Knee bend in the press

[Wilhelm]

I barely know how to ask this question.
I'm just glad ohp isn't a comp lift for me.
I gave up on 2.0 because i would just kick the bar forward, and it all just seemed too complicated.
Still opertating pretty much on my own (pre Exodus wonderfulness) i just said screw it.

This is where i ended up though, with hips forward just to clear a path for the bar.
No funky kick motion. I set the vid to the specific point for this - i think 2:46 shows it in motion.
The cover pic is him exaggerating to show how not to do, btw.

But i see (some) people saying no lean back at all.
How does that reconcile with a bar path that doesn't get out in front?

Hopefully this thread will work for this tangent.

[mgil]

The bar has to clear the head. Alan’s video is pretty good.

[Wilhelm]

The bar has to clear the head. Alan’s video is pretty good.

That's good to hear. I wasn't looking forward to "fixing" this again.
Thanks, @mgil

[KyleSchuant]

This is where i ended up though, with hips forward just to clear a path for the bar.

This is how I teach it now.

Press 1.0 had you "rest" at the top, and the bar went straight down and straight up, like a touch and go bench.
Press 2.0 had you snap your hips to provide impetus to the bar, effectively turning the press into a quick lift like the clean or snatch.
Press 3.0... I dunno what the fuck they're doing there, basically a layback jerk. Shenanigans.

I did press 2.0 for two years after the seminar. It supposedly is superior because it uses more muscle mass, ie the hips. By that reasoning we should use our arms in clean and snatch. You have to draw the line somewhere.

So now for me it's dead stop for each rep, with just enough hip hyperextension to get the head out of the way. Press and shrug and shove your head forward in the hole made by your arms, stand tall and the hips come straight again. When you lower the bar you'll want to hyperextend your lower back, try not to, but if you do, just straighten it up again before the next rep.

And don't bend your fucking knees, this isn't a push press or a jerk, it's a press.

If someone asks me to teach them Press 2.0 I do so, but it's not the default.

[Wilhelm]

Thanks, @KyleSchuant
I never bend my knees.
But i suppose when i get back to ohp after my Feb. meet, i'll have to dispense w/ my tng approach to not get called out.

[ChasingCurls69]

This is where i ended up though, with hips forward just to clear a path for the bar.

This is how I teach it now.

Press 1.0 had you "rest" at the top, and the bar went straight down and straight up, like a touch and go bench.
Press 2.0 had you snap your hips to provide impetus to the bar, effectively turning the press into a quick lift like the clean or snatch.
Press 3.0... I dunno what the fuck they're doing there, basically a layback jerk. Shenanigans.

I did press 2.0 for two years after the seminar. It supposedly is superior because it uses more muscle mass, ie the hips. By that reasoning we should use our arms in clean and snatch. You have to draw the line somewhere.

So now for me it's dead stop for each rep, with just enough hip hyperextension to get the head out of the way. Press and shrug and shove your head forward in the hole made by your arms, stand tall and the hips come straight again. When you lower the bar you'll want to hyperextend your lower back, try not to, but if you do, just straighten it up again before the next rep.

And don't bend your fucking knees, this isn't a push press or a jerk, it's a press.

If someone asks me to teach them Press 2.0 I do so, but it's not the default.

Does using the arms in the snatch or a clean let you snatch or clean more weight? That's a pretty important distinction to make.

[KyleSchuant]

Does using the arms in the snatch or a clean let you snatch or clean more weight? That's a pretty important distinction to make.

Yes, of course. More in the clean than the snatch, because the snatch has a wider grip, making it harder to bend your arms. But it's still there. The prime mover is the hips, but the arms do make a contribution.

The newbie mistake is to try to make the arms the prime mover and the hips assist. Which is why they pound out "no arms" in SS, which is dealing with newbies. It's like telling the guy squatting on his toes to go through his heels; you actually want him through midfoot, but saying that won't work, so you overcorrect.

Telling them not to use their arms will also, I think, be a reaction to the way the lifts are usually taught by weightlifting coaches. I've been through it, both back in the 90s and in 2012 - they teach the lift in parts, slowly. For example, they have you stand there with the barbell at the hips, then shrug your shoulders and raise your elbows as you go onto your toes, so that the bar comes a few inches up. The following session they have you do it fast and then ask you why you're pulling with your arms. That is, they have you practice the movement slowly pulling with your arms, then have you do it quickly and ask why you're pulling with your arms.

Since Rip has spoken so disdainfully of weightlifting coaches, including the one who worked in his gym for some years and got SS seminars rolling with him, I wouldn't be surprised if his teaching method was deliberately the opposite of whatever they did.

