yes. i have this crazy tendency to slow down when things get hard. do that with squats, too, then wonder why i get pinned at the bottom after a 4 second descent… faster today. 35 was going up again just like it was when i put more oomph into my old way of doing things. felt like it was landing in a better position today with the new way of doing things, though. almost chucked another couple of kilos on.
i’ll start doing some snatch pulls (from floor to power position) now i have a better idea of how that is supposed to go. feels hardest just before power position when my hips are low. hopefully will help grease the groove on the movement so i’m more confident i’ll maintain the positions when i speed things up. help my little girly quads, too, because they really are pretty weak
I agree it looks better, but it also looks like you might be popping the bar too far out away from you. It looks like you are swinging the weight/looping it instead of keeping it closer during the second pull.
i’m really hoping that once i fix up my starting position, get better at maintaining an upright back, and get more explosive then the second pull will sort itself out.
not totally sure this will be the case… but apparently often fixing up starting positions can help fix things further along the chain. I wasn’t so happy with my efforts to keep my hips down in the second vid (mostly because i was a bit incredulous that i was really supposed to have them so low so i tried to vary things a bit so people might be able to pick one where i got it right). in looking at the vid i’ve become convinced that they really do need to be lower than my knees in order for my back to be upright, though. if i really do manage to pull the crap out of it from maintaining that position then the second pull is feeling a bit more vertical rather than horizontal.
Your problem isn’t your form, it’s your program. I’m guessing that you don’t try for a max very often?
Your 37.5kg is a power snatch, and you are looping the bar over your head instead of wedging yourself under it.
You are literally manhandling the weight, altering the trajectory with the strength of your arms, and it would be impossible to do that with a heavier weight. Your only option would be to pull like hell and dive under.
You don’t realize it right now, but you are capable of snatching quite a bit more weight than you are actually using. Your form issues are just a lack of coordination with weights close to your max, and unfortunately you will never be able to fix them with some technical cue. The weight will dictate your performance, not the other way around.
Not trying to be a dick here, just giving my honest opinion.
twiceborn - I know you aren’t being a dick and I appreciate your taking the time to offer feedback
I’d love to think that I am capable of snatching quite a bit more. I max my snatch 5-6 times per week (working up to max and higher if things feel solidly caught until 3 misses). 2 weeks ago 33.5kg was my PB. Today 37.5kg is my PB. That is a pretty good increase percentage-wise.
I didn’t go higher today because 37.5kg went like this: 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0.
I think (I really really hope) that my technique looks better in todays vid than it does in the first and second vid. I don’t think my technique looks any better with lower weights (so that my form issues are a lack of coordination with weights close to my max), though.
I still seem to be missing the weight forwards. I think it is because I’m driving the weight horizontally rather than vertically in the second pull.
I think that is because my hips are rising too soon from the floor in order to deload my quads which gets my back angle a bit too horizontal between the floor and second pull. The bar path also isn’t properly moving back from the floor… Hopefully that is about my hips rising too soon, again. Would be so very nice if all my problems were due to that
Ur… And my max front squat only being 42.5kg. I am working on that.
IMO your technique looks great, I’m very impressed. Keep up the good work. between the rounded back trap bar deadlift in vid. 1, and the 1/2 squats in vid 2, and cheating knee raises in vid 3 u seem to be the most educated hardcore lifter in your gym. Try to lift or surround yourself w/ experienced educated lifters to further your knowledge and motivation. You have great work ethic
i’ll give you deadlift guy and squat guy. as for leg raise guy… if thats the first warm-up exercise i’m doing when i hit the gym in my late 60’s i’ll be pretty impressed with myself. i don’t know what it is about, truth be told, but he probably has his reasons.
i purposely pick times when there is only likely to be the odd random floater to take vids. otherwise i try and train with a more serious crowd, to be sure. i’m by far the weakest of that bunch… for now. heh.
Snatches are looking a lot better, alexus. I think twiceborn has something there on regarding working with maxes. Look at Koing’s log and you see that he misses maxes quite a bit, but keeps taking them nonetheless until his body/brain figures out where to put itself…or so I surmise - I don’t know if that’s his actual strategy.
I was totally wrong, your program looks very solid and it’s exactly what I’d be doing. I did not realize you were so new to this, so of course there will be some form issues.
Are you familiar with John Broz and his program? Do a Google search for his thread on bodybuilding.com, I think you’ll appreciate what he has to say.
The way you’re losing the weight forward is because you are MUCH stronger in the second pull than the first. You are hitting the bar so hard off your hips it’s looping out and using your arms as a lever to swing over your head. You’re manhandling it. You can second pull 10-15kg more than your first pull right now. It’s not your hips rising, it’s just your leg drive off the floor in general. Personally, I would forget front squats and just focus on deep back squats.
