We’ve got pressing business this month, brothers and sisters. There are urgent matters at stake regarding your lifting technique, and this article is going to give you some important little thoughts that will keep your snatches and cleans from descending into a world of suckness. In the coming months, we’ll get back to some juicy writing about motivation, coaching, and all the other tips-for-how-to-fix-your-whole-life stuff that we love so much. There’s plenty of that on the horizon, but this month is focused on technique because we need to get some things straight NOW.

Some of you read the blog posts I put on the Catalyst Athletics website. A few weeks ago, I wrote some things about foot positioning in the bottom position of the snatch and clean because I had just attended a meet in California and I saw plenty of athletes who needed some help in this department. Well, this article is coming from that same direction. It’s been a good month, because I’ve been fortunate enough to see a lot of weightlifting. I went to another local meet last night, and the webcast of the National Collegiate Championships has been playing all weekend. This is fun to watch because it’s good to see the technique of lifters who aren’t the best in the world. I know that sounds funny, but it’s true. We all like to watch World Championship footage because we want to analyze perfect technique, but I think there are huge benefits to watching people who are still in the intermediate stages because you learn how to spot mistakes. Beginners and developing lifters do some things wrong, technically. This isn’t insulting or disrespectful because we all know it’s just part of the learning process. Every lifter has gone through a “still making mistakes” phase, including me. And these things have to get cleared up one way or another. Hopefully, the next few pages are going to serve that purpose for some of you.

The first pull from the floor, when the bar is lifted from the platform to the knees, is our focus area for this analysis. This short range of movement, when the bar travels up the length of the shins and arrives at the patella, is specifically what we’re going to take a look at. This is when the lift begins, and it’s tremendously important because there is very little chance of executing a lift correctly if the athlete makes a mistake in this first phase. There are some different schools of thought about how the lifter is supposed to combine speed and balance when the bar is being taken from the floor to the knees. Different coaches have varying beliefs about the proper way to do this. As I always say, I’m just going to share some ideas and thoughts about how I think it should be done. Is there going to be somebody out there in weightlifting land who does things differently than I say, and yet still manages to set records and hit huge lifts? Probably. Is there a right way and a wrong way to pull the bar from the floor, regardless of any minor technique differences you might see from various lifters? Certainly. The two areas we’re going to concentrate on are A) bar speed and B) bodyweight distribution on the foot. I really want to drive home the point that this is crucial stuff. You can’t fix a lift that starts out broken, just like you can’t make a good pot of spaghetti if the first thing you do is screw up the sauce. Making errors in the first phase of a snatch or clean puts the athlete in a position where complete technical precision is basically impossible. And regardless of what you’ve been told by some guy at your gym who says that it’s okay to do the Olympic lifts with crappy form, you have to make complete precision your goal if you’re serious about getting good at this. Read on, and take from these words what you will.

Greasy Fast SPEED…

First of all, most of you probably understand the basic idea of speed in the Olympic lifts. The overall concept is that the first pull from the floor will be a slower movement, and then the athlete will accelerate after the bar passes the knees. This is something you can figure out just by watching weightlifting for a little while, at almost any level. Get on YouTube and type in Olympic Weightlifting, and you’ll see it. The bar moves relatively slowly from the floor, and then it picks up speed as it starts to reach the level of the thighs. We all know this. But there’s a tricky little fine line we need to take a look at when we’re examining this part of the lifter’s technique.

What I’m talking about is when lifters make the mistake of deliberately pulling the bar too slowly in this first phase. When I see lifters in local meets, and also some developing lifters at the national level, it sometimes looks like they’re intentionally moving the bar really, really slowly from the floor to the knees, much slower than they should be. I think what’s happening here is these lifters have been taught that the first pull is supposed to be slow and controlled, or maybe they’ve just learned this fact on their own if they don’t have coaches. The mistake is that they’re taking this notion too far. They’re overdoing it, and the whole lift becomes inefficient as a result.

