A common mistake in the split jerk is to be up on the toes of the back foot. This is unstable in every possible way, and prevents you from supporting enough weight on the back foot to keep your balance approximately even between the two feet. Being up on the toes allows easy spinning of the foot and slipping.
The back heel should be raised off the floor, but the balls of the foot should be flat on the floor and in full contact - this is necessary to support adequate weight for a proper split
Balls of the Feet, Not the Toes, in the Split Jerk
↧
↧
Weightlifting Strategies for Moving From Roadblock Stage to Breakthrough Stage
During the first few years of a weightlifter’s career, everything is mostly going in an upward direction. Sure, there are little knockdowns and plateaus, but they’re usually temporary. Those are the years when you’re putting big increases on your total every six months or so, and it’s fun as hell.
Then, at some point, it all slows down. Most of the time, it REALLY slows down.
Let me give you a personal example. I competed in my first meet in 1990 and tot
↧
Ask Greg: Programming The Last Weeks Before a Meet
Sam Asks: When programming leading up to a meet, what should your program look like 2 weeks out and 1 week out?
Greg Says: This can vary quite a bit depending on a few things, such as the skill level of the athlete, the types of exercises the athlete best responds to, how the athlete recovers, the nature of the program leading into the competition, and the significance of the competition.
First, let me try to lay out some basics that apply in some way across the board. T
↧
There Are Different Levels of Old: Masters Weightlifting Programming
Weightlifting has seen a big increase in participation in the last few years, due primarily to the influence of CrossFit. Many of the new lifters coming to the sport are, as you might call it, "mature", and this has created a lot of confusion and frustration, as much of the information regarding weightlifting, particularly program design, is intended for young athletes.
While it would be nice to simply have some simple recommendations for masters athletes, the reality is that "
↧
Quitting Weightlifting: The Right Way and The Wrong Way
Where’s your lifting at right now? Going great? On a rampage? Or are you struggling, pissed off because of bad training or competition?
Anybody thinking about quitting?
Probably not. If the lifting gods were really kicking you in the crotch, you probably wouldn’t be reading this. More likely you’d be on YouTube watching cat videos, trying to get some happiness back in your life.
Regardless of the current quality of your career, there’s one thing
↧
↧
On The Minute Training for Weightlifting
If you’ve used any of my training programs on this website, there’s a good chance you’ve done on the minute lifts—I find it very effective and most lifters find it at least somewhat enjoyable. If you haven’t tried it before, let me explain why I think you should.
I remember Glenn Pendlay telling me once years ago how he thought he’d come up with on the minute lifts early in his coaching career and was so proud of himself, only to discover soon after t
↧
Ask Greg: What Causes Pressouts (and How to Fix Them)?
Elbow Woes Asks: My question is essentially: what causes pressouts? Anatomically, I have pretty good elbows for locking out. When the weight is about 90% I have noticed I sometimes bobble my elbow in the hole of a snatch. Not a lot but definitely enough to earn red lights. This sometimes happens in jerks but I think the snatch is worse.
My best presses and power jerks are very low compared to my best jerk. I don’t know if my terrible pressing strength is the root cause of this is
↧
GPP - Introduce Novel Functional Stimulus and Get Something Done
This is what at least some of your GPP should resemble.
There are a lot of quality gym-based exercises that are effective for shoring up weaknesses and imbalances and preparing your body to do what you ultimately need it to do as an athlete (and person).
But nothing will stimulate the same way that manual labor does. There is an inherent irregularity even in repetitive motions (e.g. shoveling); there are uncontrollable and unpredictable elements like uneven ground and restricted spaces tha
↧
Quit Pushing Your Cleans Away with Your Thighs
A lot of you find your bars running away at the top of your cleans, resulting in the bar crashing into the rack position, you collapsing forward, and if not missing entirely, struggling more than you should to recover.
As weights get heavier, it will be more and more likely for you to begin your second pull too early—that is, to begin opening the hips and bringing your trunk upright—because you're not strong or confident enough to stay over the bar longer. This means that your
↧
↧
Investing Time for Progress: Routine, Detail and Patience in the Olympic Lifts
I'm pretty frequently surprised by how impatient new and intermediate weightlifters are in a number of ways, from their expectations of progress to their rush to get through a lift as quickly as possible. I’ve bemoaned the lack of attention to detail in a million other articles, but I’m going to do it again because it strikes me as genuinely insane to not be willing to invest a couple additional seconds into each of your lifts for the sake of significantly improved performance an
↧
Hold Your Grip Longer for Better Clean Turnovers
If your cleans tend to crash onto your shoulders, even with lighter weights, you can smooth out the turnover and stay better connected to the bar by holding a full grip longer (If you keep a full grip in the clean already, you have other problems to work on if the bar is crashing on you).
