Help me fix my fucked up powercleans.

[Dastardly]

Although ive been lifting and doing occasional power cleans for a fair few months, my power cleans are still horrendous.

When I first started I would just do hang cleans, I had this awful tendency to slide bar down to knee while torso was still vertical. So I would be pulling the bar backwards, not upwards when I jumped. It felt good to do, but looking back at the videos is plain shameful. My jump, stomp & rack however was pretty tight.

I started powercleans again during the past few workouts switching to SS. I began working on 40kg, something I was lifting back in summer last year. ( I knew I could do 50-ish)

I pulled from the floor now instead of hang cleans. And I must admit the starting position felt great with my new lifting shoes. And the cleans felt great too on this first day with 40kg. I finished up feeling fairly satisfied. However when I looked back at the videos i saw myself flopping all over the place & jumping forwards. Also what felt to me like a small squat-dip was actually an ugly messy split of the legs. My racking also looked incredibly sloppy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nzzd0aBVV58
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3umexcQBBs

The next session I added 5kg and tried super hard to fix these problems. I tried hard not to split by starting with wider feet and trying to stomp into foot prints. I tried not to jump forwards by jumping when bar was higher on thigh. But I was apalled to see that it looked nearly identical, and that I was still jumping forwards a LOT. And my rack sucks even though I focus hard on getting elbows high.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTzBnN8ka-A

I also had to work hard to ignore this man who was lecturing me not to let feet leave the ground during pwercleans and that jumping = death & paralysis. He told me to get thighs 90º to floor and use arms to swing it up or even the 'advanced technique' of bouncing it off the thighs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rni52hirR8

Starting to struggle:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx1ve9pEy1U

A few hang cleans for an exhausted finish, still going forward even with maximum focus.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myseRW1k554

I left the gym that second session feeling very frustrated. The fat guy was trying to be nice but his bad advice was just annoying. I wanted to show him why he was only cleaning 50kg at 160kg bodyweight with 15 years of training. He also got the aggressive dickhead moron trainer to lecture me on how there is no jumping in power cleans. I could not really fight back, saying my way was right, when my own form was so sloppy.

But I did capture a small clip of the fat guys deadlift form:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pysbx0UF9yw

[David Lee]

I can't tell what's causing it, but the bar is 3-4 inches away from your thigh when you jump. That will make you jump forward every time. If you make sure you pull the bar up your shin, knee, & then it's touching the thigh when you jump, it will definitely solve some of the problem.

[Sami]

To me, it looks like a problem with getting the elbows rotated and under fast enough. How easily can you get the bar into the rack position? Is it painful or difficult even when taking it from the powercage?

You're not getting the rack position at all. You're catching it on your wrists with vertical forearms. In fact, it looks like your elbows aren't even under the bar when you first start to catch it. This means they are behind the bar and this leads to the bar moving in front of you.

I'd say you need to work on rotating your elbows AS FAST AS POSSIBLE and getting them IN FRONT of the bar, pointing forwards.

And tell the fat fuck to:

[Sal Webber]

Yeah I don't think he's getting to the rack position because the bar is too far forward...thus the 3 inch bunny hop forward on each rep. I would focus on keeping the bar over the mid-foot and CG first.

[msingh]

Your elbows are rotating after you have already racked the bar. What you need to work on is rotating them simultaneously as you're racking, as you are stomping. If the weight is too heavy to do this -- reduce the weight until you can do it, then do linear progression up from there. If your form deteriorates, that's ok but just remember if deteroriates too much in successive workouts then you're taking jumps that are too big.

In fact there is no elbow rotation at all! Who taught you to powerclean??

[Nauticus]

You've got to bring your elbows up fast once in rack position. The humerus should be parallel to the floor, placing the bar on your deltoids. Also, good choice on ignoring that fatass, I've never seen someone hyperextending so badly

[Dastardly]

I can't tell what's causing it, but the bar is 3-4 inches away from your thigh when you jump.

I think that is an illusion created by black shorts and poor quality video.

Ive been looking hard at the videos in slow motion and it does seem that the bar is both too far away and too low for me to rack it properly. Im not sure how to prevent the bar going forwards but perhaps I should stick to 40kg till I can get the bar to go high enough for a better rack. I may have to open grip to let this happen and can imagine smashing my face a lot.

[brobinson]

I'm still learning the lift myself but I'll add my two cents, along with what the others have mentioned so far.

I would suggest practicing starting in the rack position prior to the lift a few times forcing yourself into the position with your elbows straight. Then you know exactly where the best width for your hands would be etc. prior to the pull.

And Rip's mentioned thinking of your arms like limp rope as you jump to get the idea of using them out of your brain. Use a hook grip, with straight arms keeping the bar right against your thigh and jump. As you stomp don't think of anything but whipping your elbows around fast and the rest will fall into place.

[Dastardly]

In fact there is no elbow rotation at all! Who taught you to powerclean??

I learnt watching rippetoe/crossfit videos on youtube. I have SS coming in the mail but have read a lot of it already.

I started early 09, I alternated rows & powercleans and got to 50kg around october 09. My form has always been rather fucked up despite techincally knowing how to do them.

I find it difficult to get arms parallel to floor even if done slowly and with open fingertips on bar. When doing a clean with a weighted barbell I sort of expect the weight to help me push arms down into a rack position. But as you can see it is not working so well.

I have to pay per session at the gym, and it always feels like a waste to use very low submaximal weights to just practice technique. But I suppose the sensible thing to do is force myself to learning a good rack before adding weight.

But any ideas on how I can prevent forward jump?

[radiator41]

EDIT: Reading the book will help a lot or at least it should. There are various videos on the wiki and a short how to that outlines whats in the book.