Tristan Asks: Bar height doesn't SEEM to be an issue, but I often find in the jerk and snatch that the bar will "sink" into me during the catch. What would you suggest to fix this?
 
Greg Says: This is usually caused by one or both of the following: Moving yourself too far down under the bar and/or a weak or inactive upper back in your overhead position.
 
In the first case, you’re allowing the far to fall down onto your arms, which means much more force to resist and usually a delayed reaction to that force rather than a proactive resistance as you’d have in a properly executed lift. In a well executed lift, you remain connected to the bar throughout the turnover or push under, which means continuous tension/force and never any slack, which in turn means no abrupt loading. You’re resisting a more gradual increase in downward force as the bar eventually settles and by the time its full weight is pushing down on your, you’ve already established a strong, stable structure to support it. If you lose that connection by dropping out from under the bar, you create slack and the bar falls down onto you.
 
In both lifts, it’s important to never drop down indiscriminately—you don’t just move down, you move down under the bar, meaning that your depth is dictated precisely by the position of the bar. This isn’t some magical instant conscious calculation, but the natural product of executing the motion properly by actively turning the bar over and finishing that turnover with a vertical push, or in the case of the jerk, always pushing up into the bar whether you’re driving with the legs or splitting.
 
If the previous is done correctly, you can still get sagging overhead if your overhead position is incorrect or not adequately active. The shoulder blades need to be forcefully locked into full retraction and upward rotation—this creates a strong foundation for the arms and allows you to support the bar with the trunk more directly rather than through the shoulders themselves, which is a pretty soft system. The trunk needs to be leaned forward very slightly, the head pushed through the arms, and the bar over the back of the neck. This position is the same for the snatch and the jerk.
 
Practice and strengthen the proper overhead position it with snatch push press, push press (especially behind the neck), jerk support, overhead squat, snatch balance and press in snatch.