Crossing off another one

Today, I did Diane. Finally. My virgin Diane experience was one year and 2 days ago. I used 125# and did regular pushups. It took me about 8 minutes (for some reason, I don't have an exact time written down). I remember the deadlifts being extremely hard. More on Diane later.

Patrick commented on yesterday's post, regarding me hopping forward when I clean/snatch. I think it's pretty interesting, and I cleaned again today, so I thought I'd discuss what he said and how it helped me.

Technical question: Have you always started your oly lifts with your hips so high, or is that something that just carried over from your new DL start position? I'd think that a more upright start position would help limit that forward movement, although looking at your snatch vid, the first pull looks good and the issue appears to be related to you driving off the balls of your feet on the 2nd pull.

There are two things that seem to be going on. Your elbows are rotated back somewhat, and you're opening your hips with your weight forward - popping them forward rather than driving them up. As a result, The bar is leaving your body around your navel, and that's going to limit the amount of weight you can handle. Fortunately, you've got great strength, balance, and coordination, so your numbers are still pretty damn good.

I'd recommend working hang power snatches and hang power cleans, focusing on driving through the heels and keeping the that bar close to you. Once you get that down, go to hang squat versions and then gradually work your way down through the hang positions to the floor, until you redevelop that heel-driven power.

BTW, I totally blame your biking for this fault. Your quads are too damn strong. As a former cyclist myself, I have the same issue on my jerks, but I've gotten it squared away on my pulls. On the bright side, this means you now have a good excuse to work the olympic lifts more often, which means life in the gym will be more fun.

I actually don't usually start with my hips as high as I think in my last video, where I cleaned 135. I had forgotten about my lower-hips start until I was in Park City and Spealler reminded me to lower my hips. Duh. How could I forget?

So, I pretty much ignored all the advice that Patrick gave me today (about doing hang power cleans, then hang squat cleans, then squat cleans) because I was under a time crunch. I was late getting to the gym and had to get my cleans in before the 6:30 a.m. class. I did, however, focus on reaching full extension and driving through my heels, not pulling with my arms, etc. I think I did okay. I wasn't hopping forward today like I usually do.

Summing it up, it was great to have another set of eyes checking out my olympic lifting. I've got 3 more videos of today's session. What do you see?

WOD 090309

Clean 5-5-5

95-105PR-115PR

Then,

"Diane"
21-15-9 reps for time of:
155# Deadlift
Handstand Pushups

12:26 :)

Very stoked with this time. I used 1 abmat for the HSPU, but I put all my weight on the abmat and it compressed so it was almost like doing it to the floor. I am just a little scared of not having an abmat there. Next time though I will have to put my hands on weights so that when I use the abmat it's the exact same as doing it to the floor. I feel sorta like a cheater, but not really. My goal time was 20 minutes, so I'll take this :)

Jenna Cleans 95x5 from Jenna Rettenmayer on Vimeo.

Jenna Cleans 105x5 from Jenna Rettenmayer on Vimeo.

Jenna Cleans 115x5 from Jenna Rettenmayer on Vimeo.