright chest with shoulders behind the bar. If your shoulders are over the bar, you are probably in the right spot as far as hip flexion. Creating a shelf for the bar to rest on in the Jerk is crucial. Where exactly you position your elbows in relation to the bar widely varies from person to person. Some people Jerk from what looks like a front squat position and others go with more of a press set up. If you start with the elbows up higher like the front squat position, you have to be very fast to get your elbows back under the bar and turn your wrist over as the bar is driven up and your body is going under. Most people will set up somewhere in between that front rack and press grip, the important thing is to have a shelf to drive off of. Having no shelf will limit you in the amount of weight you can Jerk. Here's an Olympic lifting video from 1995, starring Pyrros Dimas. See if you can notice any of the positions we talked about. You can watch Pyrros's world record at 20:20.Pyrros

Workout:

Clean and Jerk < 80% 1RM  ~10 Good reps

10 minute AMRAP

Max KBS

200m Run

Score KBS.  Every time you stop swinging run 200m (just like Nicole).

Programming: Gary

ATTENTION!

If you have any numbers for the board, i.e. Clean, Pull Up, Dip, 800m Run or Muscle Up, please give them to a trainer or write them down on the PR sheets at the front of the room

THANK YOU!