[LIFTING TIP]


THE 6 MOST COMMON SNATCH MISTAKES


By Wil Fleming You can’t beat the snatch—at least not in terms of things you can do


in the weight room for developing explosive strength, ridiculous traps and extreme athleticism. Unfortunately, few recreational lifters have the slightest idea how


to perform a snatch. It doesn’t have to be that way. And if you keep an eye out for the


following six mistakes, you can take your snatch game up a notch and develop the mountainous traps and explosive power you deserve.


Mistake 1: Always going from the floor. Problems in the snatch often result from bad movement once


the lift has begun, but an even more prevalent problem is a poor starting position. There are a number of explanations for this, but the most common


is simply not knowing what the heck a good start position looks like. At the floor level, the key is to maintain a trunk position that’s about


30 degrees above horizontal. The angle of the shins and the thighs can vary greatly based on the height of the lifter, but the trunk angle remains constant.1


Get this


wrong and you don’t have much of a shot at getting the pull off the ground cor- rectly. Let’s take a look at get-


ting in the correct position. The true start position for the snatch is uncomfort- able, maybe even down- right difficult, for the fol- lowing reasons:


Hip mobility. A quality you lost by sitting at a desk all day. Ankle mobility. Probably taken from you in that heated game of pick-up basketball three years ago when you rolled your ankle going for a game-winning lay-up. Thoracic spine extension. Again, stole from you by your desk job. Trunk stability. Unless you’ve been practicing some awesome di- aphragmatic breathing patterns over the last several years, this is probably gone as well.


Most aren’t lacking in every area required to get into the correct


start position, but even one red flag means that you’ll default to easier patterns to get to a bar resting on the ground.


There are two typical instances when the bar can get away from you during the snatch:


First pull off the floor If the bar gets away from the body during the first pull, you’re basically setting yourself up for failure. The lifter/barbell system is loose, and


4 >> WEIGHTLIFTING.TEAMUSA.ORG For example, those lacking in hip mobility, thoracic mobility, or trunk


stability will likely default to flexion at the lumbar spine, meaning a jacked-up back is right around the corner. Fortunately, it’s possible to improve mobility in areas that you’re


lacking and achieve the correct start position in no time. So make your first goal to develop mobility and stability where you need it, and then come back to trying to snatch from the floor. In the meantime, starting the lifts from a slightly elevated (but static)


position (a low block or another bumper plate) can help athletes get into a start position that doesn’t include lumbar flexion.


Mistake 2: Hitting pop-ups. Getting into the correct start position for a snatch from the floor


doesn’t mean that you’re out of the danger zone. We’ve already established the correct torso position for when start-


ing on the ground—roughly 30 degrees above horizontal—and that’s also the angle the torso should be in when the first pull is complete and the bar is above the knees.1 Snatching mistake #2 is letting your hips pop up too early. Doing


so results in the bar being too far in front of you, and effectively puts your chances of making a good lift on par with the odds of Carrot Top winning an Oscar. The initial lift off the floor should be done by extension of the


knees—driving the knees back while lifting the torso. The torso should remain in the same position relative to the ground (30 degrees above horizontal) throughout the first pull. Now we’re looking to translate this torso position vertically through


space. This maintains the powerful RDL/hips loaded position above the knee. The knees should continue driving back until almost reach- ing extension as the bar begins to pass the knee.


Mistake 3: Not keeping the bar tight to the body. Just as if you told me you saw an awful movie recently, I’d guess that


it probably featured sparkling vampires and bad acting, if you were to tell me that you miss a lot of reps in the snatch, I’d immediately think this mistake was the culprit. Mistake #3 is letting the bar get too far from your body during any


part of the snatch. One of the basic concepts of weightlifting is once the bar breaks from the floor, the body and the bar must act as one unit. This unit, or lifter/barbell system, functions optimally when the bar is close to the body.


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