Tank climbs Mount Olympus 2012

[tank]

contrary to my first idea, i've been reading that it's best to train the segments from the "top down" rather than the floor up...

...so that's what i shall do!

[BendtheBar]

I've chosen RDL for lack of better exercise, maybe someone can help me. I'm not even sure, yet, if this would help reinforce the correct technique in this position.

I'm not sure either. Out of my league.

[tank]

Originally Posted by BendtheBar

I'm not sure either. Out of my league.

no worries, thanks though. i figured out a work-around.

i just had the training session of the year! segmenting the snatch worked beautifully! typing up the journal entry now.

[tank]

Session A

Technique training/Warm-up

Overhead Squat - 45 x 3/3/3/3/3
Muscle Snatch + Overhead Squat - 45 x 3/3/3/3/3
Low Hang Snatch + Overhead Squat - 45 x 3/3/3

At this point I felt comfortable with the full version of the lift; segmenting worked wonderfully!

Snatch
45 x 3
45 x 3
50 x 3
55 x 3
60 x 3
65 x 3

Front Squat (Oly)
65 x 5
65 x 5
65 x 5

Pendlay Row
135 x 8
135 x 8
135 x 8

Jump-Rope and some spinal decompression stuff.



Notes
As I said before, this was an amazing session. I really feel like I made great progress and that this method is going to work wonderfully. I'm very excited! Stay tuned.

[Spartigus]

Training session looked good!! Smash on!

Originally Posted by tank

thinking through the segmenting of the lifts....

snatch

from floor to knees - Snatch Grip Deadlift

from knees to power position - Romanian Deadlift?*

turnover and catch - Muscle snatch (hanging snatch, but resting on bars/blocks) & Snatch Grip Jump and Shrug

catch to standing - Snatch Grip Overhead Squat


clean and jerk

from floor to knees - Deadlift

from knees to power position - Romanian Deadlift?*

turnover and catch - Hang Clean/Hang Clean on bars/blocks & Jump and Shrug

catch - Front Squat, snatch grip

jerk - Push Jerk


*I've chosen RDL for lack of better exercise, maybe someone can help me. I'm not even sure, yet, if this would help reinforce the correct technique in this position.

I like the new program variation! It looks great! I am loving this log.

Just to put in my 0.02c for whatever it is worth, so it could very easily be very very wrong.

Dan John always says, if its important do it every day. I dont know if you do this, but get a dowel rod, mark it out and every day practice snatches and cleans. Doesnt have to be long, maybe 5-10 mins of each. Also a good way to warm up, is as you said, break the movement down. You can do this every day, and to help you warm up.

So,
Notes:-
Pull 1 is from the floor to the knees
Pull 2 is from the knees to just before you shrug
Pull 3 is the shrug to the catch

Warmup:-
- Grab the dowel rod (use a bar when you are comfortable with rod) and go from the position of the 3rd pull to the shrug (keep arms straight). At the top of shrug stay on your toes for 2 seconds.
- Then go from 2nd pull to start of 3rd pull a couple of times, then go from 2nd pull to the top of the shrug.
- Then get the bar down to the position of the first pull, and go pull 1 to start of pull 2. Do that a few times. Then go from pull 1 to top of the shrug.

I hope this makes sense, but it helps to break the movement apart and get practice without putting yourself under stress.



The snatch sequence looks good, especially the snatch grip deadlifts to the knees, you can often do these with more than your max snatch for tripples.

I am interested in your choice for muscle snatch instead of hang snatch from blocks?


I would be careful about calling them deadlifts and rdl's and treating them as such. They are similar but different. With the oly pulls, you generally straighten the knees first, the hip angle stays the same, then as the bar passes the knees, the knees should re-bend to get into the start of the most powerful part of the movement, at this point the shoulders should be past the bar, not over them. This is a bit different to a RDL and a deadlift. I would rather see you do a hang snatch pull for snatch, and a hang clean pull for cleans. Or even the clean pull and a snatch pull, but even then I would say do it from a hang position so you know where the 2nd pull is done from.

Note:-
A pull is similar to a high pull, the only difference is the high pull you pull the bar up and bend the elbows. With the clean/snatch pull you do the big tripple extension but the elbows stay straight and locked out. I would imagine its a better way to train the position from above the knees as you still train the explosion and the movement pattern.

When you clean and jerk do you normally do a push jerk or the split jerk?

Any thoughts/corrections/errors/problems on my input?

[rippednmichigan]

Strong work in here Tank!

[Pull14]

Good work Tank. And excellent post by Spart.

Like Spart mentioned, be careful associating portions of the oly lift with deads, or rdls, etc. Similiar in basic principle, but very much different.

As for clarification to my first post. I say avoid power cleans and power snatches when learning the lifts because this will ingrain a focus on pulling the bar up. In doing so, people will often pull to quick off the floor, cut either their 1st or 2nd pull short, and overextend the hips in an effort to get the bar higher. This makes getting under the bar extremely difficult when the weight gets heavy.