Here’s the rule I learned as a lifter, and it’s what I still believe now; the athlete should pull the bar from the floor as fast as possible while still maintaining proper position and balance. The only time a lifter should consciously think about slowing down the first part of the lift is if he/she is using speed to a degree that it causes a breakdown in form. In simpler terms, we can look at it like this. If the athlete is ripping the bar from the floor so fast that the back loses its tightness and starts to round over in a “turtleback” position, then there might be a reason to slow down the first phase. This happens with beginners sometimes. The athletes want to move quickly, but they can’t maintain a good flat back posture because of a lack of strength. If this is a problem, then I think it’s appropriate to have the lifters slow down at the beginning of the pull and focus completely on arching the back and staying tight. Regardless of anything, proper positioning of the back can’t be compromised. The whole lift is a dead duck if this happens.

Another common problem that can occur when beginners pull too fast from the floor is falling forward. Because the lifters aren’t strong enough to pull quickly, they start to shift forward onto the toes prematurely when they attempt to really rip the hell out of it. Basically, their butt is coming straight up while the shoulders are still low, which causes everything to tip over. The weight of the bar is winning the battle.

When a coach sees either of these problems, the athlete should be taught to correct them. I’m not a big fan of ever using the phrase “slow down” with a lifter. I would rather tell the lifter to focus more on staying tight, and let them continue to pull with good speed. In rare situations where the lifter is just trying so hard to haul ass that he/she can’t maintain any kind of control, then saying “slow down off the floor” might be appropriate. Turtle-backing or falling forward are justifications for a slower first pull because the lifter is losing the fundamental positions that are required for a proficient lift.

Okay, we’ve got that concept nailed down. But we have to remember that what we’re still trying to do is get the bar moving as fast as possible, as early as possible. As the athletes develop consistent motor patterns and gain strength, they’ll be able to keep their posture tight. This is when speed needs to increase. If you want to study the point I’m making, the best place to look is the Bulgarian lifters of the 1980s. For those of you who don’t know a lot of lifting history, the Bulgarians of the eighties lifted some of the biggest weights ever seen. Alexander Varbanov clean and jerked 215.5 in the 75 kilo class (that’s 474 at 165 for you pound people). Asen Zlatev clean and jerked 225 at 82.5 (496 at 181). To this day, nobody has beaten those lifts. These guys were weightlifting machines like our galaxy has never seen.

But their technique is what I’m talking about. The Bulgarian lifters were famous for ripping the bar from the floor with speed that defied any accepted principles of gravity. It was freaky to watch them lift. Most of these guys would approach the bar, reach down and grab it with their hands, and then sit down on their haunches in a full squat for ten or fifteen seconds, getting ready to start the lift. Then, they would simply explode with pulling force as they tore the bar from the floor. Some of them would begin their pull so explosively that you could see the hair on their heads jump, and almost all of them screamed like banshees as those plates left the platform. They weren’t starting with a slow pull and building up speed. They were mashing the gas pedal to the floor from a dead stop. However, because of the immense strength they possessed, their positions weren’t compromised. Their backs stayed flat as boards and their balance never wavered.

This is what we’re trying to do in weightlifting, my friends. It’s the ultimate goal. Rookie lifters and coaches often make a very human, understandable mistake by teaching a first pull that’s much slower than it needs to be. If the lifters are getting totally spasticated because the speed of their first pull is too much and they’re not ready to go that fast, then explain to them that they need to modify what they’re doing to keep their positions correct. But don’t go crazy with this concept, because you could easily wind up with lifters who are just too freaking slow, plain and simple. I’m seeing a lot of this these days.

Heels? Toes? What the ****?

I’m going to be very direct and blunt in this section. First, let’s just ask the question. “Should the lifters have their bodyweight on their heels or their toes as the bar is pulled from the floor?”

My personal answer is “neither.” I think the lifter should try to feel their weight in the middle of their foot as the bar is pulled from the floor. Once again, you’ll hear some conflicting views on this if you interview different coaches. I’ve read articles that say the lifter should immediately shift the weight to their heels as soon as the bar is pulled from the floor, and others who have argued for the toes. The heel argument is probably more common. One of the main reasons why there’s disagreement on this point is that some world class lifters use different styles.

