“Big pull!”
“Finish the pull!”
“Pull and extend!”
“Explosive second pull!”
“Tight pull off the floor!”

These are the sounds of Olympic Weightlifting. In gyms and at weightlifting meets, coaches use thousands of different verbal cues to coach their athletes, and almost all of them are related to the pulling phase of the snatch and clean. The reason for this, obviously, is because the pulling phase of the lifts is the most important element of an athlete’s technique. If a weightlifter cannot effectively accelerate the barbell from the floor to the top of the second pull position, there will be no success. This is simple physics and there is no denying it.

However, it is equally clear that many coaches and athletes fail to pay enough attention to the turnover phase of the lifts because they are so focused on the pull. For immediate clarification, the term “turnover” refers to the phase of the lift that occurs when the athlete has finished the upward pulling movement and then descends down into the receiving position where the bar will be secured over the head (snatch) or on the shoulders (clean). Basically, the “turnover” is the time when the athlete is dropping under the bar to catch it after the second pull has been completed. Now, some coaches and lifters like to refer to this movement as “pulling yourself under the bar.” That terminology is fine as long as the athletes have a solid conceptual idea of what they are trying to get their bodies to do. I was never taught to lift with the idea of pulling myself under the bar, so I use the term “turnover” simply because it is more familiar to me. If other coaches and athletes choose to describe the concept as “pulling under the bar,” that’s fine. All that matters is that the lifter understands the basic biomechanics that are involved. For this article, the word “turnover” will be used.

If the turnover phase of the lift is not technically mastered, it will not matter how strong an athlete’s pull is. The lifter can pull massive weights into the stratosphere, and a poor turnover will still result in a failed attempt. In the early years of my lifting career, there was a local lifter who I saw at several meets who was an amazing example of this concept. This lifter—we’ll call him “Harvey” to protect his true identity—was a superheavyweight lifter with back muscles like a stegosaurus. He was probably capable of snatching around 160 kilos based on his strength level, but I don’t think I ever saw him make more than 140. He showed up to every meet with a man he called his coach. His coach wore leather chaps, a Harley Davidson t-shirt, and stood at the side of the platform while Harvey lifted and barked out some highly technical coaching advice, such as “RIP IT, HOSS!” Harvey would grab the bar and pull it high enough for Manute Bol to power snatch, but then everything fell apart. Watching Harvey trying to jump under the bar and catch it in the receiving position was like watching a giraffe standing on a fencepost and trying to perform Mr. Miyagi’s crane-technique kick from The Karate Kid. The big hoss simply couldn’t make the transition as he tried to go under the bar. He was slow, clumsy, and kinesthetically unaware. After he missed an attempt, he would usually repeat with the same weight and his coach would step up his coaching game by yelling out, “RIP IT HARDER, BUBBA!” Sometimes, Harvey would be able to muscle the bar into position and make a successful lift. Most of the time, he didn’t. And although Harvey was the most entertaining example of bad turnover that I’ve ever seen, he certainly isn’t the only athlete who battled this phase of the lifts. As with any technical element in weightlifting, there are a variety of problems that can occur in the turnover phase, and these problems can stem from a variety of sources.

Possible Causes

Most coaches and athletes understand that flexibility is often one of the main culprits involved in any technical problem. In the turnover phase of the lift, stiffness in the wrists, elbows, and shoulders can be an incredibly inhibiting factor. The place where this is probably most noticeable is in the turnover of the clean. We have all seen the athletes who struggle to rack (catch) their cleans comfortably across their shoulders, with the bar tucked against the base of the throat and the elbows in a nice high position. Even when athletes have the flexibility to rack cleans properly, the timing of the rack is often a problem. The athlete will pull the bar high, but the transition of the elbows turning over and receiving the bar on the shoulders is slow and methodical. As a result, we see a “crashing” situation where the lifter has jumped down into a squat position and the bar, even though it was pulled high, drops and crashes onto the shoulders as though it was falling from the sky. If the lifter had the proper level of flexibility in the wrists, elbows, and deltoids, this would be less likely to happen. We would see a much more fluid movement where the athlete turns the elbows over quickly and meets the bar before it begins to drop. The same predicament exists in the snatch, with the obvious difference being slow turnover as the bar is being caught in the overhead receiving position. Poor flexibility in the muscles of the shoulder girdle (deltoids, pectorals) can limit the athlete’s ability to snap under the bar and receive a snatch correctly. There are hundreds of effective stretching techniques, many of which are illustrated in Greg Everett’s Olympic Weightlifting: A Complete Guide for Athletes and Coaches.