Learning the full lifts BEFORE the power versions will make things a lot better in the long run. As for the variations mentioned in the Pendlay article, those were not refering to power versions, but rather portions of a full lift followed by the full lift...

... 1 "Rep" would be a clean pull from the floor, lower bar to just below the knee and than perform a hand clean from that position (high pull + hang clean from knee). Etc...

[Spartigus]

As always Pull has great advice!!

I find trainees often have trouble dropping into the snatch per say. What my coach suggests is you do the move, not everyone can drop into the full move, then stand up, then do a front squat or overhead squat as low as you can. This will help train you for it. But again as Pull mentioned, too much focus on the power move can interfere with the full movement.

If you need extra reading, Tommy Kono's book "Weightlifting, Olympic Style" is more or less the Starting Strength book for Olympic Lifting.

[tank]

thanks guys! i'm working on a write-up to answer the above questions.

[tank]

First of all, thanks again guys for your input and effort to help me! Next, I’ll address some points and answer some questions.

Originally Posted by Spartigus

Pull 1 is from the floor to the knees
Pull 2 is from the knees to just before you shrug
Pull 3 is the shrug to the catch

In the gym, I realized the sequence was more like the one you mentioned here than the one I first wrote up, so by good luck (and instinct) I was able to segment it much like you described.

Originally Posted by Spartigus

Warmup:-

- Grab the dowel rod (use a bar when you are comfortable with rod) and go from the position of the 3rd pull to the shrug (keep arms straight). At the top of shrug stay on your toes for 2 seconds.

- Then go from 2nd pull to start of 3rd pull a couple of times, then go from 2nd pull to the top of the shrug.

- Then get the bar down to the position of the first pull, and go pull 1 to start of pull 2. Do that a few times. Then go from pull 1 to top of the shrug.

I hope this makes sense, but it helps to break the movement apart and get practice without putting yourself under stress.

It sure does make sense! As you can see from my log entry, once I segmented the lift into 3 parts, I did reps of the Overhead Squat until the movement was comfortable. Then, I used Muscle Snatches from bars to get comfortable with the turnover and drop into Overhead Squat position.

Originally Posted by Spartigus

The snatch sequence looks good, especially the snatch grip deadlifts to the knees, you can often do these with more than your max snatch for tripples.

I didn’t end up using these, but I will remember to use them in the future to build strength for the first pull.

Originally Posted by Spartigus

I am interested in your choice for muscle snatch instead of hang snatch from blocks?

I used them as the middle segment before Hang Snatches as a way to train the turnover and drop into Overhead Squat without having to concern myself with the triple extension. It was just a way for me to work specifically on adding the 3rd pull to the catch. After the last pull and catch became comfortable, I used Hang snatches to practice the triple extension.

Originally Posted by Spartigus

I would be careful about calling them deadlifts and rdl's and treating them as such. They are similar but different. With the oly pulls, you generally straighten the knees first, the hip angle stays the same, then as the bar passes the knees, the knees should re-bend to get into the start of the most powerful part of the movement, at this point the shoulders should be past the bar, not over them. This is a bit different to a RDL and a deadlift. I would rather see you do a hang snatch pull for snatch, and a hang clean pull for cleans. Or even the clean pull and a snatch pull, but even then I would say do it from a hang position so you know where the 2nd pull is done from.

Originally Posted by Pull14

Like Spart mentioned, be careful associating portions of the oly lift with deads, or rdls, etc. Similiar in basic principle, but very much different.

You guys are absolutely right. I knew it was touchy to even try to compare the two in that way, but for lack of better comparison, I went with RDL. I do understand now, after having done the full snatch, that RDLs don’t emphasize the re-bending of the knees that is so critical to triple extension.

Originally Posted by Spartigus

When you clean and jerk do you normally do a push jerk or the split jerk?

I haven’t trained the full version yet, but I was thinking that I should train the Split Jerk, right? Because isn’t it the method used in competition?

Originally Posted by Spartigus

Any thoughts/corrections/errors/problems on my input?

Thanks again for your continued help!!

Originally Posted by Pull14

As for clarification to my first post. I say avoid power cleans and power snatches when learning the lifts because this will ingrain a focus on pulling the bar up. In doing so, people will often pull to quick off the floor, cut either their 1st or 2nd pull short, and overextend the hips in an effort to get the bar higher. This makes getting under the bar extremely difficult when the weight gets heavy.

Learning the full lifts BEFORE the power versions will make things a lot better in the long run. As for the variations mentioned in the Pendlay article, those were not refering to power versions, but rather portions of a full lift followed by the full lift...

... 1 "Rep" would be a clean pull from the floor, lower bar to just below the knee and than perform a hand clean from that position (high pull + hang clean from knee). Etc...

That does clear things up. I see now that once the process of learning the full versions is complete it would be better to train the full versions until training specific segments was needed to increase maximal efforts.
Thanks again, Pull, for your continued help and efforts!