The clean & jerk, along with the snatch, make up the Olympic lifts — the only strength sport currently competed in the Olympics. The “C&J” is a complete movement which can develop strength, power, coordination, speed, and muscle throughout your whole body if you can master it.

No wonder it is used in many strength and conditioning programs to produce high-performance athletes, or that the exercise made its way into CrossFit training, which emphasizes challenging your entire body as often as possible.

The clean & jerk is composed of two distinct movements: the clean and the jerk (yes, it’s that simple). Each of these lifts is complex enough on its own, and combining both during a single repetition is a challenging task. But don’t worry, you’re about to discover a detailed breakdown on how to master this beast of a lift.

Clean & Jerk

• How to Do the Clean & Jerk
• Clean & Jerk Mistakes to Avoid
• How to Progress the Clean & Jerk
• Benefits of the Clean & Jerk
• Muscles Worked by the Clean & Jerk
• How to Program the Clean & Jerk
• Clean & Jerk Variations
• Frequently Asked Questions

How to Do the Clean & Jerk Step by Step

The clean & jerk is an explosive movement that requires (and builds) strength, coordination, and speed. You cannot perform a correct clean & jerk slowly. This is one of the reasons why it’s so demanding. The technique requires timing, mobility, and total-body coordination.

Ideally, you’ll load the bar with specialized, rubber-coated bumper plates which allow a safer and more efficient way to perform the final phase of each repetition, but the clean & jerk can be performed (carefully) with any metal plates.

Step 1 — Get Into the Starting Position

Stand in front of a barbell on the ground with a hips-wide stance. Angle your toes and knees slightly outward. Bend at your hips and hinge forward to grab the bar with a slightly wider than shoulder-width grip, using a pronated (palm down) grip. 

Squat down until your shoulders are slightly above the barbell. Your hips should be lower than your shoulders but higher than your knees. Keep your back flat, your chest high, and look forward.

Form tip: Keep the bar close touching, or almost touching, your shins during the setup. This will ensure a proper bar path with less lower back strain.

Step 2 — Initiate the “First Pull”

The first pull is the term for the start of the clean. It’s the moment you break the barbell from the ground and bring it to your knees. Brace your core, flex your lats, and drive with your legs by pushing your feet through the ground. Your hips and shoulders should raise at the same speed, while the barbell remains very close to your body. The first pull is not unlike the initial start of a standard deadlift.

Form tip: Because the clean & jerk is an explosive movement, you might be tempted to explode off the floor to generate force as quickly as possible. Don’t. Focus on being in control of the barbell with your whole body braced. Especially if you’re not sure about your technique, slow down your first pull.

Step 3 — Explode Into the “Second Pull”

In this phase, you’ll achieve triple extension — full extension of your hips, knees, and ankles. The second pull occurs as the bar passes your knees. Now you can explode up with as much force as possible by extending your whole lower body. 

While keeping your arms straight, extend your hips and knees forcefully. As you extend, push through the balls of your feet as hard as you can. Your heels should raise off the ground. If you’ve performed a complete triple extension, your body in a complete straight line, with only your toes and the balls of your feet on the floor.

Form tip: Think of jumping as high as you can to transfer maximum power into the bar, but don’t actually lose contact with the ground. Because the movement is a hip hinge, you could be tempted to explode your hips forward like a kettlebell swing to try to generate force, but it will result in an inefficient bar path. Once you pass your knees, think “up, up, up.”

Step 4 — Transition Into the “Third Pull”

Now that you’ve transferred force from your lower body to raise the bar, the third pull is actually pulling yourself “under” the barbell to catch it. As you finish the triple extension and rise onto your toes, shrug as hard as you can to give even more energy to the bar while “pulling” yourself under it.

End up with your knees slightly bent and your chest proud, ready to receive the bar in a front rack position.

Form tip: “Attack” the ground with force. Imagine you’re trying to hit the floor as fast as you can once you stand on your toes.

Step 5 — Catch the Bar and Stand Up

Let your arms bend and squat down to catch the bar between the front of your shoulders and your clavicles, keeping your elbows as high as you can. Perform a powerful front squat until you stand tall.

Form tip: How low you “should” squat to catch the bar depends on the weight relative to your strength, and how much force you applied to the bar. The harder and heavier it is, the deeper you’ll likely have to squat. If you have to squat to parallel or below, the movement is considered a “full clean.” If you receive the bar in a higher squat position, it’s called a “power clean.”

Step 6 — Dip Down

The clean phase of the lift is now complete. It’s time to tackle the jerk. From the front rack position, bend your knees and dip down a few inches to accumulate energy in your lower body. Only bend at your knees, not your hips, to ensure a vertical bar path and whole-body stability.

