Coach Your Clients to Fix these Common Snatch Flaws
Coach Your Clients to Fix these Common Snatch Flaws
I think training with Olympic weightlifting movements is at its most popular these days. Just like with anything else, the more exposure to…
I think training with Olympic weightlifting movements is at its most popular these days. Just like with anything else, the more exposure to the masses Olympic lifting gets, the more examples of the great and the terrible come to the surface. Poor execution of a lift is a problem of either never being taught the movement(outside of watching a YouTube video tutorial) or not being around a coach who want to teach you instead of just push you through a workout of the day.
It is our role as coaches to make sure we teach good techniques to the novice lifters and reinforce good techniques in more seasoned lifters. If you see a lift poorly executed we should be trying to make it better and coach our lifters away from anything that leads to more poor quality lifts.
I like the Snatch and wish I was still able to perform the lift. Unfortunately, I am not able to but that is another story altogether. Back on point, the snatch is a very impressive feat and, when done correctly looks as beautiful as Sloane from the Entourage. However, when it is done poorly it looks like garbage or Entourage’s Jonny Drama as Jonny Bananas.
Pulling with a Shitty Setup
If you are fairly new to Olympic lifting then the snatch is going to be one of the more difficult set up positions to get right. It doesn’t matter what weight you have on the bar because if you can’t get in to that set up position and be “comfortable” staying there. Just to get into a great setup you need significant Ankle dorsiflexion mobility, Hip Mobility and Thoracic Extension.
Don’t worry if you cant get into a setup position when it’s on the floor. The easiest way to still use the Snatch movement without being in bad positions is use a low block to start the bar a little higher off the floor. You would be surprised how much a few inches off the floor can you from bad position to great position. I know it might not be in line with what the rest of your class is doing but choosing to do raise the bar from the floor makes things better for you until you can learn a better set up from the floor.
Here is California Strength Doing some Snatches off Low Blocks. See, Look these are advanced lifters doing Snatches off Low Blocks as part of their training. So don’t be afraid to ask for some low blocks if your not comfy with your Snatch set up. If your coach sees you struggling to get into a bad set up and doesn’t try to help or suggest low blocks, it might be time to find a new gym/trainer.
Jerking The bar Off The Floor
Truth of the matter is that you can,t really perform a slow moving Snatch. It’s a pretty aggressive movement to get the bar from the floor to over your head and, sometimes that “need for speed” can create some weird looking movements. The one I see most often in any movement where the bar need to leave the floor is when someone pre-bends their arms and then aggressively straightens them out to start the movement or “jerk the bar”. All the right intentions are there in trying to move the weight fast but the execution is supported by some misguided thinking. For one, too much jumping around or moving before the lift can really take a lot of energy away from what you are really trying to do, get the weight overhead. Wasted energy at the beginning of the movement will carryover to the rest of the pull and cause a lot more misses then Personal Records. Lastly, that real overly aggressive start has the chance to cause some significant pains and aches around the head, neck, shoulders and back because you really don’t have the time to make sure everything is setup and ready to go for the lift. You don’t want to catch your muscles and joints “off guard” before a lift, you want them prepared and ready to fire.
Check out Dean Somerset give a quick and easy to understand demo of what it looks like to Jerk the bar off…the ground.
Letting the Bar Fly
Starting from the ground the bar should never be really far away from your body as you progress to the finished lifting position. If you bar does then you need to hammer away at some technique. This can happen for a variety of reasons but like the other mistakes this one also stems from the “Need for Speed” issue.
If this happens in your lift I suggest you start to work on some higher block pulls to hammer away at that hip pop and leg drive and then separately from the same high blocks try some snatch grip high pulls.
Check Out Will Fleming an awesome Coach in Olympic Lifting show you what he calls swinging the bar instead of pulling the bar.
The Catch and Recovery
To make it simple its called “a catch” because you are essentially throwing or jumping the weight up over your head and catching the bar with your arms extended over your head right. If you agree that is true then there are a few things you need to make sure happen with each lift your clients perform.
The major issue I often see with the catch is the athlete/client not being able to drop back under the bar( as the bar is travelling up) to get ready to catch. Believe it or not, you are not supposed to catch the snatch in a full standing position. Sure, the movement may end in a full standing position but the part where you catch it is not. It’s one of the easiest misunderstood part of the lift if you are not working with an experienced coach or trying to mimic a YouTube video of the Olympics. To put it in perspective you are never really pulling the bar or pushing it over your head, instead once the bar gets close to the top of your shoulders you actually want to drop underneath it; which is how the bar ends up over your head.
It is easy to misunderstand this part of the lift when using really light weights but, if the weight is heavier this becomes an immediate and noticeable flaw in your technique.
Check out this awesome slow motion Snatch as explained by the Team USA Olympic training Coach
The Starfish Landing
Some of the other common flaws aren’t that easy to spot if you are an outsider with limited knowledge to the performing and teaching the Snatch. The Starfish landing however will catch your attention in a split second as something that just doesn’t look correct. I have seen this in a wide spectrum of people who have either some or no training experience with the Olympic movements.
As you will see in the 1st video below your feet are allowed to spread apart a little bit when you catch the weight but, you want to to catch the weight in stance width that would be more similar to your Squatting stance and not too much wider. If you are having a hard time with this then you really take a step back and hammer away some good technique. If the weight is relatively light and you still do this then some work re-learning how to dip or drop underneath the bar will do you some good. Spreading the feet really wide for the catch is one of the ways to compensate for not dropping under he bar well enough. Will Fleming Suggests you teach yourself to catch your cleans in the low squat position every time.
Low Catch = No more starfish
It’s no coincidence that you never see the wide catch position at the Olympics or from high level lifters in general. It isn’t effective, and it certainly isn’t efficient.
The best cleaners don’t employ this technique on any lifts, even their power cleans.
The way to eliminate the star fish is to teach your athletes how to do what the best lifters do: catch low
When you spread the feet you get closer to the ground so you can “finish the lift” without really doing the work to finish it correctly. If you have been doing your Cleans and Snatches landing in a starfish then this might be a bit difficult and uncomfortable to switch. but you still need to. Once you fix this, the movement will feel so much more smooth and fluid like they always look when the Olympic athletes do them.
These are good examples of how to land
These…….are not
Originally published at fitletes.com
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