My New Play Toys

I am officially tired, but it's a good tired. I took the self critiques and the video seriously last night. There are three things I did. First, I really listened to the Olylifter I met yesterday. This reinforces why I keep saying, I need a coach. The one thing he said that resonated with me was hips and legs. That's where a great deal of power is located. The second thing I did was consult my text by Everett on Oly Lifting. In that book I confirmed what I already suspected. My back is to be straight from the time I get the barbell off the ground to when I begin what is called the second pull. In short I am lifting with the legs exclusively, not the back. The only time the back is in play is at stage three of the pull. From there I go into the receiving phase where I will catch the bar on my shoulders or the lats of my back in the snatch. Last, I watched videos. Lots of Oly lifting videos. I'm more of a visual learner so by comparing my videos to others, I was really able to see the mechanical differences in my lifts.
So what did I do, well at 10:00 I went back to the gym to see if these new techniques (playtoys) would work. My cleans went up to 175 while I dropped 10 pounds on my snatches. Mind you I was and still am pretty tired because I got little sleep last night. This could be attributed to me being so psyched and amped. Lastly, I improved on my box jump. I think I am at 48 inches. Now, I am going to probably take a day or two to rest because I know I am going to be tired.