Coaching cues for teaching girlfriend to Power Clean

[Man in the Box]

My GF started SS training with me in the last couple of months. She's now at the point where it's time to introduce PCs and I'm having trouble teaching her.

When I first started I just could NOT rack the bar. This lead to me believing that anthropometry was my enemy and learned to snatch instead. Long story short: I later had an epiphany (released the scapulas and hunched my shoulders forwards) and discovered that I could rack them just fine and so taught myself to PC from SSBBT3 (although it needs some improvement, I can do it).

Now my GF seems to be having similar problems and I can't work out how to coach her past them. She's getting very frustrated so I hoped that someone here might be able to offer some tips from their own experience.

Problems
- She can barely rack the bar. If I get her to assume the rack position without the bar then I can place it on her delts in the correct position but she can't get her fingertips under the bar without complaining of wrist pain and throttling herself (...with the bar, not in protest at my coaching).

-She can't go from the hang position to the rack position (just curling the bar, not jumping it). It looks like there's a mental block where she can hunch her shoulders into a barless rack (as above) but as soon as the bar is in her hands her shoulders won't hunch (scapulas stay tight) and the forearms will barely go past vertical.

Attempted solutions
- I've tried to place the bar into her rack with her fingers underneath but she has the problems listed above.
- I've tried to get her to adjust grip width but she doesn't seem to be able to widen it. It's like she can't release the shoulders and elbows to widen the grip in the elbows-up rack position.

I believe that she doesn't have restrictive anthropometry and her almost rack position (barless) tells me that she can get into a reasonable shoulders hunched position but she just can't seem to transition from bar hanging to rack.

Can anyone suggest any coaching cues or physical preparation to assist with:
- a proper 'fingers under not choking' rack with the barbell
- how to transition between hang and rack.

FYI she's 5'3" and I'm teaching with a 12kg short bar (instead of the 20kg oly bar).

Thanks in advance for any help.

[Steve Hill]

and I can't work out how to coach her past them.

This is the primary problem that someone with little experience performing the lift, let alone coaching it, is going to have. Everything's fine, as long as everything's fine. But if it's not...

The problem with your post is that I am limited by your (quite probably erroneous) assumptions and observations, because you are not experienced coaching within the model, and most likely not very experienced coaching human movement at all. Now, this may sound harsh, but it is what it is. I don't go onto guitar forums and try to tell people the problems with my girlfriends fingering technique. Because I'm not a guitar player, let alone a guitar coach. The primary evidence of this lack of experience is that you think that your description of the problem, absent any visual aids whatsoever, is going to be sufficient to A) figure out what's going on, and B) figure out how to fix it, and C) somehow instruct you in a way that YOU will be able to fix it.

It's just not going to work.

I can't see your girlfriend from here. Post pictures and video. It may be that you'll need to seek out a coach.

[Man in the Box]

Thank you Steve. I really appreciate your reply and take it how it is. In retrospect, your points seem entirely obvious.

I was working from the basis that if Rip has stated (something to the effect of) most people can teach themselves the Power Clean, then I would be able to work with her to teach her to Power Clean. I can see the flaw in that now. I wouldn't ask for a form check for myself without posting a video, yet that's effectively what I was doing here.

I'll see whether we can find some coaching for her locally or whether she wants to post form check videos.

Lastly, "..and try to tell people the problems with my girlfriends fingering technique" made me giggle! Inspired choice of words.

Thanks again for the reply. All points duly noted.

[Steve Hill]

I know we have at least two people in the UK that have attended the seminar (last year in California). I'll try to dig up their names and see if they are on the forum.

[Man in the Box]

Thank you. I'm meeting Walter in a couple of weeks when he's briefly in the country. He has a little time to correct a couple of my lifts this time around so any coaches you can suggest for the future would be great.

Thanks again for your help.