If you need a form cue to think about, imaging pulling the bar to an imaginary target behind you and a few inches above your belly button. Don’t try to pull UP, pull UP AND BACK, almost falling backwards on your second pull. Sounds weird I know, but I used to use the same cue for the same reason. I had the same form issue that you do once upon a time.
Believe me, I know personally how frustrating it is to learn these lifts but you ARE doing great. Best wishes and keep at it!
DCA - thanks. i do have a hard time knowing whether it is better for me to focus on max efforts vs triples at lower weights. it seems (to me at any rate) that my max attempts are only teaching me to jump forwards in order to catch it rather than teaching me to get a better bar path, though thats what i seemed to be doing in the second vid, anyway, and i think that is the only difference between the one i got at 37.5kg and the ones i missed in the latest vid. so… might be time to go back to triples to try and put that right…
twiceborn - I’ll check out Broz. thanks for that. sounds like it is time for me to fetch the gym mats and be prepared to take some tumbles back. need to figure how to get my weight back on my heels without falling over… will work on pulling up and back.
the pendlay article that was posted earlier in the thread had some interesting stuff on kettlebell swings vs the second pull. how the kettlebell swing is a horizontal hip drive whereas the second pull is (or is supposed to be) a vertical hip drive. i think i’m still in old (not so good) habits of rising my hips early to get a more horizontal back which sets me up for a horizontal hip drive for the second pull. I used to get ‘FINISH THE PULL!!!’ a lot but was reluctant because it felt like pulling it harder only ever got it swinging out more. If I can keep my hips down and my torso more vertical i’m really hoping that the hip drive will be vertical rather than horizontal. that way i’ll eventually have the confidence to smash the crap out of it and know the force will transmit to a vertical rather than horizontal bar path.
might do some work on snatch pulls for reps working on keeping my hips down and using leg drive to get it to the power position. once that is reliable i’ll try and speed it up / make it more forceful and then see what happens to the second pull…
Pendlay is absolutely right about the 2nd pull/kettlebell swing difference as it applies to motor learning for the lifts. Once an athlete has a sufficient second pull the kettlebell swing can be a decent assistance movement/conditioning movement on occasion. From what I’ve seen the difference in the pulls between the swing and bar is more so dictated by the path of the object than the physiological demands of the exercise. Since the kettlebell can travel behind you when you apply force it’s going to go more horizontal, however you don’t have that option with a bar obviously so it works out a bit differently. Learning the movements for the sport of weightlifting can only be done with a bar, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that at some point kettlebell swings and odd implement exercises can’t assist.
not perfect, to be sure. i should be maintaining my lumbar arch much harder at the bottom of the movement…
my arms are loose, though. seems to be a horizontal hip drive sending the DB in a nice arch even with my extending pretty fully at the top of the movement. seems to be that that is not the right hip drive movement for generating a vertical trajectory. need to drive the hips up somehow rather than forwards.
still trying to figure out how to finish the pull and basically how to pull the bar so it stays close…
i do worry that horizontal hip drive movements might interfere with learning vertical hip drive movements. but who knows. a whole bunch of people out there seem to think that hip drive is hip drive and they are basically the same.
I guess what I mean to say is… I do think that the movement of horizontal vs vertical hip drive is different. It sends the implement (whatever it is) on a different trajectory. I mean, you could use your arms to guide the movement… But you would be trying to undo the damage you have done. I think.
But I surely don’t know.
Once I can get the bar moving right and the DB moving right then I guess I’ll be in a better position to compare lol.
thanks for that. i saw someone bumping the bar around on a youtube vid once and i wondered what on earth that was about.
i’ll experiment a little.
i feel like i have a much better idea of what i’m aiming to do after this thread. also feel like i have more than enough to be getting on with and will probably take me a few years at least to incorporate it all properly.
am finding that while i have problems every step of the way focusing on getting the start position right and maintaining that seems to sort out things further along the chain. if i hit second position with my back fairly upright then i do finish the pull and the bar goes up. if i hit second position with my back more horizontal because my hips rose early then the bar swings out and i don’t finish the pull (probably sensing that finishing the pull would result in an uncatchable arch).
just like it was when i put more oomph into my old way of doing things. felt like it was landing in a better position today with the new way of doing things, though. almost chucked another couple of kilos on.
thats what i seemed to be doing in the second vid, anyway, and i think that is the only difference between the one i got at 37.5kg and the ones i missed in the latest vid. so… might be time to go back to triples to try and put that right…