Need help with my training - "lost"my form

[7thLifter]

Hey everyone,

I'm new here on these forums, and I've had a problem that's been persisting for at least 2,5 years now. I'll do my best to explain it, though I'm not exactly sure how to put it into words. To make it short, my lifting sucks - although it wasn't always like that. I'll give a little background, so you know what I'm on about. I'm a weightlifter, by the way. So...I used to weigh around 86kg, and my best results were 115/145 in the main lifts. Front squat was 180kg and back squat was 200kg. At one point, I injured myself (Jumper's knee), which resulted in me not training properly for a year or so. I actually trained relatively often during that year, but I only did bench presses and power snatches. For the duration of that one year, I did not do any squats whatsoever, nor did I do any clean and jerks either. I also dropped to 80kg body weight, and now compete in the 77kg category instead of 85. Not a bad thing really, but during the one year "off", lack of proper training resulted in loss of body weight.

Fast forward 2,5 years - I'm still struggling with my clean and jerk now, and with squats as well. At first I didn't pay any attention to that because I knew that an entire year of not doing any squats or clean and jerks would take its toll. I knew I'd eventually be back, so no problem. However, it's been 2,5 years and my clean and jerk seriously sucks, and my squats as well, both front and back. At around 86kg body weight, none of this was a problem for me. I could regularly snatch 110 and clean and jerk 140kg. My squats were a dream...perfectly fluid in motion, straight back, ass to ground. I shot out of that squat like it was nothing. Snatching came naturally when I was in top shape, and clean and jerk was very good as well. You know the awesome feeling when you lift properly, you just feel it, the movement, the stability, technique, fluidity of motion...all of this seems gone now after my injury. What's worse, it doesn't look like it's coming back any time soon.

The problems I now have with my lifting (which I NEVER had back when I weighed 86kg) are the following.

- while not exactly related to lifting, I do have a regular job working at a gas station while also studying for college. I wake up at 4 AM sometimes, and generally work 8 hours a day. If I work the morning shift I get up at around 4 AM, and if I work the afternoon shift, I get up at around 8:30 AM for training. Needless to say, I am often sleepy lately. Now, on to the lifting related issues.

- my knees are caving in sometimes when I back squat, though not when I front squat. This usually never happened to me before the injury.

- my position in the back squat, front squat, and the jerk is simply "off". I do not feel like I lack strength actually, I just feel that my position in the lifts is simply "off" and I can't figure out why. This also never happened before the injury.

- my jerk sucks, though my clean is very good still. When I jerk, my right arm just won't "engage", its position is just terrible, and I always jerk the bar forward instead of straight up. Before the injury, I was easily capable of jerking the bar up. Now, I find this to be almost impossible for the last 2,5 years. Sometimes, my jerk is good, but most of the time it's not. It's like I can't dip properly anymore, and when I do the bar goes forward, and my right arm also doesn't lock properly either. My left arm is just fine, ironically, as I'm right handed. I've basically lost my leg drive, and don't seem capable of fixing it.

- before the injury, my hamstrings were generally active during squatting, and now they don't really seem to activate - at all. I remember before the injury I could activate my hamstrings, and while squatting, I just shop up like a rocket regardless of the weight on the bar, straight back, high bar, awesome leg drive. It was an amazing feeling, not to mention I could always shoot up easily regardless of whether I was lifting 50% or 100% or 110% of my best 1RM. And my knees never caved in either. My squats right now, to say it simply, are disgraceful. They're terrible. I can't use my hamstrings the way I did before, knees are caving in, back is not straight sometimes, and due to lack of hamstring activation, I can't shoot up from the bottom of the squat anymore. It's strange, I can pause squat 160kg, but barely lift 170kg the conventional way.

- I've lost upper body strength more than lower body strength, though I also no longer bench or press, so this might be an issue.

- my best numbers at around 78 kg (in preparation for the last meet) were 105/132,5 in the main lifts, and 155 FS and 180 BS. Best clean could have gone up to 140kg, but I cleaned 135kg and couldn't jerk it, so I didn't bother trying to clean 140 because I knew I couldn't jerk it anyway, so I deemed there was no point in cleaning 140, though I'm 100% sure I could have cleaned that.


I also understand that waking up at 4AM screws over my biorhythm, makes things harder. I sometimes find myself lacking concentration and being sleepy.

Anyway, what can I do to fix these things? Start from scratch? No problem for me really, I'd be willing to do so. Introduce more upper body work? I'm guessing many will say yes. How to fix my position on the squats and the jerk, and how to get my hamstring to activate properly? And what am I doing wrong? I'm sure I'll find some advice here, as I can clearly see there's lots of knowledgeable people here (hence why I joined).


In any case, thanks for reading this whole wall of text (if you read it - and if not, I don't blame you xD). Any questions you might have or if you need clarification, ask away. I'll answer as soon as I'm eligible. Thanks again for reading, I appreciate everyone's time here.

[Christopher Anderson]

Any video of your lifts?

[7thLifter]

I'll upload a few in a few days, I'm afraid I don't have anything at this moment. My snatch is still good since I trained it even when injured but my squats don't feel right and neither does my jerk. I'll upload videos as soon as I can. Might be a couple of days til then though. I won't be doing snatches since those are good to go, only C&J and squats, as these are problematic for me at this point. I also haven't done any snatches for at least 4 weeks, because I'm trying to focus on the jerk as much as I can. I've fixed it somewhat, but my performance depends on getting enough sleep as well as concentration, which is sometimes hard as I get up very early for my job.

Thanks for your response