The Jerk

    Posted In: Strength & Conditioning

        • Participant
          bman on June 5, 2011 at 2:28 pm #17574

          Watching the Pre Classic today I heard Jesse Williams say during an interview that his three main lifts were the clean, snatch, and jerk. He said that if he was strong in those 3 lifts he knew he would be able to carry his speed through his approach.

          Obviously the former 2 are used a lot, but the latter not as much, or at least not as well publicized. Hearing Williams’ comments made me wonder under what circumstances you guys use this exercise.

          I like to use the standing barbell overhead press for starting strength, and it seems like the jerk would follow logically as a progression from that exercise. What say you?

        • Participant
          Matt Norquist on June 6, 2011 at 5:07 am #108487

          I’m a huge fan of progressing Overhead Press to a Push Press to Jerk Press to a full jerk. Great full body movement, good indicator of overall strength, feels (to me) less demanding than power cleans, etc. You can also do split jerk and various catch positions to emphasize different things.

          If I had to pick only one exercise to do I would be variants of the clean and jerk.

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