Jerk Drive: The Best Exercise To Improve Your Jerk Strength
The jerk has an interesting disadvantage that the snatch and clean do not.
If you want to improve your clean, you can front squat more. If you can front squat more than you clean, it makes the clean feel easier. If you can front squat a lot more than you clean, it makes the clean feel a lot easier.
If you want to improve your snatch, you can work on overhead squats, and if you can overhead squat more than you snatch, you’ll be more likely to increase your snatch.
And for both of these, you can do heavy snatch and clean pulls to strengthen your back and legs to help you get under it.
But for the jerk, there’s no such exercise. Sure, there’s the jerk recovery, though that’s not a true strength exercise as it doesn't take any muscle or joining through a full range of motion to get stronger.
There is one exercise that is as close as you can get though, the jerk drive.
What Is The Jerk Drive?
The Jerk Drive is an Overload Variation that allows the lifter to practice the dip and drive, and potentially strengthen the core and upper back, for the jerk.
As most lifters' biggest technique breakdown in the jerk happens during the dip and drive, the jerk drive allows you to isolate and strengthen this specific phase of the jerk.
How To Perform The Jerk Drive
To perform the jerk drive, start with the bar on your front rack position with your jerk grip and elbow position. Take a big breath in and brace your core, then, as if you were to perform a jerk, bend your knees to initiate the dip, then drive up as hard as possible with the legs, keeping your hands connected with the bar. However, instead of getting under the bar, re-rack the bar onto your shoulders.
Make sure to perform these exactly as you would for a jerk, keeping your torso completely upright, core braced, and mirror the exact dip height that you normally train.
How To Implement The Jerk Drive In Your Olympic Weightlifting Program
The Jerk Drive can be used in a few different ways.
The first option could be as a variation complex. By performing the jerk drive or jerk dip for one to two reps before a jerk, you can get more practice with perfecting the dip and drive technique before executing the jerk with this ideal technique. This works best with lighter percentages for technique work, usually for 4-6 sets of the complex between 65-80%.
Another way to use the jerk drive is as an overload variation to help prepare your body and mind to feel how a jerk might feel with a weight that is heavier than what you can currently jerk. This will help strengthen your core and upper back to be able to maintain perfect dip positions, and potentially even strengthen your drive speed as you know you won’t have to get under it, so you are more likely to drive it as hard as possible. To do this, you may need to do two to four sets of one to three reps after jerks or clean and jerk, at 5-10% heavier than your heaviest jerk for the day.
One more way is to treat it similar to a normal strength-building exercise, with a moderately heavy weight for moderate rep ranges. Something like 3-5 sets of 3-5 reps with 85-95% of your best jerk could be very useful for building core and back strength for the jerk, as well as the confidence to know you can get the bar high enough.
Hopefully, this helped! 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.
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