Hog and Hominy

Just landed in Nashville, Tennessee.  This is where it all began.  Outlaw training camps find their origin here in Murfreesboro, Tennessee outside of Nashville.  Our first camp ever was here for a bunch of guys who wanted to know if there were “doing everything wrong.”
I personally am excited to be in Tennessee for a lot of reasons.  Chief among those reasons is their vicinity to The Promised Land.  (Georgia)
While I was in flight from Dallas, I took a look at some of my clean work from Wednesday and wanted to show y’all the reason lifters must have a strong midline and upper back.  This video shows the comparison of a 138kg Clean and a 145kg Clean.
What you will notice is that I am currently struggling to keep my heels down long enough and finish the second pull.  However, the issue highlighted in these two cleans is my weak trunk.  You will notice in the 138kg clean I land in the bottom, stay firm in my trunk, bounce and stand with no rounding in the upper back and my glutes are engaged and active.  In the 145kg clean, you can see that I am not able to get all the height I want on the bar and as a result I pull under the bar much deeper in the squat.  Landing that deep in the squat with such a weak midline and upper back causes some serious problems.  You can plainly see that my midline caves as I absorb the weight and as a result my upper back rounds.  In my gym we call this the “turtle” for two reasons.  Primarily, my rounded upper back looks like a turtle shell and more importantly my rounded upper back prevents my glutes from doing their job.  With inactive glutes I lose a lot of explosiveness out of the bottom and stand up at an excruciatingly slow speed.  Like a turtle.  The stand up takes a lot out of energy and prevents maximum capability in the jerk.

Lessons to be learned:
1- Finish the second pull maintaining downward pressure through the foot as long as possible before extending into triple extension.
2- It is imperative to work midline and back exercises regularly to create a strong trunk and upper back.  Especially if you have a particularly long, weak torso.
3- You need your glutes.  Inactive glutes in the front squat create too much time under tension and will turn a PR clean into 3 red lights.
Midline Stability Clean Analysis (Yes there is no sound… that’s because I did this on an airplane)