The Three Principles Of Jerk Technique
I will die on this hill - the jerk is the hardest of the olympic lifts.
It requires grit, precision, timing, and strength. That’s not to say the snatch and clean don’t, but you can get away with crazy shit on both and still make the lift.
But if you don’t have GREAT jerks, there’s no muscling your way through it.
Here are three principles that you can apply to IMMEDIATELY improve your jerk, and get stronger than a brick wall.
And if you’re new to the olympic lifts, then I recommend starting here instead!
Principle #1: Legs Move The Bar Up, Arms Move The Body Down
The first principle is all about using the most efficient muscle groups to do the work they are best suited for.
Your legs are much stronger than your arms, which means they should do the hardest part of the lift, getting the bar high enough to get under. Your arms are much weaker than your legs, so if you use them to try to elevate the bar high enough to get under, you might get away with it up to a certain weight, but beyond that, it would be impossible to continue to lift heavier weights.
In the jerk, the legs should be responsible for driving the bar high and fast to about eye or forehead level. The moment the bar reaches its highest point (the peak) it will “float” for a split second. You must use this moment of weightlessness to push yourself under the bar with your arms into your split position.
This is the proper timing of the jerk. If you struggle with this, then you will be slow under the bar, frequently press out, and often receive the bar in an incorrect split position.
I recommend focusing on one of two possible mistakes; either pressing with the arms too early, or too late.
Pressing Too Early
Pressing too early is very common, especially with beginners who are fairly strong in the upper body, or lack mobility in the front rack position.
When you press with your arms too early, you break the first half of the principle “legs move the bar up”. Elevating the bar with your arms too early will cause several issues, almost all of which are related to a lack of speed.
First, you will find that you cannot get the bar high enough to get under it. Your legs are much stronger than your arms, so you should let them do ALL of the work of getting the bar high enough.
Along with this, you’ll also find that you cannot get under the bar fast enough, no matter how hard you try. This is because your arm’s sole responsibility IS to move you under the bar fast. But if you start pressing too soon, then they cannot press any harder to make you move fast.
One of the most effective ways I’ve found to help fix this is to focus on relaxing your arms on the rack position. If you do this, while keeping your back engaged, core braced, and posture tall, you’ll remove any unnecessary tension in the arms making them less likely to kick on too early. *Note: If you lack good front rack mobility, then it will be almost impossible to relax the arms on the front rack position. If this is something you struggle with, then I suggest downloading this free mobility guide, skipping to the front rack section, and focusing on the exercises and drills in there as much as possible.*
Another way to work on not pressing too early is to practice the dip and drive. One of my favorite drills for this is the Jerk Drive (watch this demo video from Catalyst Athletics here)
Load up a bar with some fairly heavy weight, 80%-110%, and just do the dip and drive of the jerk. See how high you can get the bar without letting your arms begin pressing and you may surprise yourself. Sometimes it just takes seeing the difference to feel confident enough to do the lift correctly, especially if your brain thinks that the correct technique won’t work.
Pressing Too Late
On the other side of the coin, pressing too late could be your biggest issue.
Pressing too late is more common with lifters who have their dip and drive mechanics fairly established, and are now trying to figure out how to take things to the next level.
Pressing too early will most often lead to pressing out the jerk, but it could also just make the lift seem slow. If you watch great lifters, you can see just how fast they are moving under the bar. Check out this video of one of the fastest lifters for reference.
One of the easiest ways to work on not pressing too late is to focus on speed. We can get all in the weeds about how to do this but the thing that got me out of my own head in the jerk was keeping the cue simple and effective. “Fast under” is all I think about, and I aim to just be as fast under the bar as I can. If you are fast under the bar, you WILL be using your arms at the right time, 100% of the time.
Another way you can work on this if the cue doesn’t work is with a drill called the Tall Jerk. This drill isolates the “punch under” phase of the jerk and allows you to feel how your arms are supposed to move your body under the bar.
