Common Mistake
The jerk or push press is performed with a loose shoulder and/or the press is performed too early which means that the legs really were not doing the work.
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Solution
Pull the elbow down and keep it down during the first dip, or at least tightly pulled into the body.
Description
The jerk and push press can be performed in different ways, but the objective is always to have the legs do the work for the first part of the exercise,
In StrongFirst/Hardstyle the body stays straight and the elbow is pulled down but everything is rigid, meaning that the torso is not loose, and the shoulders are packed. This allows for as much force to be transferred without leakage.
In the Sportstyle jerk, the elbow connects to the body and/or top of the hips with a crunch rack, this allows for power transfer from the legs into the weight as directly as possible.
In neither variation do you want the shoulders loose, lean forward, or press early, and in the Hardstyle variation you want the torso to be rigid.
Both of the variations are good and you can find a mix in between if you’re not sure what style you want to work with, but the shoulder should not be loose and the press should not be performed before the legs push the weight up.
You want to push the weight up with the legs as much as possible and to do that, the shoulders need to be packed and the torso needs to be rigid or the elbow(s) should be pulled down to let the power transfer directly from the legs into the forearms and then the weight(s).
Related Exercises
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