Don’t you hate those times when you realize that you’ve forgotten to do something that was pretty important? This probably doesn’t happen to most of you very often, because everybody knows that reading the Performance Menu sharpens your mind to the point where it could practically split the atom. But let’s just assume that there are moments when you’re in the middle of your busy life and then, all of a sudden, it occurs to you that you didn’t do something that you really needed to take care of.

I think back to the wonderful, heartwarming days of my youth when my family would be driving in the station wagon on the way to a long road-trip vacation. Like clockwork, we would get six or seven miles down the road and either my mom, my brother, or I would realize that we forgot a toothbrush, swimming trunks, whatever. Aaahhh, the sentimental feelings I get when I recall my father’s loving response to these little mistakes. “Good lord!! We’re ten miles down the *!%&ing road now!! We’re not turning around so you can go back and get your $#*!ing swimming trunks!!” It was like a Hallmark commercial…on crack.

The reason I’m bringing all of this up is that I recently realized that I have totally forgotten something pretty important over the last few years since I’ve been writing for this magazine. I’ve written articles on squats, jerks, several different technical aspects of the Olympic lifts, training programming, deadlifts, the whole ball of cheese. But when I looked in my computer file a few weeks ago where I keep all the Performance Menu articles I’ve done, it occurred to me that I’ve never written an article about the use of pulls. I’m talking about using snatch pulls and clean pulls in training to improve the performance of the snatch and clean.

I don’t know what’s going on, brothers and sisters. How could I have been writing for you all this time and never given you an article about one of the absolute most important components of a weightlifter’s development? Pulls are essential if you want to snatch or clean bigger weights. I can’t imagine trying to become a better weightlifter without using them. This is a truth that I believe in very strongly, but I understand that it’s also a statement that not everybody agrees with. The use of pulls has been followed by a little controversy in the weightlifting circles, and we’ll make sure we take a look at where this controversy comes from.

Mea culpa, guys. Good lord, I’ve never written an article about pulls, and you’ve been reading this &*%!ing magazine for years!! Better late than never, though. I’m going to jump right into the meat of this article without any more of my jazzy preamble banter. I don’t want to waste any time, because pulls are just that important.

Let’s get the basics out of the way…

Snatch or clean pulls are an assistance exercise for the development of the Olympic lifts. Most of you probably know what pulls are, but let’s hit a quick explanation anyway. In a snatch or clean pull, the athlete basically performs the exact same movement as the snatch or clean. But when doing pulls, the movement stops at the top of the pull. There is no turnover or receiving position. Visualize a lifter doing a snatch or clean, and then hit pause with your brain when the lifter is at the fully extended top-pull position. The athlete is extended as tall as possible onto the toes with the shoulders shrugging, that’s a completed pull. Conceptually, it’s very similar to powerlifters using partial movements like deadlift lockouts in a power rack. The idea is that the lifters will perform pulls using weights that are heavier than their maximum snatches or cleans. In other words, a lifter who can snatch 200 pounds would use pulls in their workout by doing five sets of three repetitions with 215-225 pounds, somewhere in that area. The idea is that the pulling phase of the snatch or clean will be strengthened through overload. The 200-pound snatcher will build greater pulling strength by completing these movements with 225 pounds, which will allow the athlete to eventually snatch a personal record of 205 or 210 because the body has developed the power to handle this weight through multiple pull workouts.

It’s important to mention that there is a difference between pulls and high pulls. When doing pulls, the arms stay straight throughout the entire movement. But when doing high pulls, the athlete extends into the finished pulling movement and also pulls the elbows upwards, bringing the bar up to the level of the chest. In other words, the arms pull up on the bar when doing high pulls, but they stay hanging straight when doing pulls.

Personally, I’m not a big fan of high pulls. I think the best way to incorporate pulls into a weightlifter’s arsenal is to let the arms hang straight and focus on the movement of the legs, hips, back and shoulders. I don’t think the movement of the high pull has a very close connection to what actually happens when a lifter performs a snatch or clean. There have been a few times in my career when I’ve seen elite-level lifters doing high pulls, but not often. The vast majority of the lifters I’ve seen or trained with over the years have preferred pulls.

Using straps when doing pulls is a general rule for weightlifters. Pulls are not a grip training exercise, and doing multiple sets and reps with a hook grip puts a serious beating on the thumbs, especially with the heavy weights that will be used for pulls. If the athlete uses straps, the focus can be put entirely on the pulling movement, which is why we’re doing the damn things in the first place. For weight selection, many coaches like to use approximately 110% of the athlete’s personal best in the competition lift. If the lifter can snatch 150 kilos, then multiplying 150x1.1 gives us 165 kilos, which is a good weight for that particular athlete to use for pulls. Some coaches get aggressive with pulls and decide to really load the weights up. I’ve seen athletes who clean 90 kilos using 145 for their pulls, which brings us to one of the most important issues in this discussion.

The technique of the pull must duplicate the movement of the athlete’s competition lifts. You heard me. Your clean pulls should basically look exactly like your cleans, just without the turnover and completion. If you decide to use clean pulls in your workouts and you load the weights up drastically above 110% of your clean, there is a strong chance that there are going to be some technical flaws in your pulls. The back will likely not stay perfectly tight and flat, speed will be compromised, the butt might rise too quickly when pulling from the floor, etc. When you get to this point, you are simply practicing incorrect movements. There is no point to doing pulls if using them is going to strengthen technical flaws. Sure, it’s great to be able to load all those bumpers on the bar and impress everybody in your gym. But the translation of your pulling strength into your actual snatch or clean will be very minimal. The speed of your pulls should be as close as possible to the speed of your full lifts. It isn’t realistic to expect to move 110% of your best snatch with exactly the same speed as your snatches, but they should be in the same ballpark. If those snatch pulls start to look more like deadlifts than snatches, you need to strip some weight off the bar.