But flexibility is just one of the many reasons for poor turnover. Improper technique in the pull can also result in problems. One of the most common technical hitches that can affect turnover is excessive “looping” of the bar away from the body during the pull. Most athletes learn quickly that they are supposed to keep the bar close to the body during the pull. When the bar travels away (forward) from the body during the pull, there is little chance of achieving a smooth turnover. Once the bar has looped out in front of the athlete, there are only two ways it can be brought back to the body and caught in the receiving position.

A) The lifter can simply “muscle” the bar back into a position close to the body. This will usually involve the bar continuing in its looping motion, traveling in a wide rainbow-shaped arc while the lifter applies wasteful force with the muscles of the arms and shoulders, until it returns to the chest/overhead. Needless to say, this will slow down the entire movement and increase the risk of the lifter losing control of the bar as it hits the shoulders and knocks them backwards (clean) or flies over the head and comes crashing down behind (snatch).

B) The lifter can actually jump forward during the turnover and attempt to receive the bar as it travels away from the body. This is a risky practice which also slows down the movement and creates a variety of potential injuries as the athlete is attempting to jump horizontally, finish the pull, and stabilize a heavy weight at the same time.

Even if a looping pull is not occurring, it is possible that the athlete is simply not thinking enough about turning the elbows over quickly. I have seen many athletes, including myself, who have been able to fix a slow turnover in the clean simply by concentrating on “faster elbows.” In the snatch, I actually tell myself that I want to feel the bar passing close by my face as I turnover and jump into the bottom position. If I think about feeling the bar close to my face during my turnover, my body will execute the other physical movements necessary to keep the pull in a close, linear pattern. (Needless to say, the lifter does not want to over-do this concept and ram his/her face into the bar during this phase.) If the lifter’s flexibility is good, then they may simply need to be reminded of these cues. Often, a simple vocal reminder will be enough to help the athlete conceptualize the correct mechanics.

Exercises to Improve Turnover

As with almost anything, there is usually a very simple way to fix the problem that doesn’t involve scrambling to Bulgaria for a magic cure. If the athlete has a problem with incorrect turnover, the first thing the coach must do is examine the points mentioned above in regards to flexibility and pulling efficiency. Once the cause of the problem has been diagnosed, it is time to find some tools to fix it. One of the best tools to repair poor turnover, in my experience, is performing snatches and cleans from the high hang. These are slightly different from traditional hang snatches and hang cleans. In hang snatches/cleans, the bar is usually lowered to a position slightly above the kneecap and the lifter has shifted the shoulders forward so they are “over the bar.” In snatches/cleans from the high hang, the athlete performs the lift with the bar only lowered to the hips or the very top of the thigh. There is no forward lean of the torso. Basically, the lifter assumes this position:




From this dead-stop position, the lifter performs a full snatch or clean. The element of this exercise that helps it correct slow turnover is that the bar has practically no previous momentum generated when it is pulled along the abdomen/chest. The lift has not been pulled from the floor, so the bar has not had a chance to build any speed before it reaches the hips. The bar is starting from a motionless position at the top of the thigh. Because of the high starting position, the only upward force that can be generated on the barbell comes from the extension of the hips and the shrugging of the shoulders (basically this is the top of the second pull). Therefore, the athlete is forced to be extremely aggressive with the turnover. A slow turnover in this exercise will clearly result in a failed attempt, even with relatively light weights. The athlete can incorporate five sets of these lifts into the beginning or end of a workout and it will not take long to see improved speed in the turnover.

