Topic: Jerk help

[Steve W]

Hi I'm new here but have been weightlifting for about a year now, and one of my main problems is my split jerk. To put it shortly, I suck at it. I can clean 20 pounds over my best jerk and I really can't figure out ways to fix it. One thing I notice on my videos is when jerking my front leg comes forward and my knee goes over my shoe. Sometimes I can feel myself landing and the pressure on the front foot in the toes and not the heel. I've been practicing with light weights for a long time now and drill it in my head to take a big step and let the back knee bend, but no matter how many times I tell my body to do this, it naturally wants to do the opposite. I know overhead strength isn't a problem since my press is 130 lbs and my best jerk is only 170 lbs, yea pretty bad.

 Anyway I have two videos, one of a medium weight jerk and a heavy jerk miss. Was hoping to get some good advice, thank you!

C&J:

C&J

(as you can see i'm quite shaky on the jerk)

Jerk miss:

C&J Fail

[Chadwilliam1]

First jerk looked good but you were still pressing a little when your feet planted. 

Your dip looks good, make sure your knees are going out over your toes and your upper back is tight when you lock it out. Also drive your front foot backward first to recover, this should make the standing back up part easier.

I would try power jerking, to see if you are throwing the weight in front of you. If you are you will have to chase it.

It looked to me like your arms were locked and you had the second jerk but you sarted bringing your rear foot forward and it caused you to dump it.

[Markus Demeglio]

You can do 1 of several things:

1) Get your front shin more vertical (as this video shows throughout http://www.youtube.com/user/ironmaven#p/u/2/UqOtZHSt_oU)

2) Drop and bend your back knee rather than keeping it rather straight

3) both 1 and 2.

[Steve W]

Thanks for the advice.

Markus, I always tell myself those two points and even drill it with light weights but once heavy weights go up it seems my body completely forgets.

Chad, It's funny.. I can actually power jerk pretty close to my max split jerk, the barbell usually ends up quite a bit behind my head on jerks but I never lose it backwards for some reason.

[Arden Cogar Jr.]

Steve,
  Are you driving off your heels when you do your first dip?

I know that my jerks lagged as I was going onto my toes as I dipped.  I ended up driving from my toes and had no real explosion to get under the bar for the 2nd dip.  Moreover, everything was forward and I had to step my back leg forward first to keep the bar steady.

All the best,
 Arden

[Mike Cook]

I am a beginner weightlifter.  I took up the sport about 14 months ago.  One thing I have never had a problem with is jerks.  I've only missed one jerk in competition, and that was for a PR weight that I had never even cleaned before.  In practice, I've missed all kinds of cleans when trying 90%+ of my PRs, but can count on one hand the number of jerks I've missed after I have cleaned the weight.  I've missed a bunch of rack jerks, but that is for weights that I can't clean yet.

I'm not trying to brag, just trying to understand why the jerk is a particular strength for me so maybe I can be of help to others.

Before weightlifting, I was a competitive gymnast from age 9 to age 24.  I think the experience in gymnastics working handstands is what is helping make jerks easier for me to learn than for other beginners.  First, the experience in handstand has given me a very good, intuitive sense of vertical balance.  When a jerk is going up slightly out of trajectory, I can automatically get back into alignment without thinking about it.  Second, handstands have given me good shoulder stability, so that I can still control a jerk that might be slightly out of alignment.  Third, handstands have made me very comfortable with the locked out arm position. 

So maybe working on handstands would help you with your jerk.

Of course, the other theory is that I just really, really, really suck at the clean and so my jerk isn't anything special. 

[Steve W]

Mike, I don't think you are bragging. Some people are better at cleans and some at jerks. I always look at competition videos and see people struggling to stand up with a clean and make the jerk as if 50 pounds was taken off the bar. Sadly I know I won't be able to do this anytime soon but I guess that's what practice is for. I will try to handstands, as my lockout is pretty weak as well.

Arden, I believe I am, I definitely sit back and bend the knees outwards on the dip, but maybe I am dipping too long or exploding too early?

I also wanted to ask this, could lordosis be a factor in this. I've asked a few other people and they weren't sure. For those that don't know lordosis is basically when your gut and ass sticks out, and this happens to me, I think my glutes are really weak which could cause me to lean forward on jerks.. What do you guys think?

[Markus Demeglio]

You dont look lordotic in that rack position but you would know better than any of us if youre tightening your ass before you jerk (which you should). You dont look like youre leaning fwd in your dip which is where the weakness from lordosis would show up.

Your dip and explosion are fine, your catch position is what sucks. If youre 'forgetting' then you need to just keep practicing with good form until you ingrain that reaction in heavier weights.