The Snatch Pop And Drop

 

If you’ve been following the Snatch Pull series on The Olympic Weightlifting Guru, then you know I’ve compared each pull of the snatch to a stage in a relationship.

• The first pull is when you meet that special person
• The second pull is when you’ve committed to a relationship

And now to seal the deal, the next step is the proposal of marriage. For weightlifters, this is known as the third pull. The third pull, commonly referred to as “getting under the bar”, is elusive and challenging for many beginning lifters and Crossfitters. It might seem like after you pop the bar with your hips, the bar should just end up perfectly overhead, but this isn’t the case at all. This article will show you why you need to consciously guide the bar up and your body down, and how to do it.

But before diving into the how-to of this part of the lift, I’d like to discuss about some of the basic requirements for athletes regarding flexibility. In my experience with coaching and weightlifting, before moving on to learning the third pull, the lifter must be able to do an overhead squat The overhead squat will reveal the level of the lifter’s mobility in these areas: shoulders, hips, and ankles.

How to perform an overhead squat

Here are the things to look for at the bottom position of good overhead squats:

• Knees are tracking over and forward of the toes
• Hamstrings sit snugly on top of the calves
• The back is flat or slightly over arching
• Barbell (or PVC) is securely placed just above the lifer’s base of the skull
• Elbows are firmly locked out with the arm pit facing forward

Here’s a poor example:

The arms aren’t locked out, he’s not stretching his head forward and the bar back, and his weight is too far forward on his feet.

This fellow has the opposite issue. He does well getting the head through (forward of the bar), but at the expense of his torso position. When you are leaning this far forward, it’s difficult to establish a consistent position of overhead stability, meaning you’ll often just dive under the bar with the arms largely out of control. 

This, on the other hand, is a textbook overhead squat.

Arms locked out. Weight on the heels. Knees over the feet. Torso with a very slight forward lean. And as a result, she’ll be able to hit this position over and over again.

(If you don’t have weightlifting shoes, or other shoes with a raised heel, you’ll probably have problems getting into a good overhead squat position. Barring getting the right shoes, place a 1/4″-1/2″ board under your heels while squatting. Trust me, you’ll feel a whole lot better.)

What goes into the third pull?

When you’ve passed the overhead squat test, you are ready to learn the third pull.

To a lot of beginner lifters and crossfitters, the third pull is a somewhat lazy “let-it-happen” movement; just pop and drop, and the bar will be where it needs to be. In reality, the third pull must be performed with the same ferocity and speed as the top of the second pull.

Here are the steps to execute the third pull:

• Right after the bar makes contact and is launched from the hip, the lifter must actively pull on the traps and elbows to initiate the descent under the bar. Make it clear to the lifter –the act of shrugging the traps and bending the elbows is to pull the lifter down more quickly, NOT as a means of getting the bar higher.

• At the same time, the feet of the lifter must start quickly moving from the pulling stance to the squat stance. For some people, both stances will be the same, but for most, the squat stance is a little wider.

• As the lifter descends into the receiving position, make all efforts to lock out the elbows, squeezing upward so that the bar doesn’t pop out of that position.

• Keep the head forward, the armpits facing forward and out, and the biceps rotated forward and out. This will help you lock-out as you rise to the standing position.