Another exercise that specifically improves the turnover of the snatch is the snatch balance with no leg drive. Many coaches teach athletes to perform the snatch balance with a dip-and-drive of the legs at the beginning of the lift. This leg movement drives the bar up off the shoulders, so the bar is already traveling upwards before the lifter starts to descend, extend the arms, and catch the bar in the overhead position. This is a useful exercise for teaching the overhead position in the snatch. However, performing this exercise from a dead stop forces the lifter to get much quicker with the extension of the elbows and “meeting” the bar. The bar has no upward energy driven into it, so the athlete has to snap into the receiving position and lock the elbows out instantaneously to complete the lift.

Along with these exercises, the athlete can often benefit from concentrating on timing. A good coach once told me that, in the clean, my elbows should be all the way up in the front squat position when my feet hit the floor after the jumping movement of the second pull. This taught me to connect the “slap!” of my feet with the quick whipping movement of the elbows, which automatically improved my turnover. After analyzing thousands of lifts from the best lifters in the world, I am not certain that it is biomechanically realistic for the elbows to be all the way up in the front squat position (clean) or locked out with the bar overhead (snatch) at the exact same instant as the feet land on the floor. There is an almost certain delay, visible only with slow motion, where the feet have made contact with the floor and the elbows are still in the process of turning over into the receiving position. But even though it may not be physically possible to time these two elements into complete synchronicity, making the effort to time them together will almost certainly improve the athlete’s turnover speed.

Caution!

There is an important warning to mention when discussing turnover and the coaching of the lifts. Simply stated, focusing too much on the turnover can often cause the athlete to cut the top of the pull. The lifter is thinking so much about going under the bar quickly that he/she neglects to extend all the way into the top of the second pull prior to the turnover phase. As we mentioned in the beginning, the pull is still the most critical element to success in the snatch or clean. There will be nothing to turn over if the bar does not travel high enough. Because of this, the coach must use some judgment in how to advise, teach, and emphasize each phase of the lift.

As always, one of the best ways to learn and memorize proper lifting technique is to study the lifts of the best athletes in the world. Naim Suleymanoglu was probably the best example of turnover speed in the history of the sport. The reason for saying this is that Naim’s top lifts were not exceptionally explosive in the top of his second pull. He was a quick lifter, obviously, and his pull was incredibly suited to his anatomical proportions. But if you watch his lifts, he did not have the extreme acceleration and explosion in the top of the second pull that you would see from athletes such as Ronny Weller and, particularly, Pyrros Dimas. Naim’s pull looked like a heavy world record deadlift from the floor and his second pull was a relatively slow, dragging movement. But Naim’s turnover speed was from another planet. He was able to whip his body under the bar like a rocket, and the results were world record after world record. Now, it is clear that coaches should probably not try to have their athletes imitate many aspects of Naim’s technique. He was a special athlete who was able to adapt traditional weightlifting technique to his own strengths and physical dimensions. He was probably the greatest example of this adaptation principle that the world has ever seen, and his turnover speed was one of the critical keys to his success. Many of the great Chinese lifters of recent years, particularly some of the women, have been able to use the same principles to achieve amazing results.

Therefore, we are left with the understanding that there are many pieces of the puzzle that have to fit together just perfectly to attain great technique. Some athletes will have more trouble with the turnover phase than others. Some, like Naim, will have a natural knack for snapping under the bar exactly the way they’re supposed to. But the job of both the coach and the athlete is to use an attitude of extreme perfectionism in the development of good technique. Just because old Harvey is a big strong hoss who can rip the bar from the floor to the ceiling, that doesn’t mean he will go to weightlifting meets and make a lot of successful attempts. If big Harvey is slow, tight, and uncoordinated when he tries to turn the bar over and receive it, he’ll just look like another hick-strong oaf who learned how to lift about ten minutes before the meet started. All Harvey needed was someone to teach him about turnover. Don’t be the one to annihilate Harvey’s weightlifting career. It might be all he has.