If you release your grip in order to rack the bar with only the fingers under it, releasing too soon creates disconnection and makes it easier for your shoulders and the bar to become separated more than nec
↧
A Potential Problem With Pulling Blocks
Training from the blocks in Olympic weightlifting is always an interesting subject. I’ve seen lots of different philosophies on them. Some lifters never use blocks and don’t even have a set in their gym. Others use them all the time and love them.
Personally, I’ve never been a big believer in them, but I acknowledge their usefulness in certain situations and I understand many high-level programs incorporate them in their training. It’s one of those, “I don and
↧
Getting the Bar Past the Knees in the Snatch and Clean
I’ve said before that the complexity of the first pull is commonly underestimated by new lifters because of its apparent simplicity, especially in comparison to the rest of the lift. However, it simultaneously seems to be made more complicated than it needs to be by more advanced lifters and coaches. How the bar and knees interact with each other in this phase of the lift is critical, but I think we can simplify the process here and free up some brain space to worry about more important th
↧
↧
Failing Drug Tests Because of Tainted Supplements and Pre-Workout Drinks
Most of you probably know about this topic just from the title. It’s nothing new, by the way. People have been getting popped on drug tests for supplements and drinks for a long time. But it’s getting worse.
Let me give you some quick background, just in case you’re unfamiliar with what we’re talking about. Olympic weightlifting is a drug tested sport. The global organization that controls the drug testing for all Olympic sports is the World Anti-Doping Agency (W
↧
Are Your Elbows Actually the Problem in Your Overhead Position?
In the way that overhead squat immobility often gets blamed on the shoulders when the problem is actually the lower body, often an athlete's inability to lock the elbows securely in the jerk is blamed directly on the elbows when in fact the elbows can extend perfectly well.
As the grip narrows in the overhead position (i.e. a jerk grip compared to a snatch grip), the mobility limitations of the shoulders become more influential on elbow extension. In other words, a lifter may be able to a
↧
The Hook Grip: Why and How to Do It Correctly
Once again, I’m bewildered that I haven’t yet written an article on the hook grip here—this is one of the most fundamental pieces in the weightlifting puzzle, and also something that gives a lot of new lifters a great deal of trouble because of a misunderstanding of how the hook is actually created and held.
The hook grip is a pronated (palms facing the lifter) grip in which the thumb is trapped between the bar and usually the first and second fingers, depending on han
↧
Ask Greg: How Important is Bodyweight for Weightlifting?
Christoffer Asks: Hey, I was wondering how much your body mass matters in weightlifting and how much of an impact a few less or extra pounds can make on your performance. I also wonder if you should have other priorities about your weight if you are for example training crossfit (guess who's training crossfit?).
Greg Says: How important your bodyweight is depends on how serious you are about your sports, whether weightlifting or CrossFitting or both. If you do them purely for enjoym
↧
↧
Creating the Optimal Back Arch in Snatch and Clean
Back extension is a touchy subject, and has been for as long as I can remember. We even used to have an exercise called a hyperextension… and then suddenly that was too frightening to use anymore, and we had to call it a back extension. In the next few years, we’ll probably have to change it again to something even more benign and reassuring, like happy core wiggles.
The arch of the back is an important element to successful snatches and cleans. There have been some remarka
↧
The New Olympic Weightlifting: A Money Game
We all know Olympic weightlifting has exploded in recent years. It’s bigger and more popular now than ever before. Most of you have been a part of that explosion, which means you weren’t around in the old days.
And you probably don’t care about the old days, honestly. You care about right now, what’s going on in your life as an athlete or coach, and the biggest things happening currently in the sport. Understandable. But there are a few things you can learn about
↧
Creating the Optimal Back Arch in The Snatch and Clean
Back extension is a touchy subject, and has been for as long as I can remember. We even used to have an exercise called a hyperextension… and then suddenly that was too frightening to use anymore, and we had to call it a back extension. In the next few years, we’ll probably have to change it again to something even more benign and reassuring, like happy core wiggles.
The arch of the back is an important element to successful snatches and cleans. There have been some remarka
↧
More Pages to Explore .....
