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Since I injured my back doing hang powersnatches with an empty barbell (same symptoms came back - high buttock pain (probably piriformis) and pain in that area while bending down as in a standing hamstring stretch and lightning bolts through the back etc) - but probably was about to happen before that but nevertheless - it happened during the hang powersnatch.

ANYWAY

The question was - if you tend to use the lower back while o-lifting, what can you do to use more glute and get the spinal erectors out of the equation? (except not arching that much)

Yup, I am. And whatever happens (maybe more piriformis gets used in a movement he has no business with) is happening again and again and traps the sciatic nerve underneath it. Apparently, for some people, the sciatic nerve actually GOES THROUGH the piriformis and if the piriformis hypertrophies it can trap the nerve and cause all kinds of problems.

@steven-miller: surely you have seen countless people in the gym doing dead lifts, power cleans and power snatches that are really more like standing back extensions, sometimes with a flourish (the latter two). maybe i've got a biased sample because i go to a crossfit-happy gym and some of the form there is just, well, it's just awful.

of course your low back muscles can't extend your hips, but they sure can take your upper body from parallel to the ground to perpendicular.

Yes, but that does not happen if you start with your spine in lumbar and thoracic extension and keep it that way. That is the case sometimes and people still think they are lifting "with their back" whenever their torso is not completely vertical to the floor. Raptor keeps bringing this up and phrasing it in a way that suggests that he thinks the muscles of the lumbar spine can hip extend, something that many people actually believe.

of course your low back muscles can't extend your hips, but they sure can take your upper body from parallel to the ground to perpendicular.

How do you call that? "Hip parallel-to-perpendicular-extension"? Or just good ol' plain "hip extension"?

Because that's what I'm doing whenever I PC or PS. I just do what I usually do in a deadlift, I don't really hip extend because, frankly, I think my ultra-stiff hip flexors stop this from happening.

By the way, discovered something else:

If I point my feet A LOT to the sides then I can bend forward without much pain if at all in the buttock. If I have my feet oriented forward, then the pain is pretty severe at the top of my left buttock. I think this is consistent with the piriformis syndrome.

Now this is something to keep in mind while squatting - it appears that if I have a narrow stance and the feet are not oriented to the sides at least a for a bit (or more) then bad things will happen. I'm writing this because other people might experience the same thing and they didn't discovered it.

PS. And seriously, that's a back extension.