Form tip: Before initiating the dip, you can slightly lower your elbows, so that they are between a front squat (facing forward) and a push press (facing the ground) position. This will allow you to use a bit more shoulder power to lift the weight. Depending on your upper body mobility, you may also feel comfortable adjusting to a slightly wider hand position.

Step 7 — Jerk the Weight Up

Push as hard as you can through your legs to drive the bar up. Use the same triple extension as during the clean to generate as much force as you can — completely extend your hips, knees, and ankles — and then push the weight with your arms.

Form tip: Do not bend forward. That will sacrifice power, increase strain on your lower back, and shift the bar into a less efficient path that’s more likely to fail the lift. Keep a completely vertical bar path. 

Step 8 — Split and Catch the Barbell

From this position, transition as fast as possible into your catch position by splitting into a half-lunge. Quickly position one leg in front of you, with your foot flat and your knee vertical, and one behind you, slightly bent and with your weight on your toes. Assume a shoulder-wide stance. Straighten your arms forcefully and keep them straight the rest of the exercise.

Form tip: The bar should end up directly over your upper back, not directly above your head. At lockout, your arms should be vertical and not angled to the front or back.

Step 9 — Recover and Finish the Lift

Bring your front foot back in half of the way, and then bring it directly under you. Now, bring your rear leg forward and hold the position with the bar overhead briefly. That’s it, you’ve completed a clean & jerk.

From there, if you’re on a weightlifting platform and using bumper plates, gently guide the bar back to the ground with control — don’t let it free fall wildly. If you’re lifting with metal plates, lower the bar to the front rack position across the front of your shoulders, and then lower it to your hip crease before “deadlifting” it down to the ground.

Form tip: That entire sequence was one single repetition. When the bar is returned to the ground, take a breath and refocus before performing additional reps.

Clean & Jerk Mistakes to Avoid

This exercise is very technical, so minor mistakes are bound to happen until you really nail it. Try to avoid these blunders though, as they will hinder your progress and could potentially lead to injury.

Using Too Much Weight

Technique should always come before weight with any exercise, but it rings even more true with the Olympic lifts. Using too much weight will force your body to use the path of least resistance, instead of proper technique and efficient bar path.

This results in “muscling” the weight up and grinding a lift that should be performed smoothly. You’ll never learn the proper technique that way and you’ll only risk injury, especially at the shoulder complex.

Avoid it: Make sure you use appropriate weight and feel confident in your technique before increasing the load. If you change the weight and your movement is different, you have to spend more time at a lower weight. It’s not uncommon for beginning lifters to learn the clean & jerk with a broomstick before even using a 45-pound barbell.

Not Staying Over The Bar

During the clean & jerk, your shoulders have to stay slightly in front of the bar until you finish the second pull and completely extend your body. This will help you maximize bar height and path. If your body doesn’t stay in good alignment, you can’t effectively transfer force into the bar and the bar path is less likely to be vertical.

Avoid it: Keep your weight balanced over the middle of your feet. Do not put too much weight on your toes (unless you’re supposed to be in full extension) or on your heels. Do not rush the first pull. Control the bar until the moment you explode up.

Not Keeping the Bar Close to You

Keeping the bar close to you is paramount for optimal bar path, to optimize bar height and power, as well as minimizing low back strain and upper-body involvement.

If the bar drifts away from you, you’ll most likely end up performing a “muscle clean,” a technically easier variation involving much more shoulders and upper back muscle than lower body. While it can be a good exercise, it’s not a clean. You’ll never be able to use as much weight or develop total-body power.

Avoid it: Keep the bar close to you at absolutely all times. Slow down the start of the lift so that the bar is grazing you until you completely extend your hips. With some people, there’s even contact at the hips.

Squatting the Dip

When you dip and create the leg drive, you might be tempted to squat deep. But the dip is not meant to be a squat. If you bend at your hips, you risk losing your upright position and send the bar forward instead of in a straight line in the air.

The dip should be short and fast. You shouldn’t go too low or actually squat the weight down. You’ll simply lose strength and the catch will become that much harder. 

Avoid it: Only dip down a few inches while staying as upright as possible. Remind yourself, “quick dip, not a deep squat.” 

How to Progress the Clean & Jerk 

This lift being very technical, it might be useful to incorporate several of these progressions in your training to learn and strengthen key positions of the movement. You can incorporate the technique piece by piece. You could dedicate full workouts to the lift or you can add clean progressions to your lower body days, and jerk progressions to an upper body workout.

Clean Pull

Weightlifting is all about generating power, and the clean pull is amazing at that. This progression only consists of the first and second pull of the clean, followed by a powerful shrug and upright row.

Get into your clean position, raise the barbell to your knee with control, then violently explode up by extending your hips, knees, and ankles. Then shrug and let your elbows bend to raise the barbell to at least chest level, up until your chin. Keep the barbell close to your body at all times. This progression is great to learn how to generate power and the first part of the clean.

