Strongman catches a bad rap sometimes for being perceived as less elegant than other strength sports like powerlifting or, particularly, weightlifting. While any dedicated fan will tell you that’s not true, a good athlete isn’t afraid to borrow from other disciplines to strengthen their own performance. That’s what Mitchell Hooper appears to be doing.
In a Dec. 18 YouTube training vlog, the 2023 World’s Strongest Man (WSM) winner got out of his comfort zone by practicing the split jerk for the first time. Split jerks are essential for success in Olympic lifting, and for good reason — they enable athletes to secure impossibly heavy weights overhead without relying on upper body strength.
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Mitchell Hooper | A Strongman’s Split Jerk
“I want [the split jerk] to be a skill that I can use if I need to,” Hooper says at the onset of the video. He remarks that he has little to no experience with the movement proper. For strongman competitors, a good overhead game is essential. However, strongmen habitually work with much more diverse (and cumbersome) equipment than Olympic lifters who are hook-gripped to their 28-millimeter barbell from start to finish.
As such, you won’t commonly see strongmen perform weightlifting-valid split jerks during competitions if they aren’t 2020 WSM champion Oleksii Novikov or 2023 Europe’s Strongest Man Pavlo Kordiyaka. Hooper sees the value in diversifying his skillset:
“It’s much more explosive and balance-oriented … the objective is to get your center of mass down and under the bar, which starts in front of where you want it to finish. But it’s all just theory; until you get under the bar for yourself, you really don’t know.”
Hooper quickly switched from practicing split jerks out of a squat rack to lifting off of blocks. Weightlifters (and strongmen) use high blocks because they don’t require you to catch and replace the barbell between reps. After a few warm-ups, Hooper got into his workout:
- Split Jerk: 1 x 1, EMOM* until failure.
*EMOM refers to “every minute on the minute” sets with only 60 seconds of rest.
It’s much more explosive and balance-oriented.
Hooper finished with nine single reps in the split jerk at 180 kilograms, or 396.8 pounds, before moving on due to mounting fatigue: “My wrists are starting to cop it a bit; the overhead extended position isn’t something I’m used to,” he noted while tightening his wrist wraps before his final set. After wrapping up the jerks, Hooper moved on to the rest of his accessory training:
- Incline Close-Grip Bench Press: 3 x 8-10
- Pec Deck: 4 x 8-12
- Triceps Pressdown: 3 x 10-20
Hooper explained how each movement is relevant to his sport-specific demands. For example, the motion of the pec deck, despite being an isolation exercise used by bodybuilders for the chest, can be quite similar to how a strongman grabs ahold of an Atlas stone. Strongman competitors work with a wide array of equipment — Hooper isn’t afraid to switch up his off-season training accordingly.
How To Do the Split Jerk
You don’t need to be a pro strongman (or full-time weightlifter) to want to send heavy weights soaring overhead. Here’s how to do the split jerk — if you’re a visual learner, check out this tutorial from Olympic lifting coach and BarBend Expert Zack Telander:
- Stand upright with your feet under your hips and a barbell held in the front rack position.
- Inhale, brace your core, lift your chin, and relax your grip on the bar.
- Dip down by breaking at the knees and lowering yourself into a high partial squat, similar to how you’d prepare for a vertical jump. Keep your torso upright and your elbows high.
- Reverse the motion and forcefully push your legs into the floor to extend your ankles, knees, and hips.
- As you extend, tilt your head backward out of the way to allow the bar to fly up and behind your head.
- As the bar leaves your shoulders, rapidly split your feet, planting your dominant leg in front of you and pushing your back foot behind you. Land your back leg with your heel up, like a kickstand for a bicycle.
- At the same moment as your feet make contact with the floor, extend your elbows to secure the bar over your head.
- Pause in the split position momentarily to stabilize yourself if needed, then recover by pushing your front foot backward first, then bringing your rear foot up.
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Featured Image: Mitchell Hooper on YouTube
