Split Jerk
Trains the Quads.
- Equipment
- A barbell
- Mechanic
- Compound
- Force
- Push
- Level
- Intermediate
How to do it
- Take a barbell on the front of your shoulders, elbows in front, feet under your hips.
- Dip a few inches by bending the knees with the torso upright.
- Drive up hard through the legs and send the bar off the shoulders.
- Split the feet — one forward, one back — while punching the arms straight overhead.
- Catch the bar locked out with the front shin vertical and the back knee soft.
- Recover by stepping the front foot back, then the rear foot forward, and stand tall.
Common mistakes
- Dipping by leaning forward. The dip is a short vertical drop; a forward lean sends the bar away from the body and the jerk has to travel around the head.
- Splitting too shallow. A short split leaves you barely lower than you started, which defeats the purpose — the split is how you get under a bar you could not press.
- Recovering the front foot and the back foot at the same time. Front first, then back; doing both at once is how the bar gets lost sideways.
- Landing with the front knee ahead of the toes. The front shin finishes vertical, and a knee travelling forward means the split was too short or the dip too deep.