When thinking about the technique of the quick lifts, a good place to look is the hookgrip youtube channel, as they have videos of the lifts performed by competitors, and slow motion, including sometimes side-by-sides of different attempts, so you can see how different lifter proportions affect things, how things change between different weights, and so on.

[ChasingCurls69]

I've never seen that teaching progression, which doesn't sound particularly effective for the reason you pointed out, nor have I seen a clean or a snatch improved by someone purposely pulling with the arms after the hip+knee extension. It usually tends to slow down the transition to the rack position to the point where it's not worth the trade off of adding whatever you can upright row to what you can move with your hips+knees. Some guys on hookgrip have an early arm bend which at best might put them in a better position for the hip+knee extension.

Rip's teaching method is surprisingly similar to everyone else worth listening to outside of the start position.

[KyleSchuant]

I am not saying that an arm pull should be taught in clean and snatch. I am saying that:

1. if you accept the criterion of "most muscle mass" to determine how an exercise should be done
2. and if you argue that for this reason the hips should be used in the press, then
3. by the same reasoning, you should teach an arm pull in clean and snatch.

Since SS does #1 & #2, but not #3, it's contradicting itself.

The least you can expect of anyone is that they follow their own reasoning to its logical conclusion, and if they don't like the conclusion, change the reasoning.

This is a separate issue to the double layback in the press 3.0, since in that case you are lowering your trunk so you can extend your elbows; this makes the press 3.0 a jerk, not a press, and means you are using less muscle mass, since the arms are supporting the weight in the second half of the lift, not moving the weight. So the press 3.0 contradicts the first criterion entirely.

[ChasingCurls69]

There are 3 criteria and you are deciding to trade one for the other while ignoring that fact. If using "more muscle mass" makes the lift use less weight because it's inefficient, which does not happen in any other lift, why would that be the case in the snatch or the clean?

[Murelli]

Probably because he can put the bar on his chest if he puts the bar on that position. A greatly more efficient start position is worth a little inefficiency in the wrists.

Thanks, this makes sense.

With bar in the palm, I can start with it touching my clavicle, but with a "compression grip" I have a weird "floating rack." So your comment explains why I feel better with the former (more vertical bar path).

Now I'm thinking I need to switch up my bench grip, since I don't think there's any advantage to having the bar in the palm there and I'm being inefficient for nothing...

Bench starts from the top and does not rest on the chest as Jordan's press does, so I would keep a bulldog grip for the bench (as Jordan does).

[chrisd]

This is a separate issue to the double layback in the press 3.0, since in that case you are lowering your trunk so you can extend your elbows; this makes the press 3.0 a jerk, not a press, and means you are using less muscle mass, since the arms are supporting the weight in the second half of the lift, not moving the weight. So the press 3.0 contradicts the first criterion entirely.

Well, the quads are larger than the triceps (usually) so you are using a larger muscle mass when you blatantly bend your knees and then straighten them again.

[Murelli]

This is a separate issue to the double layback in the press 3.0, since in that case you are lowering your trunk so you can extend your elbows; this makes the press 3.0 a jerk, not a press, and means you are using less muscle mass, since the arms are supporting the weight in the second half of the lift, not moving the weight. So the press 3.0 contradicts the first criterion entirely.

Well, the quads are larger than the triceps (usually) so you are using a larger muscle mass when you blatantly bend your knees and then straighten them again.

But you cut the useful range of motion of some of the main "pressing" muscles.

[chrisd]

This is a separate issue to the double layback in the press 3.0, since in that case you are lowering your trunk so you can extend your elbows; this makes the press 3.0 a jerk, not a press, and means you are using less muscle mass, since the arms are supporting the weight in the second half of the lift, not moving the weight. So the press 3.0 contradicts the first criterion entirely.

Well, the quads are larger than the triceps (usually) so you are using a larger muscle mass when you blatantly bend your knees and then straighten them again.

But you cut the useful range of motion of some of the main "pressing" muscles.

This is useful if you are a cheating twerp who can't press like a proper manly man.

[Murelli]

This is a separate issue to the double layback in the press 3.0, since in that case you are lowering your trunk so you can extend your elbows; this makes the press 3.0 a jerk, not a press, and means you are using less muscle mass, since the arms are supporting the weight in the second half of the lift, not moving the weight. So the press 3.0 contradicts the first criterion entirely.

Well, the quads are larger than the triceps (usually) so you are using a larger muscle mass when you blatantly bend your knees and then straighten them again.

But you cut the useful range of motion of some of the main "pressing" muscles.

This is useful if you are a cheating twerp who can't press like a proper manly man.

I'd rather push press like a strong-beautiful-man, since I'm explosive like TNT.