Hang Clean

Where most of the mistakes happen during the clean is actually at the start: during the set-up and the first pull. If you fail to execute this portion perfectly, the rest of the lift is bound to be subpar.

The hang clean avoids this by having you start the lift “from the hang”, with the barbell at around knee level — you only have to do the second and third pull and the catch. You can practice the end of the movement more easily this way. 

Power Clean

The power clean is the opposite, you perform a clean with a lighter weight and you catch it only with your knees slightly bent over parallel. Not having to squat all the way down makes the movement easier especially if you’re not the most mobile lifter.

You can make the exercise even simpler and perform it from “the hang”, combining both of the best worlds for developing raw power and simplicity. 

Muscle Clean and Press

Here we bypass the most technical aspects of the lifts to rely more on our muscles to perform it. You won’t be able to use as much weight, but this is a great exercise to add size to your frame.

To perform the muscle clean, get into your clean position, pull the bar up and explode like a regular clean. But, instead of positioning yourself into a squat after the full-body extension, keep your legs and torso straight and pull the weight up with your elbows as high as you can. Once they are at maximal height, quickly bring them around the bar into the front rack position to catch the bar while standing tall. From there, press the weight up by extending the arms until the bar is locked out overhead, then lower it with control to your collarbone.

Push Press

This hybrid between a press and a jerk teaches you to dip and use your legs to assist your upper body in lifting more weight. Grab a barbell with a full grip and assume a front rack position, with the barbell sitting between your anterior deltoids (front of your shoulder) and your clavicles.

Shrug your shoulders up and forward to create a kind of “muscle nest” for the bar. Lower your elbows a bit so that you’ll be able to use more arms. Dip down by bending at the knees for a few inches, then explode up as hard as you can. When your legs are completely extended, press the bar up as much as you can by trying to punch the ceiling. Then, lower it with control to the initial position. 

Power Jerk

This variation is equivalent to the power clean, but with the jerk. Begin with the barbell in a front racked position, either from a rack or after having cleaned it. Dip down, then explode up and forcefully extend your arms, like a traditional jerk.

But instead of splitting your feet and catching the bar in a deep squat, you attack the ground with both feet in a traditional squat stance and receive it with your knees slightly bent. This way, you bypass the technical split catch position and focus on the first part of the jerk.

Benefits of the Clean & Jerk

If this exercise is so complicated, why do so many athletes want to learn it? It’s simple: it offers benefits no other can reciprocate (apart, perhaps, from the snatch, which is even harder). Here is what this exercise has to offer.

Increases Explosive Power

Power is the capacity to move weights as fast as possible. It’s a mixture of speed and strength, and increasing your power means you’ll most likely improve your strength and speed as well! Indeed, this exercise will teach your brain to better recruit your muscles so that they reach a higher peak force and to reach it faster.

It is also very relevant for athletes who have to move their own bodies or implements fast: they aren’t weightless. It means that this exercise will help them run faster, jump higher, throw farther, and tackle harder. If you’re an athlete, this is one of the most efficient and effective exercises to make you better at your sport. (1)

Total-Body Strength

To grab a weighted barbell and balance it over your head requires tremendous strength from head to toe (or, more accurately, from traps to calves). With the clean & jerk, you can load relatively more weight than with the snatch, so it’s an explosive movement that tends toward building pure strength and power. This exercise recruits pretty much all of the muscles in your body and puts them to the test. Indeed, it alternates between pulling and pushing phases for the whole-body.

Improves Balance, Posture, and Coordination

Holding weight in the front rack position, then throwing it in the air and balancing it overheard requires a core and a back of steel and will build strong and stable shoulders. This will result in a better posture and a more resilient back.

Then, you need a great deal of coordination to move with precision, speed, and strength both upper-body and lower-body limbs at the same time. Finally, it takes a whole lot of balance to maintain the split position and catch a heavy weight that way. This exercise builds strength and speed, but for that you also have to build better body mechanics and athletic qualities. (2)

Better Cardiovascular Health

As this exercise recruits pretty much all of the muscles in the body, the demand placed on the cardiovascular system is tremendous because your heart has to pump blood everywhere. Studies have found that weightlifting improves resting heart rate, VO2 max, and blood pressure. (3)

Even with an empty barbell, properly done clean & jerks can leave you breathless. No wonder relatively high reps of these are frequently used in CrossFit to gauge the endurance capacities of athletes.

Muscles Worked by the Clean & Jerk

There’s no muscles spared by the clean & jerk. From your forearms to grip the barbell all the way down to the calves to project it in the air. Let’s cover the main movers of this exercise.

Quadriceps

The quadriceps are the biggest leg muscles, and are among the body’s strongest. They go from the femur or hip bone to the tibia in the lower leg. Their main function is to extend the knee. As such, they will be responsible for most of the power generated during the exercise.

