This is a technique article. To understand it, you need to know a little something about how and when I started weightlifting.

I began my career in the late 80s. Now, there’s a reason why it’s important to mention that. Back in those years, the entire sport of Olympic weightlifting was enormously influenced by Bulgaria. The Bulgarian weightlifting program was a juggernaut unlike anything the world had ever seen. These guys were friggin insane. The world records they produced were the kind of weights that made you stop and…well, just wonder how in the hell any human beings could lift that much. Bulgaria is a tiny little European country roughly the size of Tennessee, and they had a weightlifting team that dominated the world for a very long time, including the monolithic Soviet Union with their twenty billion weightlifters. Because Bulgaria was so good back in those days, most people took their words as law. If the Bulgarians did it, it was right. They were the measure of success for all God's creatures.

That applied not only to training, but also technique. The way the Bulgarians pulled their snatches and cleans was the learning template for twenty years of coaches and athletes. For Pete’s sake, they had guys snatching 352 at 148 bodyweight, and cleaning 475 at 165. It was pretty easy to look at them as the source of all the answers, so my entire generation modeled themselves after these dudes. The way we snatched, squatted, pulled, clean and jerked, etc. was all connected to how the Bulgarians did it.

One of the things you noticed about their lifters is that almost all of them jumped back just a little (and sometimes a lot) when they snatched and cleaned. You have to visualize what I’m talking about. First of all, the Bulgarian technique was nothing like the flat-footed pulling movements you see these days from a lot of the Chinese. The Bulgarians violently extended their hips, shoulders, legs, and feet as high as possible. You’ve probably heard the phrase “triple extension,” right? Well, where do you think it came from? Weightlifters were thinking about tall extension in the pull long before the Bulgarians came to prominence, but they’re the ones who really hammered it home. And when they had completed this extended pulling movement, they jumped down quickly into the bottom position, usually lifting their feet a few inches off the ground and hitting the platform with a loud SLAP! as they competed the turnover and caught the bar overhead (snatch) or on the shoulders (clean). Most of you have some lifting experience, so you’re already familiar with what I’m talking about. If you’re having trouble visualizing it, get on YouTube and type in “Ivan Chakarov 180 kg Snatch at 20 years old 85 kg bodyweight” and you’ll see it. Chakarov was one of Bulgaria’s greatest lifters, and this video shows you a good side-angle clip of him snatching. If you look at his feet, you’ll see what I mean. He jumps backward just a little.

When I started weightlifting, here’s the rule I was taught: When you snatch and clean, you should try to jump and land in the same spot. If you jump backward just a little, it’s okay. In fact, most of the best lifters jump backward a little. But it’s NOT okay to jump forward, at all.

I’ve been using this principle for my own lifting and all the lifters I coach throughout my entire career. This article is an analysis of it. Jumping backward and forward.

First, the usual disclaimer…

The times have changed over the last thirty years. Bulgaria is no longer a superpower in weightlifting. China is. Because of this, many people these days are being heavily influenced by Chinese technique and training methodology.

Most Chinese lifters don’t jump when they snatch and clean. They use a technique that looks different from the Bulgarians, more of a flat-footed pulling style with minimal foot movement. I’ve written about this before. So if you’re copying the Chinese in your own lifting, the whole idea of jumping backward/forward is a little less relevant because you don’t really jump at all. However, this is where my first main point comes in.

If you spend enough time watching the best lifters in the world, you’re going to see a lot more jump-and-extend technique than flat-footed Chinese technique. There are miles and miles of evidence to back this up. I’ve been lifting, studying, coaching, and analyzing weightlifting obsessively for over 25 years. I can tell you with certainty that the vast majority of the world’s top weightlifters have technique that’s much closer to the Bulgarian style than the Chinese style. Obviously the Chinese style works, because they’re wining Olympic gold medals with it. But if you want to gauge your opinion according to what works most often for most people, the triple-extension Bulgarian-influenced pulling movement is far more common. I personally think it’s also a lot easier to teach as a coach and learn as an athlete.

So now that we’ve gotten the preamble out of the way and covered the Chinese style, let’s go back to looking at the topic. As I mentioned earlier, jumping backward has always been considered acceptable by me, the coaches I learned from, and most of the people I’ve met in weightlifting throughout my career. I haven’t met every Bulgarian or European coach in the world, but I’ve seen how their lifters move. It’s obvious that these coaches are okay with jumping backward because many of their lifters do it…and set world records.

However, jumping forward has always been a major no-no. You’re wondering why it’s a no-no? Well, there are several reasons, and I’m not going to go through any of them using scientific jargon or highly-technical terminology about vectors or quadrangles. There are easier ways to describe it. First of all, jumping forward is often connected to looping the bar away from the body during the pulling movement, which slows the lift down and creates more chances for failure. If the athlete lets the bar swing out in front of the body during the pull (instead of keeping it close to the torso), there’s a tendency to jump forward in an effort to catch it. This is NOT always the case, important to note. It’s possible to keep the bar close to the body and STILL jump forward, and it’s also possible to loop the bar in front of you during the pull and NOT jump forward. No two techniques are exactly the same, and there’s a lot of room for variability in human movement.