To perform the Tall Jerk, start with the bar on your front rack position with your jerk grip. Press the bar to about eye/forehead level, then quickly punch yourself under into your split position. There should be no assistance from your legs to elevate the bar, which means the kind of weight you can use for this exercise is inherently limited by how much you can shoulder press. Some coaches may program this intending for you to both press the bar to eye level and calf raise to the top of your extension, and while this may mirror the actual movement that should happen during the jerk, I’ve found it is more limiting than it is helpful.
Check out the demo video here!
Principle #2: Eliminate Horizontal Movement Of The Bar
Principle #2 is all about keeping the bar close.
Any time the barbell moves away from the center line, an imaginary vertical line that goes through the middle of your foot and up your body, the lift becomes less efficient. There will always be a certain amount of movement away from the center line, we are not lifting in a smith machine here, but the more there is, the higher the likelihood you have of failing the lift.
This is similar to the snatch or clean, in which you primarily use your arms to keep the bar close during the pull, but if you hit the bar away with your hips, you’re already fighting a losing battle.
In the jerk, the arms will guide the bar back to its final position, behind the head, BUT if you let the bar drift forward during the dip and drive phase of the lift, you’re in for a tough time.
The Dip
Most people, especially beginners, make the mistake of dipping forward in some way. This can be caused by a number of reasons such as…
Too Narrow Of A Stance
If your stance is too narrow, then you are more likely to shift your balance forward onto the ball of the foot. This can even happen if your toes are pointed too straight forward. A good rule of thumb is to place your heels about shoulder width and with your toes turned out to the same degree you have in your squat stance. Try out a few different stances to see what feels the best AND allows you to be upright in the bottom of the dip.
Too Deep Of A Dip
Dipping too low is less common, but still happens. If you dip too low you’ll find your balance will shift too far forward onto the ball of the foot. Seriously, try it out. Even without weight on your shoulders, you can feel yourself shift forward the moment you go too low where either your shoulders have to lean forward, or your balance shifts forward. Try pausing in your dip for a few warm-up sets, or adding extra dips into your sets before the jerk to work on this.
Collapsing In The Core
Collapsing core is SUPER common, either with beginners who don’t know how to brace or in more experienced lifters who are attempting PR lifts. In the dip, you need to be as upright as possible, but if your core collapses, your body turns into a “C-Shape” and your shoulders lean forward. If your shoulders lean forward, the bar moves forward, and if the bar moves forward, it keeps me up at night. Don’t keep me up at night. Stay tight.
Limited Front Rack Mobility
Poor front rack mobility is a huge killer for the jerk. If you struggle to maintain a full grip on the bar, keep your elbows in front of the bar, or get the bar far rough back into your throat, the bar will naturally be further forward. If the bar starts forward, it will continue to move forward. You can focus on technique all you want, but if your body won’t let you move correctly, you won’t. I highly recommend checking out this free mobility guide for more tips, but a good drill that might help is the underhand dead hang. Hanging from a pullup bar with an underhand grip gives you a good stretch in the lats as well as forces some external rotation of the shoulder, both of which are a necessity for a good rack position.
Check out the demo video here!
Sending The Hips Back Like A Squat
This issue is usually pretty easy to fix. As weightlifters, we do so much squatting that some of the habits we pick up end up in other lifts. For the jerk, if you send your hips back to initiate the dip, your shoulders will naturally lean forward. Instead initiate the jerk with your knees, not with your hips, and boom, problem solved.
Leaning Forward On The Ball Of The Foot
You can have your body in a straight line, but not perpendicular to the floor. Even in the rack position, I have seen lifters shift their whole body forward. Even just slightly, this moves the bar forward away from the imaginary midline, which breaks cardinal sin #2. Don’t be like this: /, be like this: |.
With each of these issues in the dip, one of the best variations I have found to fix the dip is to incorporate a pause into your dip. Check out the demo video here!
By pausing in the dip, you can quickly identify any of the issues listed above, have the time to correct them, and then perform the rest of the lift. This is such an effective tool that I teach it to every beginner in my free WL101: Beginner Guide + 6-Week Program. Check out the demo video here!