They are extensively recruited during the triple extension to project the barbell in the air, and even more during the deep front squat that follows the catch. Then, they will also be mainly responsible for propulsing the barbell upwards during the jerk, just after the dip, and to get up from the lunge required to catch it during the split.

Pressing Muscles

During the jerk, these upper body muscles will be tremendously recruited to help pressing the bar overhead and hold it there with the arms locked out. They are your deltoids (shoulder muscles), pectoralis major (chest), and your triceps (the posterior arm muscles). 

The deltoid goes from the clavicle and scapula (shoulder blade) to the humerus — the arm bone. This muscle will raise the arm upwards. The front delts will be the most recruited, but they all participate in the movement. The chest is also attached to the humerus, then to the sternum and ribs. Only its upper fibers will be recruited here, assisting the deltoids. Finally the triceps goes from the scapula and humerus to the ulna (forearm bone). Its function here is to extend the arm to press the weight up and keep the arms locked out.

Posterior Chain

The posterior chain, as a whole, will contribute to the movement. In the lower body, the hamstrings and glutes will extend the hips and be mainly responsible for the deadlift portion and cleaning the weight, while the calves will contribute to the explosive portion of both the clean and the jerk through ankle extension.

In the upper body, the erector spinae will help with hip extension as well as back extension in the clean, and the trapezius for the final pull upward. The whole of your back will be recruited to maintain posture as well as arm and scapular stability.

How to Program the Clean & Jerk

Because of its technical component, this movement has to be done in a specific way. Generally you want to avoid too much fatigue for it might result in technical breakdown that will reduce neural efficiency and increase the time to master the lift, as well as risking injury. 

Medium to Heavy Weight, Low Repetitions

How heavy you can go will depend on your technical proficiency, but three to five sets of one to five reps should be the bulk of your programming. You want perfect technique on all repetitions, and this is why we avoid doing longer sets, as fatigue will generate form breakdown.

If you cannot move the bar fast, you cannot use good technique, and you’ll end up hurt. Staying in that one to five rep range ensures you’re performing mostly “neural” work, so muscular fatigue shouldn’t become an issue. Make sure to use ample rest periods of at least two minutes.

EMOM

The every minute on the minute format is an excellent way to learn the Olympic lift and practice technique, as the short breaks allow for quality work and increased density — meaning a lot of work in a short time. (4)

Set a timer that will ring every minute, or every 90 seconds if you want to go heavier. Every time the alarm rings, perform one to three repetitions and rest for the remaining time, for a total duration of ten to 20 minutes. You can get creative and use different weight and repetitions schemes during the period. You could also incorporate exercise progressions. Just be sure to always use perfect form.

For instance, you could do five minutes of three reps with the muscle clean and press, then five minutes of two reps using the power clean and push press, and finally five minutes of a one-rep clean & jerk.

Clean & Jerk Variations

If you don’t have access to a barbell, want to spice things up, or try a less challenging variation, don’t worry. There are several clean & jerk variations in stock.

Dumbbell Clean & Jerk

Changing the equipment will make the exercise technically easier while involving more muscles at the same time, especially in the shoulders and traps. Grab a pair of dumbbells and perform similar to the barbell clean & jerk.

To avoid having to go extra deep, have only one of the heads of the dumbbells touch the ground on each repetition. Because this variation is less technical and risky, you can actually use it for longer sets and enjoy muscular fatigue to build more muscle or endurance very easily. You can also do it with a pair of kettlebells.

Clean & Squat Jerk

Only the jerk portion of the lift is different with this movement. Instead of assuming a half-lunge position to catch the barbell in a split, catch it in a deep squat. After dipping down and exploding upwards, “attack” the ground forcefully with your feet in a shoulder-width stance and squat down at the required depth.

This variation requires extra mobility and balance, but has the advantage of not needing to elevate the barbell as much during the jerk in order to lift more weight because you can drop deeper in the squat position than in the lunge.

Continental Clean & Jerk

This brutal exercise typically requires an axle or fat bar. This specialized bar is used in many strongman or strongwoman contests because its two to three-inch thick grip will eventually make grip strength the limiting factor in any exercise.

To perform the continental clean, you use a mixed grip with one hand is flipped under the axle (palm up) and the other hand in a palm-down grip. Perform a traditional clean, and don’t forget to shrug hard at the top, then the bar should be guided and set at around lower sternum-level. It can help if you have a “power belly” to rest it on. Without that, a weightlifting belt can be used as a makeshift ledge.

As the bar rests, switch your underhand bar to a palm-down position, and use your hips to dip down and pop the bar up to the front rack position. From there, you can either press, push press, or jerk the weight overhead. This variation will build a bulletproof core and upper back, mainly because the continental phase is so difficult.

