Hey guys,
I saw this post a while back and decided to give it a go - it's a lot of fun. I've been cleaning before each set of presses like Grouchy.
So here is a question: how do you guys transition from the front rack position after cleaning, to the bottom position of the press?
After cleaning, the bar is on my delts, in my fingertips. Elbows are right up. However, at the bottom of the press, the bar needs to be in the hands, elbows down and tucked, lats flared etc.
How do you get from A to B?
I tried tracking down some vids of the movement to see what techniques were used back in the day. Seems that there was a lot of variation, but two approaches emerge:
1. Clean the bar straight into the bottom of the press rather than front rack:
https://youtu.be/g9ubAQfYcWQ?t=24s
2. Clean it into front rack, stand up, and then adjust the grip / 'ride the bounce' before pressing:
https://youtu.be/Nx1ytBh6kgU?t=5m54s
I can't quite nail either of these. The first one is fine if the weight is light enough to just power clean, because you can almost curl it into place. But I can't front squat with elbows down like that (I notice Doug Hepburn gets around this by catching the bar in a split stance). The second just feels very clunky and jars my wrists. Probably overthinking this, but interested in your thoughts!
My temporary solution is to just clean and jerk, which puts the bar in my hands nicely, then lower it and do my presses. So each set is 1 x C&J + the presses. The extra explosive movement before the set is a lot of fun, (and as an aside it's sent my punching power through the roof), but it does take some juice out of the tank before the presses so I'm not sure how sustainable it is.