The Jerk - Part 1

Learning the Jerk: Before You Get Started

Grip placement

In the jerk, grip placement should be as wide as you can comfortably get it without compromising your connection to the bar, your balance, or the positioning of the back/core. This is why you’ll see some lifters (particularly taller ones for their weight class) with very wide grips.

Wider grips shorten the distance the bar needs to travel. As with the grip in the clean and the front squat, this will likely change with time - and you should always be trying to get a stronger position, a better grip on the bar, or better posture underneath the bar.

The dip and drive

The dip is a simple movement of the bar and body down, sharply but smoothly, to a small knee-and-hip-bend position. This should be a comfortable position with the body tight and active, with your weight in the mid-rear foot, and deliberately-strong upper body contact against the bar.

The dip is about bringing the hips down without unbalancing. This requires practice, and you’ll have to negotiate your balance with the bar, trying to stay upright in a short, dynamic dip so you can ‘bounce’ from this tightness and drive up through the bar.

The change of direction should be aggressive, through the midfoot, reversing the movement and completing the same full hip and knee extension. It’s worth practicing by itself and should focus on smoothness, tightness, and deliberate mid-foot balance.

Push press, power jerk, split jerk progression

Progressing from a press to a push press to a power jerk and then a split jerk is good practice. It helps you develop the right position and mechanics with a slow increase in complexity and challenge.

This lets you focus on maintaining proper upper body pressure on the bar as your lower body slowly adds more effort. This also gives you chance to work on the timing of the dip and drive as you go, building abetter sense of rhythm and develops sharper change of direction as you go.

Missing safely

As with other lifts, the simple rule of thumb is get out of the way. The bar usually takes the fastest route to the floor, which is straight down, so make sure you’re not there.

With the bar overhead, just jump forwards or backwards to get out - whichever is the shortest movement.

The foot stance

The split jerk is a balancing act, and it requires practicing your footwork. Take a hip-width stance - and keep your legs on this line - with your core tight and chest proud. From there take a comfortable step back into the ball of your rear foot - into a position you can hold for a while.

Make sure you don’t pull the hip back, just the foot and leg. Hips stay in one place, tight, and unmoving.

From here, keeping the rest of the body stable, step the front foot forward until the knee is directly above the heel. This should put your weight at roughly 50/50 with a slight forward bias (maybe 60/40). Hips low, chest tall, sitting down into the legs.

From here, you can add load as a bar on your back (back squat style), in the front rack, or overhead at arms’ length. Press from in front of or behind the neck can also help you practice the challenge of holding steady with weight in the split position. Record yourself and check back against this segment to see where you’re going wrong.

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