FAQs

A Big Lift for Big Gains

The clean & jerk is seen worldwide every four years during the Summer Olympics, but the exercise isn’t exclusive to the best weightlifters in the world. Whether you’re an athlete looking for top performance on the field or in the ring, a strength sport competitor looking to carry over strength and power, or a physique-focused lifter looking to pack on full-body muscle, adding the clean & jerk to your training menu will deliver world-class results.

References

1. Huyghe, T., Goriss, B., DeLosAngeles, E., & Bird, S. P. (2021). Exploring The Power Clean. International Journal of Strength and Conditioning, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.47206/ijsc.v1i1.95
2. Santos PDG, Vaz JR, Correia PF, Valamatos MJ, Veloso AP, Pezarat-Correia P. Intermuscular Coordination in the Power Clean Exercise: Comparison between Olympic Weightlifters and Untrained Individuals-A Preliminary Study. Sensors (Basel). 2021 Mar 9;21(5):1904. doi: 10.3390/s21051904. PMID: 33803182; PMCID: PMC7963197.
3. Stone MH, Wilson GD, Blessing D, Rozenek R. Cardiovascular responses to short-term olympic style weight-training in young men. Can J Appl Sport Sci. 1983 Sep;8(3):134-9. PMID: 6640815.
4. de-Oliveira LA, Heredia-Elvar JR, Maté-Muñoz JL, García-Manso JM, Aragão-Santos JC, Da Silva-Grigoletto ME. Analysis of Pacing Strategies in AMRAP, EMOM, and FOR TIME Training Models during “Cross” Modalities. Sports (Basel). 2021 Oct 20;9(11):144. doi: 10.3390/sports9110144. PMID: 34822344; PMCID: PMC8624389.

Featured Image: Photology1971 / Shutterstock

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It’s the hitch and bounce.

I have seen this in my coaching profession from new athletes who seem to be running on instinct, to seasoned athletes who should know better, to, believe it or not, visiting athletes who stop in for a WOD and do the same damn thing. So I know it’s not something endemic to my local geographic area. It’s ubiquitous. It’s ugly. It’s incorrect and it’s costing you pounds in your lifts. And, there is a relatively simple fix.

What Is This “Hitch and Bounce”?

Let’s start with what a proper clean or snatch should look like then stir in the ugliness of the hitch and bounce.

In a clean, the athlete starts with the weight on the ground (or in the hang, below, above the knees, mid thigh, etc.) and by pushing his or her feet into the platform generates power which allows him or her to translate that force into hip explosion. That hip explosion, combined with proper bar path and lat tension, will cause the thighs (in the case of the clean) or the hips (in the case of the snatch) to make contact with the bar.

In the clean, this contact with the bar is merely incidental to the fact that you are violently bringing your hips forward. The thighs are not the generator of the power. Meaning, you should not be bouncing the bar off your thighs.

In the case of the snatch, there is a bit more of an intentional hit, because the point at which your hips hit the bar is the point at which you should be abruptly reversing direction rather, and the bar hitting your hips provides a perfect catalyst for that reversal to take place.

The Problem

The problem is that many CrossFitters completely misunderstand the reason the bar is coming in contact with the body at all. The result is that there is either a conscious or unconscious bouncing of the bar off the thighs. And what’s worse, and much more of an aesthetic assault, is when athletes bounce the bar off their thighs in a snatch.

Why Is It a Problem?

Aside from being the incorrect way to clean or snatch, this technical error is robbing you of valuable pounds on your lifts. That’s because the very moment you pause to reconnect the bar with your legs, you’ve taken your initial hip-drive out of the equation. It’s no better than an early arm bend. Remove your legs from the equation and now you’re just muscling up the weight

Examples of Good and Bad

Let’s look at an example of a successful clean. (yes, you can likely critique some parts of all of these lifts, but this is only about the hitch. We can dissect my lack of full hip opening later.) This is me cleaning 275lbs in May:

What you will notice is that while the bar hits/brushes my thighs, at no point does the momentum stop. The bar brushes my thighs because when I violently push my feet into the platform, it extends my entire body, hips and legs included, which come forward to meet the bar on its way up.

Now, look at this example of the hitch and bounce, that I call the “deadlift then bounce clean.”

Look familiar? This is masquerading as a clean, but it’s really a deadlift/hang clean. Many CrossFitters instinctively must stop and pause to smack the bar on their thighs. Why, I don’t know. But trust me, I see it everywhere.

It’s especially noticeable when the clean (or snatch) comes from the hang. In the hang, the bar should be tight against your body, with your lats tight. When you execute the lift, you push your feet into the platform hard, which launches the bar up. It is not propelled either by pulling or bouncing:

But for some reason CrossFitters feel the urge to bounce. So, even after the bar is on it’s way, following the initial momentum being created by the feet being pushed into the platform, many lifters still pause and bounce:

Gross, right? Trust me. Look around your box. On cleans, snatches, and the hang variety of both of those, you will see this hitch and bounce. Call it a pause, call it a hitch, but it’s costing you money on your lifts. Why? Because you are literally interrupting the momentum of the bar and starting over.

