Squat and Power Clean Form Check

[Fips]

Hi,

I recently bought a bar and some bumpers for my home gym, so I can train at home. I would appreciate some advice regarding my squat and power clean form. As my form should be worst when I'm fatiqued, I filmed my last working sets of yesterdays training. What I can see myself:

Squat: Video
- During the setup, I move to much.
- My back should be tighter / more rigid.

Power Clean: Video
- Shoulders should be more forward / in front of the bar.
- I'm not sure, but for me it seems that initiate the second pull too early.
- Sometimes I jump backwards.
- I'm not sure if I fully extend during the second pull.

Thanks for any comment!

Regards,
Fips

[Jacobnorton]

On those squats, it looks like you're trying to keep your shins perfectly vertical and the weight seems to be over your heels because of this. Let your knees break at the same time as your hips so they reach their final spot 1/3 to 1/2 of the way down and keep them there. This will make your torso slightly more vertical as well and hopefully stop those hips from rising faster than your chest. Strive to maintain a constant back angle out of the hole. Also, quit looking straight ahead. Keep your eyes down between your rack, about 5 feet in front of you on the ground.

[Jacobnorton]

Power clean is the hardest for me to spot errors in, but heres what I see. The bar is much too far forward from your shins on the set up. This is causing your hips to be too low when you pull and subsequently causing them to shoot up at the start of your pull. This is wasted energy and can lead to injury. Set up with the bar about 1 inch from your shins, bend over and take your grip, then let your shins drop just to the bar, without letting them push the bar forward. Chest up and pull from there.

You are pausing before the jump part of the clean. Allow it to be one fluid motion. And yes, from what I can see, you are initiating the jump a hair too early. Allow the bar to touch your mid thigh before you jump with it.

[Fips]

Thanks for the input! Actually, I don't care at all about my shins, but I guess I simply overdid it with the butt back and point your nipples at the floor hint. I tried to work on your hints in yesterday's squat session. The weight is now over my mid foot, what feels better in general, but my hips are still shooting up too fast. I tried to actively tighten my lower back, but couldn't figure out how to do this. I'm sure Rip wrote someting about that, but forgot if it was in one of the books or in an article. Any hints were to look this up?

Regarding the setup of my power cleans, your completely right. I first wanted to complain, because I "set the bar over my mid foot" as written in the book, but as I thought about it, I realized that I set it over the middle of the part which I can see from above, what obviously is not the middle of the foot and far away from the centre of gravity. Stupid me!

Anyway, I will work on your hints and post another video as soon as I have the feeling that I improved my technique. Thanks again!

More comments are of course welcome.

[Jacobnorton]

Page 43, paragraph on the right hand side describes the protocol rip uses with his trainees. It's often called the superman exercise. Lie on your belly, straighten legs by locking knees, and lift knees off of ground, quads if you can. You must use your lower back to do this. Do it enough times until you can feel a pump or a burn. Stand up and try to re-create the lower back contraction, using the pump/burn as a sensory cue.

Hips shooting up could just be an exaggeration on the hip drive cue. Some lifters who do this have to concentrate on lifting with the chest, the idea being that to fix an exaggeration, you need an exaggerated cue in the opposite direction. I prefer to just think about keeping my back angle constant all the way down and all the way up.

[Fips]

Thanks again! Will try this today!

[Fips]

I tried to work on your hints, but have the feeling that it somehow went wrong:

Squat:


Power Clean:

[Jacobnorton]

I would do as mgilchrest says, but I would also try a little wider stance. Your feet look really close together.

[Fips]

Thanks guys, I will definitely work on it. Any hints regarding the power cleans?

[Fips]

Here's a video of my latest squat session. It feels better than before, but may be still far away from being perfect or even good.
squat - YouTube