What To Do If You Clean and Jerk Separately More Than You Can Put Together

If you can clean a huge weight and consistently hit a big jerk from the rack, but when it's time to put the two together, it’s just not there, then you might need to focus on making jerks under fatigue. There are many ways to do this, but my favorite is the 2 cleans + 1 Jerk Complex.

This will force you to build some fatigue in the legs before attempting the jerk, much like you would feel with a heavy clean and jerk attempt. I recommend using this variation both as a volume and technique accumulation exercise with lighter percentages for multiple sets, as well a heavy variation that could be pushed for PR’s in.

Some other variations you can use for similar benefits are:

1 Clean+1FS+1 Jerk: Good for athletes with consistent clean technique but need practice with jerks under fatigue. Also good for longer torso lifters where additional pulling may add unnecessary stress on the back.

FS+Jerk: If you still wish to train the jerk separately from the clean and jerk, you can do a front squat or two or three before doing your jerk from the rack to get a similar feeling to the fatigue of a heavy clean. This can also be an efficient time saver for those whose clean and jerk is very close to their front squat max, as it may allow you to conserve time in your program by not needing to separate the two exercises.

1 Clean+2 Jerks: Great for those who do not have consistent jerk technique as it allows for more practice. Along with that, you’ll get more feedback from the first jerk to make changes on the second jerk, all while still practicing jerks under fatigue which can have incredible results when it comes to testing the clean and jerk.

Hopefully, this helped! Feel free to give this a try and tag me in your video @bigbendstrength! 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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