I’ve also found the Pause Jerk + Jerk Complex to be a great tool for fixing the issue and also applying this correction to a normal jerk.
The Drive
Issues in the drive causing the bar to move forward are less common than in the dip, but still happen.
If you have zero issues in your dip, the only error in your drive will be leaning forward onto the toes as you change direction at the bottom of the dip, causing your body to begin pushing forward like the start off the blocks in a sprint.
To fix this, focus on staying midfoot throughout the dip and drive, and not moving forward early in anticipation of getting under the bar. Often, if you drive forward are already trying to move the front foot out before you’ve finished your extension. If you focus instead on finishing the extension and waiting to move the front foot, you’ll be more upright.
The Arms
One other cause of the bar moving forward is a simple, but common error.
If you begin pressing with your arms too early (see principle #1), you might develop a bad habit of pressing the bar forward around your head, rather than moving your head out of the way of the bar.
Almost every lifter at one point or another has clocked their chin with the bar in a jerk or push press. However, don’t let this trick you into moving the bar around your head, instead move your head out of the way of the bar and let the arms guide the bar back behind the head.
Pro-Tip: If you lift your chin and look slightly up, then pull your head back you’re already most of the way there. Just moving your head out of the way slightly during the drive is all you need to ensure you don’t break principle #2.
Principle #3: The Bar Must Always Accelerate
Remember, the whole “an object in motion stays in motion” idea from high school science?
The same thing applies here. The weight is hardest to accelerate when it is at a dead stop. But as it starts to move, it becomes easier to make it move faster. At any point the barbell slows down after the lift starts and before it is over your head, then you will struggle to make heavy jerks happen.
The natural tempo of a jerk should be:
Dip → Slow
Drive → Faster
Transition to Split → Fastest
This does not mean you should try to move slowly on a heavy jerk. It means that with maximal weight, this IS the speed of the jerk. We just need to simulate the tempo of a maximal jerk with our lighter lifts too.
There are two main causes of the barbell slowing down in the jerk, dipping too suddenly, dipping too low, or not using your arms correctly.
Too Suddenly
A common mistake lifters make is initiating the dip too suddenly. When this happens the bar breaks slightly from your shoulders and stays rigid. Then, at the bottom of the dip, the bar will land on you, and as you are working hard to turn around and drive up, the bar starts to bend just as it lands on you. This makes the dip and drive much more difficult as you are not just trying to accelerate, but you are also trying to resist the downward movement of the bar!
Instead, think about initiating the dip smoothly, and keeping the bar in maximal contact with your shoulders and hands. On the way down, the bar will begin to bend as you reach the bottom. As you hit the bottom of the dip and begin driving up, the bar will then bend upward, taking the plates with it! This is much easier as the bar essentially lifts the weights itself and makes it much easier to lift heavier weights.
One way you can get a feel for this is to use a bamboo bar or a women's bar with the weights placed further out towards the end and practice some heavy jerk dips. You’ll immediately feel the bar bend, and if you’re not prepared for it, it will shock you how much harder it makes the lift feel if you time the dip incorrectly.
Too Deep
Dipping too low doesn’t just cause you to move forward.
If you dip too low, you’re likely searching for more power, but there are diminishing returns on dip height. Too low and you’ll have a harder time creating enough power out of the bottom of the dip. Think of it like a squat. Around halfway down there’s a sticking point, and once you break through it you can move much faster. You don’t even need to dip that low to experience the drop in speed. Instead, keep your dip tight and short, but powerful enough that you can still get plenty of drive. And if you feel like you’re not getting enough drive, you probably just need to get your legs stronger.
Hopefully, this clarified some things for you and maybe even gave you a lightbulb moment with your technique. If you ever need a free form check on your videos, you’re always welcome to join my free discord here and drop your video in the #form-checks channel.
By the way, I’ve got a free beginner weightlifting guide and a 6-week program! If you’re new to the olympic lifts, then check it out here!
And if you’re looking for a weightlifting program designed to help you set PRs, improve your technique, and get strong af, then check out a FREE WEEK TRIAL of my 3 & 5-Day OlyStrong Team at the link below!