Imagine that you are trying to get your car from zero to sixty, and you push the pedal to the floor, then quickly slam on the brakes, then stick your feet out the bottom of the car Flintstones-style and start running to get the car going again.

It’s highly inefficient, and besides killing the momentum, it also changes the bar path, usually for the worse, by sending the bar trajectory out instead of up. Show me someone who bounces the bar off his or her thighs on a snatch and I will show you someone who jumps forward to catch it or constantly loses it in front. (Pro-tip: the bar should not be hitting your thighs on a snatch. It’s your hip pocket you’re aiming for.)

How to Fix the Problem

The most effective way to fix this issue (and potentially instantly put twenty pounds on your lifts) is to retrain your brain to think about what it is that is providing the greatest source of power in the lifts.Your hips. Not your arms, not your thighs – but your hips.

The only way to generate the most power from thee hips is to get them to explode. And you do that by fully extending them in a violent way at the right time. You can’t extract power from your hips by stopping the momentum.

Grab the bar, remove all slack, and slowly begin your ascent off the ground. (The “wind up” where people try to get a running start on the bar by removing the slack and violently yanking the bar is a subject for another day). What you need to think about is pushing your feet into the ground. Push the floor away from you.

As you get your knees out of the way and the bar passes your knees, explode. Not by stopping and bouncing the bar, but by doubling the speed and force with which you push your feet into the ground.

Although sometimes a hard cue to grasp, pushing your feet into the ground is the single most effective way to eliminate multiple issues, such as pulling early and the hitch. The only change is a change in speed and force once the bar passes your knees. You still apply force to the platform with your feet, only twice as fast and hard. This causes your hips to explode thus bringing them forward, resulting in an organic, rather than a forced, contact with the bar.

Photos courtesy of Karl Buchholtz Photography.

The post The Mistake That’s Costing You Pounds in Your Cleans appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Footwork has a role in two important aspects of successful jerking technique. The first role is in driving the weight upwards. Almost the entire impetus for moving the weight upwards comes from the rapid extension of the hips and knees and plantar flexion of the ankles. Athletes who have mastered the leg and footwork of jumping should have no trouble transferring this movement pattern to the upward drive of the barbell for the jerk.

In the accompanying photo, I’ve managed to catch my former lifter Lindsey Valenzuela at the peak of the jerk drive. This photo captures Lindsey jerking her personal record at the time of 108kg. Her body alignment is vertical, the hips and knees are extended, and the center of pressure of the feet is on the balls with the heels well off the floor. Before Lindsey became a CrossFitter and weightlifter, she was a Division 1 scholarship volleyball player at Cal Lutheran University and obviously mastered the jumping movement pattern. Now, instead of propelling herself upwards, she is transferring the force to the barbell and causing it to rise rapidly.

In order for the bar to finish up over the head and not out in front the arms must not be involved until the bar is higher than the top of the lifter’s head. This takes place because of two events. The first is the driving of the bar upwards with the legs and hips, and the second is the dropping of the lifter’s body at the conclusion of the drive. If the drive is incomplete or only performed by one leg, the drop under will be premature.

The second aspect that involves the actions of the feet is during the split. Many people think the feet move and land simultaneously. In actuality, making a successful jerk requires the rear foot to strike the platform first, followed shortly thereafter by the front foot. The foot that strikes first gains traction and the body moves in the opposite direction. If the rear foot strikes first, the body moves forward and should end up directly under the bar. If the opposite occurs, the front foot striking force will push the body backwards and out from under the bar and hence the jerk will be lost in front.

In this photo of the same lift, Lindsey has “skimmed” her rear or left foot backward, while the front foot is lifted higher or is prancing. The rear foot will gain traction first, pushing the body forward underneath the ascending bar, and then the front will strike the platform. Thus a big part of keeping the jerk overhead is the appropriate action of the feet. You should also note that her elbows are turned out to the sides and this has the desired effect of keeping the bar trajectory vertical.

Paying attention to these two sequential footwork movement patterns can aid greatly in developing consistency in bar placement in the split jerk.

Photos courtesy of Bob Takano.

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The problem with that is few people are actually ready for that kind of program. On my trip to Ironman earlier this year, I had the chance to see what Chris McCormack considered a “basic week” for training. Just his time on the bike alone was 90% of my total training time, and given I was training roughly twenty hours per week, it’s not like I was being lazy. Without McCormack’s lifetime of training to buffer that kind of effort, nor the ability to nap without the stresses of work each day, there was simply no way I could have sustained such a program. And as his program only got harder each week from there, I realized pretty quickly exactly where I stood in terms of my ability.

