Olympic Lifting: I clean, I jerk, and attempt to snatch

For me I feel like the Olympic lifts in Crossfit are the hardest movements.  To try and improve my form, today, I attended an Olympic lifting seminar at Thunder.  The snatch was the first movement covered in the seminar.  This is the Olympic lift that I am the least comfortable with and need the most work on.  This movement intimidates me like no other.  To trust my strength and fall underneath the bar is so hard for me, especially when I am expected to hit a full squat when I receive the bar overhead.  Starting out working on this movement and trying to increase my confidence my coach told me to work solidly on the Power snatch, in which, I would not have to hit the full squat.  When I engage in this movement from the floor-up I tend to jump backward and land in an awkward position.  This is something I truly need to work on.  To work on this movement overall I am going to try and work on snatch balances at least one time a week once I am 100% with my wrist.

The next movement covered was the clean.  I am confident in my clean and my ability to execute this lift.  Out of all of the Olympic lifts it is the one that I think I am best at.  However, I tend to pull a little early on the lift and sometimes tend to jump back, but I do not experience a lot of difficulty executing the full squat in this movement.  I know that once I am healthy I need to work on the timing of this lift, especially, the pull.

After covering the clean, we moved on to the jerk.  I prefer to split jerk instead of push jerk, because I feel like it forces me to actually jerk instead of push press.  The jerk is a movement that requires you to fall under the bar as well but it does not intimidate me like the snatch does.  I'm more confident with the movement, but I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that the jerk does not come straight from the floor.

The final movement was the combo: the clean and jerk.  I like the clean and jerk and am confident in this movement.  However, right now going heavy is not an option.  I hope to be back setting PR's and improving my technique soon.




Coach Jeb's 270lb snatch