Also, there’s a higher chance for damage to the knees when the athlete jumps forward. As I said before, I’m not going to delve into a lengthy physiological dissertation about why this is true. You’ll just have to take my word for it. When you jump forward to catch cleans and snatches, it’s harder on your body. Jumping backwards is anatomically safer.

So if we establish that jumping forward is a bad idea, why can we say it’s okay (or even beneficial) to jump backward a little? Shouldn’t we be trying to jump and land in the same spot? Yes, we should. I said that earlier. But jumping backwards is something that usually happens because the athlete is extending the hips and the shoulders with so much force, it actually causes a little “layback” with the shoulders at the top of the pull. Once again, you’ll notice something if you watch the best lifters in the world. When they reach the top of their extension in the snatch or clean, they’re usually pulling their shoulders back somewhat. This happens because the weight on the bar is so massive that they’re basically just fighting and clawing for any extra pull they can get…even if that pull goes back a little. As with all things technical, it’s harder to describe in words and easier to understand when you see it. But fortunately, I know many of you put in the hours watching weightlifting. So I think you can probably get a grasp on what I’m saying without having a video right in front of you.

How to fix the problem…

If you jump forward, you need to fix it. You want to know how to do it? The method I’m going to give you is so simple, you’ll probably laugh. It sounds like crap coaching, but it isn’t. I swear to you, it works.

Take the athlete who jumps forward. Put some kind of straight line down on the floor. You can use tape, a pencil line, etc. If you’re training on a floor that has some kind of seams, you can just use one of them. Then, tell the athlete to perform snatches or cleans with their toes on the line. Have them roll the bar to a position where their toes are right against the line as they grab the bar and prepare to pull. Then, tell them “Don’t jump over the line.”

Doesn’t that sound ridiculous? Try it, brothers and sisters. The proof is in the pudding. I’ve personally fixed dozens of lifters this way. Ask yourself…how do athletes think? Most athletes I’ve met in my life, including myself, respond best to very simple tasks. Putting an athlete on a line and telling them to stay behind it is about as simple as it gets. In my experience, lifters will figure out how to move their bodies in the necessary way to accomplish that simple task. MAKE SURE you don’t let them look down and check where their feet landed when they’re in the middle of the movement. They’ll want to, and it’ll kill the whole thing. You (the coach) do the eyeballing for them and tell them if they did it right or not.

People need to have kinesthetic awareness to be successful in weightlifting. That means they have to possess an ability to understand how their bodies are moving and what positions they’re supposed to be in. If you’re working with somebody who has little/no kinesthetic awareness, most of this conversation won’t matter because they won’t be able to develop much skill in the Olympic lifts anyway. Sorry, it’s a hard truth of life. But if you’re working with somebody who has even just a small amount of kinesthetic awareness, they’ll be able to snatch and clean without jumping over a line.

I don’t give weightlifting advice based on something I read in a book or a university study I conducted. I give weightlifting advice based on a lifetime in the trenches, lifting successfully myself and helping others do it too.

The usual concession…

I’m gonna cut you off at the pass. Some of you stopped reading halfway through this article and furiously scoured the internet, looking for world record holders who jump forward. You desperately want to have the contradicting point of view, so you went on a search-and-destroy mission to find some evidence that challenges what I’m saying.

Soooo, I’ll take care of it for you. Let me openly state that there are some top international lifters who jump forward. In fact, I started noticing this a lot more when I watched the Paris World Championships in 2011. I wouldn’t say it’s becoming terribly common, but I definitely will say I’ve seen a slight increase. Does that mean the tide is turning? No, I don’t think so. But I’ll definitely admit that there are some very talented, successful lifters who have a slight jump forward.

Weightlifting is a great way to teach you that nobody gets to be right 100 percent of the time. This sport is full of exceptions to the rules. Whenever you think you’ve got a universal truth that applies equally to everybody, you can find somebody who violates that truth…and has a lot of success with it. That’s why I’m always very careful when I write about technique. I make sure I throw in a lot of words and phrases like “Most of the time…” and “This is usually true…” You’ve always got to keep in mind that it’s a complex world we live in, and weightlifting is just a small section of that world. However, I’ve always been a believer in the law of majority percentages. That means I’m usually gonna go with what works most of the time. There are times to break from the norm and take risks on a longshot, but there are also plenty of times when you need to ask yourself, “What is the best way to have success, based on the methods of those who are successful most often?” The issue of jumping forward/backward, like a lot of other technical issues, is a good time for this kind of thought process. The Bulgarians jumped backward. And to this day, their performances are still the best in the history of the sport.

But I could be wrong. If you want to jump forward, go for it. As long as you don’t take a dump on my lawn, your business won’t cause me any trouble. Just some food for thought.