There have been some great workouts already and I am sure many will agree, the workouts this year are very much within what CrossFit should be. After the first workout, and for those who forgot (how that is even possible I am not sure) we saw descending reps of burpees paired with ascending weight of the Olympic Snatch. A gymnastics movement to gas you, and a weightlifting movement to test your strength, power and speed. It does not get much more CrossFit than that. For the most part in this WOD the limiting factor for all were the snatches, in particular the ability to move the weight from the ground and even more evident was receiving the weight overhead and standing the bar! What followed was a steady stream of "I really need to work on my snatching, I just couldn't get the weight up" or "I really need to work on my snatching, I just couldn't get under that bar and stand it up". However for most people they are focusing in on the wrong corner of the picture; they are right that they need to work on some things, yet for the majority of individuals they should be looking at the basic movement patterns first before saying that they need to work on the complex movement patterns. So here is what I mean by all this.
I do not want this post to turn into a "how to" of Olympic Weightlifting as all lifters have an individual way of lifting, however there are common characteristics of the lift that you will see across all proficient lifters, whether you use triple extension in your lift, or more of a catapult style of lift, or if you are Jon North and use a 'superman pull' there will still be the same characteristics of movement even if the specifics are different. So to do this I am going to break the movement into the first and second pull, or pulling the weight from the ground to a fully extended position (hips and knees fully extended, body open, the microsecond before receiving the bar), and the third pull which is pulling under to receive the bar and the subsequent standing up to finish the lift.
So for those who made the comment after the workout, "Man, I really need to work on getting the weight up when I snatch, I just can't get the bar high enough" (it is ok you can admit it, we have all been there), this section is for you.
If you think that you need to work on snatching in order to get the bar higher I want you to ask yourself this question first; what does your deadlift look like? And I ask this because majority of the time after an athlete in the gym attempts a snatch and comes out with that line the problem isn't the 'snatch' as a movement but how they pull the weight off the ground which brings in the first list of common faults. Most commonly as a coach you will see the following either single fault or multiple faults:
- A soft rounded back on the set up
- Initiating the pull with the hips below the knees and shoulder behind the line of the bar
- The knees not pulling back to clear a path for the bar
- Weight not staying back in the heels
- The knees pulling back, but the shoulders staying down (hips and shoulders not rising together)
- Getting to the front of the knee's and pushing knees forward to get the torso vertical
- This shifts the weight forward into the toes and usually prevents the use of the strong and powerful posterior chain to finish the movement
- As a coach you would normally see the athlete try bounce the bar off the mid quad through this motion, pushing the bar forward of its vertical line
- A soft rounded back throughout the first and second pull
So how many of those things do you do when you attempt a snatch? and be honest here, this is a safe place. What to take away from this is that these are also the common faults for the deadlift. So when these things are constantly going wrong in the worlds fastest lift when you have so many other things to worry about, namely receiving the bar, the snatch itself is not the movement to fix your issues in the first and second pull; just keep it simple and deadlift!
Look at working your dead lift perfectly! Using a snatch grip or clean grip (talking hand width on the bar) it wont matter as you want to get used to pulling perfectly and consistently from the ground where the following points of performance are met:
- Back is in a neutral posture, with all the muscles of the back, abdominal's, obliques and the rest of the core muscles engaged and super ridged (Otherwise known as a strong mid line)
- Setting up with weight mostly in the heels with feet under hips, hips higher than the knee, shoulder slightly over the bar
- Movement is initiated by the knees pulling back at the same time that the hips and shoulders rise together.
- The angle of the back relative to the ground remains unchanged initially as the bar begins to rise
- This will ensure you are using your hamstrings to begin the lift, and the knees clear a path for the bar to rise vertically
- Once the bar passes the knees, the shins now stay vertical and the glutes (your butt) is engaged to extend the hip open and you finish standing
Get your dead lift right with heavy weight and you will be able to snatch the weight, so just go work on a perfect dead lift and we will then talk about how you do with getting the bar up on your snatch
If you were on the other side of the coin and you struggle to receive the bar, then this part is for you. I won't talking about how you go standing the bar up as if you receive in the right body position with the right muscles activated then all the hard work is done and standing is the easy part, so lets talk about what happens in the receive..
But I am not actually going to talk receiving, I am not even going to talk overhead squatting, I am going to talk just squatting. Taking the common squat faults, if any of these are seen in your squat than the likely hood of receiving and standing a heavy snatch are slim to none. so typical faults are this:
- Complete loss of lumbar curve at the bottom of a squat
- Knees collapsing in at the bottom of a squat
- Weight shifting into the toes at the bottom of the squat, or at any point of the squat really
- Knees not pushing out during the squat
- Musculature of the back and rest of the mid line not engaged throughout the squat
- Excessive forward inclination of the chest during the squat (this one plays specifically to receiving overhead)
Yes there are limitations in terms of shoulder range of motion when trying to receive the bar which could be your limiting factor despite an otherwise good squat position, and yes it is possible to receive a snatch if one or several of these faults are present, you will however risk shoulder and back injury and ultimately be limited by the amount of weight you can snatch.
If we look at the position needed to receive a maximum weight snatch (see below), and this is an exceptionally good representation of the receive position so I don't expect everyone to be able to receive this way however we should know what we are striving for. We can see that his butt is slightly behind his heel line, almost between his heels, the knees are pushed out to the side and are not forward of his toe line, his lumbar curve is maintained, arm pits are forward and pressing up into the bar to turn on all the musculature of the shoulders and there is a near vertical torso angle, with the bar directly over his feet.
So the final take away is this. The Olympic lifts are greater than the sum of their separate parts, meaning that a weak deadlift or weak squat is going to dramatically hinder your ability to clean or snatch, so what I would like you to do is video yourself performing these lifts and break the movement up to what is letting you down then work on that basic movement pattern, learn to squat better and be able to squat the weight before you try clean it or snatch it, be sure you can deadlift the weight with the correct body position and using the correct muscles before you try clean it or snatch it. Fix the basics and the dividends pay off dramatically when attempting complex movements.
Eat clean, Train hard, Be awesome.
