Olympic lifting log for Monday, June 1st

Started my Introduction to snatch and clean and jerk class.  Took it as a refresher and to help focus my training on power and Olympic lifts instead of strength.

It was exhausting. Lesson one was all about clean and jerk.

Started with basics:
- bouncing and jumping while holding the bar at the hang.
- jumping with the bar can catching it in a power clean.
- power cleaning the bar and slowly descending into a front squat

Everything was 5 reps.

The we added a small amount of weight and did the power clean drill and the power clean + slow controlled front squat.  I started with 95#, but quickly dropped to 75#

Focus was on linear bar path and speed under the bar.  We did a drill with 5 reps where each rep was faster than the last.  So start with power clean into a 3 second front squat, then 2 seconds then 1, then right into the bottom.

We added a bit more weight (went back up to 95#) and did this drill again. 

Thankfully we switched to jerks after that.  Pulling was getting hard on the grip strength.

We stripped the bars and started with strict press for 5, the push press and finally power jerk.  All in sets of 5.

The goal was to focus on linear bar path again, and speed under the bar, again.  He wanted us to reduce the hang time as much as possible.  What I noticed is that you want to actually stop the bar's upward momentum by pushing yourself under it then gripping it tightly while it is till moving upward.

He instructed us to turn our feet out for the dip so the knees go out. I found this unnecessary, if you create torque in you ankles and hips the knees go out even if the feet are pointing forward and the torque give a more stable base.


We moved on to split jerks and started some combination drills:
- 3 cleans + 1 jerk
- 2 cleans + 2 jerks
- 1 clean + 1 jerk + 1 clean + 1 jerk
sometime he 'd throw a front squat in there or a lower the bar to the ground and pull back up to the hang.

It was exhausting. 

We added a bit more weight and did more drill like these before calling it a night.

I think the most weight I put on the bar was 110#, and I was sweating bullets. I slept really well.