One of the best quotations on coaching I ever heard was from Charlie Francis, coach of sprinter Ben Johnson, who said he saw his job as mostly being to hold athletes back so they didn’t burn out or get hurt. And this is how most trainers should be – constantly evaluating what their clients need versus what they would like to do, while keeping in mind everyone’s respective strengths, weaknesses, and goals.

The Problem With Your Snatch

Because everyone thinks he or she is a special unique snowflake, people assume they’re ready to begin training at a higher level than everyone else. This can be compounded by the person having high levels of skill in another physical area. But remember the SAID principle means you get good at what you do, not at everything else. So being a good runner won’t necessarily make you a good swimmer or weightlifter. There’s nowhere this problem is more evident than in people chasing the snatch as a GPP lift. Yes, it’s a tremendous full-body lift, and yes, it displays great strength and athleticism. But my question is why are you trying to do it so much?

Let’s look at some stats to see where you fall so you can more intelligently think about where the snatch goes in your training, or more accurately, what should be there instead. Bob Takano’s excellent book, Weightlifting Programming (A Winning Coach’s Guide), has some figures taken from years of Russian research. The Russians break down competitive lifters into six categories for adults. From lowest to highest they are:

• Category III
• Category II
• Category I
• Candidate Master of Sport
• Master of Sport
• Merited (or International) Master of Sport

To attain each rank the lifter must meet certain totals. For an average man weighing 85kg the first three categories need a combined total of the clean and jerk plus snatch of 170kg, 195kg, and 225kg. For an average woman weighing 63kg the totals are 95kg, 110kg, and 120kg.

Let’s narrow in on those numbers, and take a real look at how the Category III totals might come about. Coach Takano states that the clean and jerk will be roughly 120-128% of the snatch, so let’s leave it at 120% for ease of calculation. That would make the snatch 77.2kg and the clean and jerk 92.8kg (95kg total and 43/52kg for a 63kg woman). Those are reasonably easy numbers to get to with some dedicated training. So far, so good.

How Little the Russians Snatch

But here’s where the kicker comes. There is little structured information on how to best go about training lifters who are trying to make the Category III totals, because in elite sport research I would guess that those people were barely glanced at. Looking at it in more depth, we can see the Russians dictated that up to 75% of training sessions should include at least one, and preferably two exercises that are classic lifts or derivatives (power snatch, power clean, power jerk, jerk off racks, etc.) They further show that the remainder of the session should be given over to squats, both front and back, and other assistance exercises such as lunges, good mornings, pulls, and presses.

As the lifter develops into a Category II athlete those numbers change a little. Now with a 195kg total, a snatch of 88.6kg and a clean and jerk of 109.4kg, our athlete has gained more then 10% over time. (For our 63kg female lifters, we’re looking at a 110kg total and 50/60kg.)

But it’s only when you really start to separate this that you can see how wasteful full snatches can be for most people. A Category III lifter is going to aim for 7,000-9,000 reps per year with an average intensity of 70%. So why are you so fired up to be doing 100% 1RMs in your first year of snatch training?

Even when you progress 10% to Category II the average intensity goes up to only 75%. And here’s the sticking point: total snatch (classic snatch, hang snatch, and snatch from blocks) training volume should only be 16% of total training, with clean and jerk volume only 22%. The entire rest of the training volume, an annual load of 9,000 reps, is assistance exercises.

Even at Category I, with a 225kg total, and a corresponding snatch and clean and jerk of 102.7kg and 122.3kg (120kg total and 54.5/ 65.5kg for our 63kg female), you will still see that classic literature shows an average intensity of 75% and total snatch and clean and jerk volume of 18% and 22% respectively, leaving over half of the training volume to assistance exercises.

What This Means For You

So, overdoing the snatch is a classic example of people not keeping the goal firmly in mind. People come to me to get in the best shape they can as fast as possible. History clearly shows the fastest way to do that is not by making them focus on the classic lifts, but rather on assistance work to develop the body quickly and remove weaknesses.

I know there will be people now who will tell me about the Chinese who do little supplemental lifts, or of past champions like Rezazadeh who focused nearly solely on the classic competition lifts plus squatting. But those are elite international level lifters and you are not. The Russians spent a lot of time and effort figuring out the best ways to dominate the sport of weightlifting, and their work has stood the test of time. Many coaches around the world now employ their methodologies to make their lifters better.

Whether you’re training purely to be as strong and fit as possible, or to have the biggest total you can, the path is clear – don’t spend too much time on the snatch as a beginner, which may encompass up to five years of solid training. You’ll progress faster and safer by avoiding high-risk, high-demand exercises until you’ve developed the movement and work capacity to do so.

Photos 1&3 courtesy of Shutterstock.

Akkaev photo by Hookgrip (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons.

