Long arms and the jumping position in the power clean

[CommanderFun]

I know you have the blue book and functioning eyes.

Well, not the best functioning eyes. Keratoconus makes life a little more interesting that way. But are you referring to my tendency to mash step 2 and 3 of the pull setup together? That's something I noticed happening after deadlifting for a while and never really saw it causing a problem. My guess that the bar was too forward was based on the clear backward drift after the jump. At the very least it looks like the bar is about an inch or two more forward on the second and third rep because the feet are that far back from where they began. But I assume the path is the result of all of them being ahead of the mid foot.

[CommanderFun]

Alright, tried again today with a lighter weight and with the slow drag before touching the jumping position. Still feel like the momentum is being lost. But I think I was thrown off by using my old shoes' visual landmarks with my new shoes when it came to foot placement. Also corrected the setup to be more deliberate. Thoughts on this?

[Mark Rippetoe]

Much better pull. Now you're ready to speed it up.

[CommanderFun]

Good to know. Hopefully when the weight gets back up I won't be running into the momentum issue again, and it was all just bad pathing.

[CommanderFun]

Well, tried 125 today, it was really messy. Missed a few reps that I had to redo, the natural point to jump still seems like lower in the movement, and that's the only way I can get it to go up. If I wait for the bar to hit anywhere on the thigh, I don't have enough of a jump to get it up to rack. Compare that to the earlier 145 with a bad bar path and I was always jumping early, those I always got up. I'm scheduled to do them again on Friday and I'll try and video a set waiting for the thigh and one where I just do the jump where it feels I'll get the most bang for the buck.

[TooTall]

Concur. Based anecdotally on your size and arm girrrrrth, it looks like you'd be more than strong enough to hit those higher weights, but the first video almost appeared to be "high pulling" the barbell up when it got away from your thighs. I feel your pain though; at 79" tall and an equal wing span, getting the position of the rack and timing of the jump is defintely one of the harder things for myself and people with longer limbs in my opinion.

[CommanderFun]

Well, I'm only 74 inches tall myself, but my spread armspan from fingertip to fingertip is actually longer than that. Don't let my size fool you though, I'm pretty weak for a guy pushing 280. I think I'm probably a very low neuromuscular efficiency guy. The best power clean I've done was 145 (incorrectly), and yet I set a 5 rep PR of 370 for my deadlift last week. I was always the slowest kid growing up, I could never run as fast as everyone else could. When I got into martial arts in high school I always moved slower than others, and that was back when I was a teenager with a bodyweight that went from 120 to 160 at the highest.