The world according to Jaber…

My personal belief is that pulls should be finished with the athlete extending as high up on the toes as possible. However, this idea comes from my basic philosophy on how to perform the Olympic lifts. I have always believed that optimum weightlifting technique requires the athlete to stretch the body as tall as possible in the finish of the pull. The lifter should be pushing up onto the toes, the hips should be totally extended, and the shoulders should be shrugging violently upwards. That’s just how I think it should be done, folks.

However, it’s important to mention at this point that there are some voices in the weightlifting world that have different opinions. I just read an article on the internet a few weeks ago where the writer said the athlete should perform the entire pulling movement with the weight on the heels of the foot. I totally disagree with this idea. I have always taught athletes to feel their bodyweight in the middle of their foot until the final extension of the pull, when the goal is to drive up onto the toes before jumping the feet outwards into the receiving position.

As I said, there are coaches who teach things differently. When I was brainstorming this article, I looked around on YouTube to find some clips of athletes performing snatch or clean pulls, hoping I could include the video links here. But I couldn’t find one freaking video where anybody was doing their pulls correctly. Admittedly, most of the videos I looked at were not elite weightlifters. That probably explains a lot. However, I did watch some old video of the 2001 World Weightlifting Championships right before I started writing this piece, and I got to see superheavyweight world champion Jaber Salem from Qatar snatching 210 kilos (462 pounds). Jaber’s technique is a great visual demonstration of what I’m describing. Because he was raised in the Bulgarian system (he’s actually Yanni Marchakov from Bulgaria, but Qatar offered him a big chunk of cash to lift for their country), Jaber gets incredible extension into the top of his pull, rising up onto the toes before jumping his feet out with a stomp as he catches the bar overhead. Almost all of the great Bulgarian lifters have similar technique, including 77 kilo world champion Zlatan Vanev, who is one of the best technicians I’ve ever seen. It’s not just a Bulgarian thing, though. The Russian superheavyweight who finished second behind Jaber with a 451 pound snatch executed his lifts in the same manner. The only thing about Jaber’s technique I don’t like is that he jumps forward slightly, which is generally a major no-no in weightlifting. But he snatches 462 pounds. I guess he can jump wherever he wants.

There will be people who point at great lifters like Pyrros Dimas of Greece and mention that Dimas basically stayed flat-footed throughout his pulling movement, which is different from what I just said about proper weightlifting technique. It’s true, Dimas did pull almost entirely flat-footed. And that point brings us to a weightlifting truth that many coaches just can’t seem to understand. There is more than one way to lift big weights. No technical model is universal, and no technique philosophy is dogma. World records have been lifted by people who extend onto the toes and jump the feet out with a stomp, and world records have been lifted by people who keep most of their foot on the floor for most of the lift. I have always believed that if you watch enough world championship footage, the majority of the great lifters you see will lift with technique that is closer to Jaber’s, the extend-on-the-toes-and-jump-outward model that I described. There’s a lot of evidence out there to back this up, and that’s why I teach weightlifting the way I do. But I would never say that there’s only one way to perfect these movements.

Long story short, I think pulls should finish with extension onto the toes at the top. If you want to do pulls with your heels on the floor, knock yourself out.

Other incredibly important and intensely critical issues…

Let’s do a rapid fire list of other ideas regarding pulls:

Pulls can be performed from the floor, from the hang, from blocks, etc. I personally like doing all pulls from the floor because I think that relates most closely with the movements that will take place on a competition platform. But a little variety never hurt anybody, and doing pulls from different positions can be a great way to mix things up for the athlete.

Sets of three-five are good repetitions for pulls, hitting three-five sets right after the competition lifts have been finished in training. In other words, after you’ve finished your snatches, do five sets of three in snatch pulls with around 110% of your highest snatch (then, do your squats). That’s a solid plan, but remember that the 110% number isn’t etched in stone anywhere. My coach used to have us occasionally do three sets of five reps with 100%. Five reps of pulls with your clean max will give those spinal erectors a good test. Doing pulls two or three times a week is good planning, and eliminating them fourteen days before a competition is even better planning.

As I said, pulls should be an essential component of the weightlifter’s preparation. I would never train anybody who was serious about lifting without including pulls. I’ve heard some coaches say over the years that they don’t think pulls are important because they believe in “the Bulgarian training model” and the Bulgarians don’t do them. Okay, let me say a couple of things about that. First of all, the Bulgarians do pulls. I’ve seen them. It might be true that they don’t use pulls as one of the primary exercises with their top lifters, but they do include them in different phases of their preparation. If people tell you differently, remind them that much of the information we’ve received in America about the Bulgarian approach has been skewed. And even if the Bulgarians don’t do a lot of pulls…so what? The Russians do pulls in their training, and they’ve been cranking out the best lifters in the world for fifty years. So stick that in your pudding and stir it.

They make your core stronger. They make your technique better. They make your glutes and traps harder, which is going to increase the love and respect you get from the weightlifting community. I mean seriously people…there are just too many freaking positives to walk away from when it comes to pulls.

I’ve met some lifters who say they don’t like doing pulls. Okay, fine. Do you like getting the crap kicked out of you by other weightlifters? No? Then do your pulls. You can mix up the sets and reps, mix up the weights, mix up the starting position you do them from, etc. You can even mix up when you do them in your workout, although I would always do them before squats.

So there you have it people, an article about one of the most fundamental weightlifting tools that it took me three years to think of. Maybe I’ll put together some more keen articles in the next few months about topics like why it’s important not to stab yourself, how drinking bleach is a bad idea, stuff like that. Now that the most obvious things in the world have made their way to the front of my brain, the possibilities are endless.