Do your hips round under during the dip in the jerk?

The correction is very simple. Watch the short video to see what we're talking about

Hip Stabilization
Use a wall or a pole and keep your hips sliding up and down the wall/pole. This will help you keep your hips stable to support the load on your shoulders.

Legs
Your legs are the only moving part of the body that is actually doing the upward and downward movement of the jerk. When you dip, keep hips sliding up and down the wall, make sure feet are making full contact on the floor not just the heels. This is important because if you distribute the load on the heels unfortunately this can cause the hips to roll under. Full foot contact on the floor. Then, just move up and down and practice the movement.

Fixing your jerk: bar placement and leg position

The jerk can be a tricky situation for some lifters who are having issues placing the bar overhead and then having to fix the body underneath it. Let's take a look at how to fix your body underneath the bar and placing the bar overhead. 

Bar placement and leg position

No matter where the bar remains or travels it should always be on top of the hips or ankles. As you dip and drive and the bar moves upward the center of the bar should always remain on top. The farther away the barbell is from the center of your hips and ankles it creates a distance that is mechanically disadvantageous. Holding the bar in front in a disadvantageous position will cause you to use up more energy that otherwise doesn't need to be spent if held in an efficient advantageous position.

In the above picture you can see Cheri Chan of San Francisco NCAA D1 athlete who I've been working with. Observe the barbell is fixed under her hips for the most part but the load is has forward momentum because the back foot is almost straight. The back foot ideally needs to be bent similar to a lunge position to support the weight overhead and prevent any horizontal momentum. 

Here she demonstrates better more optimized positioning with properly loaded support and with a hind leg in a more bent position. Observe the lunge position. Tibia almost vertically straight. Barbell is above her ears and not in front of her head but not behind her head. You don't have to support the load behind the head. Some lifters do. If you have shoulder mobility that allows you to do so then by all means do it. However, you don't want the barbell to be too far behind your head for it can cause momentum to shift behind you and that can cause you to lose the bar behind. 

This is Marcin Dolega of Poland World Champion and Olympian properly supporting the load overhead. Observe the hind leg in a properly bent position similar to a lung. The load is exactly where it needs to be which is on top of the hips. 

Practice

Practice jerks with lighter loads (50% or 60%) of max and work on the position. Place the bar exactly where it needs to be placed in the most efficient receiving position to minimize horizontal momentum of the bar. 

For coaching and online programming contact me Coach Cano at 805-402-6335 or email me at 

capscave@gmail.com

Coach Cano

Final position of the jerk

When a jerk is done right and effective the elbows should be locked out and arms completely straight. There should be little feet movement under the bar or as I like to say, no salsa dancing under the bar. Several key points to make about the final position of the jerk need to be addressed so you can practice your jerks in training. 1. Locked elbows: if you are not locking out elbows at the to of a jerk it's not a good lift. The rules are the rules and are not flexible. That means there is no pressing going on in the jerk. A jerk should feel lightning fast and locked out at the top before you know it. You know you've pressed out when you feel you have muscled the jerk instead of catching it in it's final position. 2. Center of bar, hips, and head position: the center of the barbell should lie directly under the hips and the head is ideally in front of the bar pushed through. Sometimes you'll see the head directly under the bar or slightly behind the bar. That can work but can compromise the jerk. Take a look at the graph:

The final position at the top demonstrates the bar under the hips and the head just slightly in front of the bar. Fix the jerk so that these 2 positions are executed at the final portion of the jerk.