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Mark’s query implies the rack position for the clean and for the jerk may not necessarily be the same even though they are both performed as part of the clean and jerk event. Lifters always want to have the most efficient positioning possible. Sometimes this means changing position slightly in the middle of a lift. This is especially true for the clean and jerk. The clean ends with the bar being racked on your shoulders, whereas the jerk starts from there. Even so, many lifters find the need to readjust the position of their rack. Why is this so?

The Clean Rack

Let’s start with the squat clean. I guess that makes sense, since we do the clean and jerk – not the jerk and clean. Standard coaching advice is to get the elbows high in the racking of the clean and that advice is correct. High elbows cause the bar to be racked further back on your deltoids in a more solid position. In addition to that, when doing the squat clean if your elbows are not high you will likely touch them or your upper arms to your thighs. In competition this will get you red lighted.

Some athletes don’t like this elbow rule. Instead they wish that any way you get the bar up should be acceptable. But there are good reasons for insisting on no knee touches. The best one is that if knee touches were allowed then lifters would try to save a lot more questionable lifts. This could result in the jamming of the lifters arms against his legs with a heavy weight overtop, resulting in broken wrists or perhaps a bar falling on the knees if the lifter can not hold it. In any case, it is quite difficult to hold a jerk in the rack position as you climb out of your squat position and become erect. If it’s not solidly racked, you stand a good chance of losing the bar.

(By the way, in the old days, the split clean specialists often caught the bar with lower elbows than their squat clean brethren. This was less stable but they did not have to worry about their elbows hitting their thighs.)

The situation is not always the same when using the power clean. Due to the fact the bar is lifted well past your waist, it is possible to finish a power clean with the arms almost vertical. There are a lot of things wrong with this method. The main one is its lack of stability. The bar is often held with wrist power while the weight is bearing down on those wrists. At the same time, with vertical arms it wouldn’t take much disturbance to get your wrists and hands forward so that the lift would be lost. Even more fundamental to this is that such a clean finish is only really possible with a large reverse curling movement. The power clean is not a curl, just like it’s not an upright row. Most of the work is done with your legs and you only use the arms to turn the bar and jump under it to catch it.

The Jerk Rack

Now we come to the jerk. Here we have more options. Some lifters will start their jerk dip with their elbows high and the bar well racked. Others start the jerk with lower elbows to some degree and drive their jerk from that position. And of course, you have people everywhere in between. Why?

Much of this depends on the relative lengths of the lower and upper arm bones as well as the flexibility of the associated joints. The longer the radius and ulna are compared to the humorous, the more difficult it will be to rack the bar in a high position. In that case you will just have to lower the elbows some. Those with a shorter lower arm can rack in a much better position so they won’t have to hold the bar against the throat.

For those who lower their elbows, there is a greater tendency to press the bar as one drives of the dip. High elbow positions make pressing more difficult so the jerk must rely on leg power. It is wise to remember that those lifters who must jerk with leg power, as opposed to having some extra pressing power they can use in a pinch, generally have greater success with their jerks. These lifters must rely on the proper jerk technique or else the lift is not made. Those who try to press a little bit are less reliable.

Those lifters with poor flexibility in the arm joints will have little choice but to try and jerk the bar from a lower elbow position. The same lifters might have difficulty then with the squat clean, so they will often have to either power clean or split clean. This is frequently the case in older master lifters who have lost flexibility for a variety of reasons.

One thing you do not want to do is change your elbow position during the dip. If that happens you stand a good chance of dropping the bar right off your chest. Again this happens a lot with lifters who are unconsciously trying to press the bar during the jerk. They are trying to get a stretch reflex action in their shoulders as they are making their dip. This might work with weights you could overhead press, but with a limit jerk you will most likely not have the strength to even attempt this. It is perhaps a natural tendency in many, but it is not a productive one.

How to Adjust the Rack

If a lifter does have to make a transition between his clean rack and his jerk rack, some care is needed. It is hard to change the angle of your arms while the bar is still in your hands and sitting on your deltoids. Attempting this sort of adjustment usually sees the bar falling off the chest, as the hands do a lot in keeping it in position.

The best way to adjust is to do a short dip, not one that looks like you’re starting your jerk, drive the weight off your chest a wee bit, and then change your arm angle as you recapture the bar. Hopefully the bar will be in the right position and you can begin your jerk in your desired fashion. For those of you entering competition, be aware the old boys in blue will be watching for any sneaky upward movement of the bar during this repositioning. This is called a “dirty clean” and is against the rules. You must jerk the bar from where you cleaned it or from a lower position. You can move the bar down but not up.

So Mark, there you have it – dual rack positioning.

Photo 1 by Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-N0929-0013 / CC-BY-SA [CC-BY-SA-3.0-de], via Wikimedia Commons.

Photo 2 by Javad tavakool (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Photo 3 by Sebastian Wandinger [GFDL, CC-BY-SA-3.0 or FAL], via Wikimedia Commons.

Photo 4 by Rob Macklem Victoria BC (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

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