Today I want to talk about the three most prevalent problems that coaches see in the snatch. Those being hips rising too fast in the beginning, pulling too early with our arms, and poor hip extension.
Problem 1: Our hips rise too fast
Even with a beautiful setup, if the hips shoot up before they should it causes issues. What happens is it pushes all my weight forward and the bar ends up too far away from me. A great cue that we can use to correct this movement is to not think about first pull as a pull, but to think about it as a push off the ground using our legs to drive the bar.
If instead of pulling off the ground, I think about pushing with my legs I’m more likely to keep my hips down and chest up. Doing this will create the excellent vertical position that we are looking to achieve so the bar can stay close. A drill that we like to use frequently to correct this movement is a pause at the knee. When I pause at the knee and focus on pushing with my legs I end up keeping those hips down and while my chest stays up.
This brings me to our second issue.
Problem 2: An early pull
Once the bar is at the knees, people are eager to pull it overhead. An early pull at the knees can cause two issues. Shifting the weight back leads to losing the bar behind you or you end up thrusting that bar forward and losing the lift out front. So what we want to focus on doing is once I’m at the knee, stay over the bar and keep pushing with my legs. We want to load up the hamstrings and get that stretch reflex.
Something we can do to work fixing an early pull would be a tempo snatch deadlift where we focusing on getting those knees out of the way. Now instead of getting behind the bar, we’re staying over the bar. It’s essential that we remain over that bar AND maintain tension in the hamstrings.
Problem 3: Lack of hip extension
When we get to the part where it time to extend those hips, send that bar overhead, I see a lot of people who will send their hips out. If you bring your hips to the bar, you try to drive a horizontal force, which is going to send the bar way upfront as opposed to sending it straight up.
So what we want to think about doing is staying over the bar, but I want to bring my knees back through, sink my hips down a little bit. So then I can find that good power position, extend those hips, and extend those knees aggressively at the same time. That’s going to send that bar straight up.
A good drill that we can use to work on hip extension would be a power position snap or very high hip snap because I want to make sure that I’m getting right in that hip crease. Again, still over the bar, and I’m ready to drive upward. Finish with a very aggressive start. That’s going to help me stay over the bar and continue to push with my legs.
I hope these tips were helpful. If you have any questions email me a joelittle@massstrengthandconditioning.com.
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P.S. If you want to work on some of these solutions check out my Oly Tune Up! workshop on the 7th.
