Jerk check + advice

[zft]

I'm trying to finally sort out my jerk. It lags behind my clean significantly and I have great difficulty getting sufficient depth under the bar, especially as the weight gets heavier. I tend to split wide (not getting much depth, with a straight back leg), rather than deep as the weight gets heavier.

Here's a jerk at 100 kg and 120 kg (observe that my depth on the 100 kg jerk is significantly better, I know the 120 was a bit rushed, with elbows high): jerks on Vimeo

I'd appreciate any pointers/tips and have a few questions:

1) How crucial is a significant bend in the back leg? You see both fairly straight legs and (very) bent legs commonly in the sport. It seems to me that without properly bending the back leg, you're cheating yourself out of a good bit of depth.

2) What's the best way to cue to maximize depth (for someone with rather shit flexibility)? (I've found thinking about "kneeling" in the catch works somewhat.) Are there any particular cues that are especially effective?

3) I'll often lockout with a "bounce"--that is, the bar will lockout, my elbows will bend a bit, and then lockout again. I've found internally rotating my elbows ameliorates the issue somewhat. Is there a better fix?

Thanks!

[Mark Rippetoe]

1. The back knee doesn't look bad. A straight back knee pulls that side of the hip back, making the lockout unstable. So the heel up/bent knee is important for being able to recover from the jerk. Yours is bent enough.

2. From your first warmups on, split to the same depth. The tendency is to split deeper as the bar gets heavier, but that does not result in practice for the 3rd attempt.

3. Shrug traps up into the jerk hard. This makes the jerk rack much more solid.

[zft]

Thanks for the helpful pointers Mark.

Another question--I do a 4-day TM split right now, as prescribed in PPST. I do jerks on "rest" days twice a week, in a quick 40 minute gym session. (I don't snatch and I don't exclusively practice the clean; my focus is squarely on the jerk.) This is a recent addition and up until this point, I've just been fucking around, trying to improve my technique while getting 10-15 moderately heavy jerks in.

What's a reasonable progression model here? Should I try to LP it? There's a conflict between addressing technique (which, in my case, significantly degrades with heavier weights) and increasing the weight and it's unclear to me how to juggle these variables with a lift that's so technically sensitive.

Thanks!

[Mark Rippetoe]

There are Olympic lifting versions in the gray book.