Front Foot Landing First in the Split Jerk
Here are the three main reasons your front foot is hitting first in your split jerks and how to fix them:
Your balance is shifting forward:
Whether it’s in the dip, the drive or just the arm push, any forward motion will make it more likely for the front foot to land first.
You have a weak or short drive:
If you don’t get the bar up enough, your body will tend to push the hips back and lean the chest forward to try to squeeze under it, which will make the front foot hit early and short.
You’re diving your chest forward too much too soon:
Leaning the chest forward excessively while you’re splitting will move the hips back, meaning the front leg can’t reach as far forward, and is being pushed down to the floor sooner.
Use the jerk balance to feel how to split by reaching the front foot rather than leaning the upper body.
Use the jerk behind the neck alone or in a complex with a jerk to practice keeping the ideal trunk angle and overhead position as you push under into the split.
And do a push press or power jerk + split jerk complex to work on a more powerful and complete drive along with balance and bar path off the shoulders.
Remember that even though we want the back foot on the floor first, it shouldn’t be significantly earlier—typically in real time it should look and feel like the feet reconnect at the same time, but in slow motion, it should be apparent the back foot is very slightly first.
And there is no problem with the feet actually hitting exactly at the same time IF everything else is good, ie balance and position under the bar.
The front foot hitting first both indicates problems with the lift, and creates additional problems itself.
There are a few more possible causes for this, such as lifting and/or reaching the back foot excessively, or a weak split position, but 90% of the problem is covered by one or more of the three shown in this video.
Your balance is shifting forward:
Whether it’s in the dip, the drive or just the arm push, any forward motion will make it more likely for the front foot to land first.
You have a weak or short drive:
If you don’t get the bar up enough, your body will tend to push the hips back and lean the chest forward to try to squeeze under it, which will make the front foot hit early and short.
You’re diving your chest forward too much too soon:
Leaning the chest forward excessively while you’re splitting will move the hips back, meaning the front leg can’t reach as far forward, and is being pushed down to the floor sooner.
Use the jerk balance to feel how to split by reaching the front foot rather than leaning the upper body.
Use the jerk behind the neck alone or in a complex with a jerk to practice keeping the ideal trunk angle and overhead position as you push under into the split.
And do a push press or power jerk + split jerk complex to work on a more powerful and complete drive along with balance and bar path off the shoulders.
Remember that even though we want the back foot on the floor first, it shouldn’t be significantly earlier—typically in real time it should look and feel like the feet reconnect at the same time, but in slow motion, it should be apparent the back foot is very slightly first.
And there is no problem with the feet actually hitting exactly at the same time IF everything else is good, ie balance and position under the bar.
The front foot hitting first both indicates problems with the lift, and creates additional problems itself.
There are a few more possible causes for this, such as lifting and/or reaching the back foot excessively, or a weak split position, but 90% of the problem is covered by one or more of the three shown in this video.