Going back to Bulgaria, they’ve had some world champions who used a pulling style that looks like a rocking chair if you watch their feet. As they pull the bar from the floor, the foot is flat on the platform. Then, as the bar is passing the knees, their toes rise slightly (obviously indicating that they’ve shifted their weight to the heels). Continuing, as the bar meets the hips and they extend into the top of their pull, their heels rise off the platform and they extend up on the toes in a jumping motion. So there’s kind of a “flat foot-heels-toes” progression from the beginning to the end of the pull. They rock backwards, and then they rock forwards (albeit slightly). You don’t see this from many lifters, but Ivan Chakarov did it this way.

On the other hand, some rare lifters appear to have their weight on the toes right from the beginning. I was in the warm-up room at a national championship several years ago when Oscar Chaplin was lifting. Oscar was a Junior World Champion and American record holder who snatched 166 kilos in the 85 kilo class, so he definitely qualifies as a world-class lifter. I was sitting in a chair directly behind the platform he was warming up on, probably three or four feet away from him, and I saw his heels separate slightly from the platform right at the beginning of his pull. This guy could snatch 365 pounds at 187 bodyweight, and his weight was obviously more towards the front of his foot when he started his pull from the floor. Different style than Chakarov, and he was still snatching amazing weights.

These are somewhat rare examples of different technique styles. You don’t see tons of lifters who use either one. What you see most often are lifters who keep their feet flat on the floor until the bar reaches the level of the hips, and then they extend up on the toes. We covered this in an article I did a few months ago about the difference between flat-foot and toe-extension pulling. So, when the lifters have their feet flat on the floor, is their bodyweight shifted to the heels or the toes at the beginning of the pull? You basically need to ask the individual lifter, because you might get some different replies. As a guy who has snatched 341 pounds, I can tell you that I never thought about putting my weight on my heels. I tried to feel my weight on the middle of my foot when I pulled from the floor, and then I extended onto the toes and jumped at the finish. That’s just one opinion from one lifter. I personally have no idea how anybody could do a snatch or clean effectively by shifting their weight to their heels and keeping it there throughout the pull. I can’t jump forcefully without driving up onto my toes. Maybe you can, I don’t know. If you can pull from your heels and snatch more than me, good for you. I’ll buy you a can of Pringles.

At the end of the day…

Hopefully, you’ve learned enough to know that there’s more than one way to lift big weights. Different lifters have individual nuances in their technique. This is pretty clear. But still, there are certain principles that hold true for everybody, and speed is one of the main ones. I don’t know who said it, but I read somewhere at the beginning of my career that “a fast lifter with bad technique is better than a slow lifter with good technique.” I believe this is true. Now, obviously a fast lifter with good technique is what we’re all trying to grow into. That’s easy enough to grasp. However, the quote I just gave you is an illustration of the fact that this is a speed sport, plain and simple. I hope all of you have the privilege of going to a national or world championship someday and watching the lifters in the warm-up room or training hall. I’m telling you guys…you just won’t believe how freaking fast most of the top lifters are. You can see it on video, but it’s a whole other world when you get to witness it in person.

You’ll know what I mean when you see the best. It’s not that their pull from the floor is slow and then their finish is fast. It’s more like their pull from the floor is fast and then their finish is super turbo fast. Whether they have their bodyweight on their heels or whatever when they pull from the floor will be dependent on their anatomical structure, leg length, and personal feel for the movement. Will you be ready to use this kind of speed when you’re a rookie? No, you won’t. Speed is just like strength; it takes a long time to really develop. However, we always have to remember that we can’t be good weightlifters by moving slowly. So let’s just keep that thought in our minds as a cautionary note when we’re working with newbies. We don’t want them slow and properly positioned. We want them fast and properly positioned. At least, that’s what I think.