In addition to SLDL’s, goodmornings and CAT box squats, this is one of the cornerstones to P-chain training since I don’t have enough weight for even heavy RDL’s atm.
Want I want out of the SGHP is an explosive overall P-chain exercise with at least a little carryover to the power snatch and from a muscularity perspective places an emphasis on the yoke.
With that in mind, any improvements in technique or form I could make?
CT might want to comment further, but from the get-go I can say that I will be likely quite hard for him to properly analyse your form given how bad the lighting is in your video.
From what I can see, I would put more emphasis on maintaining the triple extension at the top and really accentuating the plantar flexion.
Also, your elbows seem to be pulling back instead of upwards when the barbell reaches the top of your movement/sternum.
For the muscularity aspect: you’re under tension for less than 10 seconds total on the video, so I wouldn’t look at this as primarily a hypertrophic muscle-builder and more as an explosive movement pattern that will help you for your snatch. I know CT is a big fan of this movement for building traps, but I doubt that heavy low-rep work with very little TUT will do much.
Personally, my traps have grown much more from when I did crossfit, more specifically during WODs where there were many consecutive reps (let’s say at least 10-15) of power snatches with a lighter weight. Then again, I am more slow-twitch, so I might be biased.
Video is indeed very dark, so cant see very much. Your feet look a quite “lazy”, I believe you should emphasize plantar flexion as mpascension mentioned and try to make the lift more explosive in general. Maybe if you had somekind of blocks to pull from helped you with speed (not best choice for hypertrophy though). I can’t see your wrists because of the plates but I think that you could use some wrist flexion to keep the bar as close to the body as possible. The fact that you move slightly backwards with every pull is in my experience usually a good sign of hip technique in snatch like movements. For muscularity purpose maybe I would add a couple of reps especially if the weight is very light as you said.
I posted my power snatch vids in the Oly section. Here’s the link in case one of you or anyone would be so gracious as to check those out. 10 doubles right before the SGHP’s, I have vids of two of the sets. Again, sorry about the lighting and potato quality.
After I watched the video of my SGHP, I started making an effort to keep the bar closer and make sure my hips actually contact the bar and that seemed to help improve the issue of pulling the bar backwards too much. I think I was compensating for having the bar too far forward so I pulled back in the vid u saw. No vid of that set b/c my battery died at that point.
I’ll have to try making a conscious effort on contracting those calves hard for the plantarflexion. I don’t have anything to make blocks out of. I have been doing hip snatches to work the speed end of the speed->power->strength spectrum.
For the purpose of incorporating the advice y’all have given me, making the movement more explosive, and more volume/TUT I’ll bump the weight down 20lb and add a set or two to the 5x5 I’m already doing. This will also give me more opportunities to practice technique. I don’t feel comfortable going over 5 reps with this movement at this time because it’s still a relatively high skill movement and I’ve only been doing it for a month ever.
As it was mentioned earlier, not only the lighting is bad, it’s not the proper angle to judge accurately. It should be at around a 45 degrees angle (from the front).
What I don’t like is the use of “series”, meaning that you don’t reset between reps. While that is a method that can be used, it should only be used when your technique is perfect.
You should reset on every rep.
I also think that you dont have full hip extension. Your chest should also be pointing slightly upward at the top of the movement.
Do NOT do that.
On complex exercises aimed at performance you should NEVER use an internal cue. Internal meaning thinking consciously of contracting a specific muscle or moving a specific body part. Studies on motor learning showed that this is inefficient both for performance and skill acquisition.
Always use an external cue, a mental image or a feeling you want to copy.
For example, instead of thinking of contracting your calves, think in term of pushing the floor away as hard as possible as long as you are pulling. Don’t stop pushing the floor away until the lift is over.
I’ll get that 3/4’s view next time. I’m not sure what I can do about lighting if I can’t get my session during daylight next time but I’ll look around for lighting.
I thought I was competent enough on the SGHP to do series but apparently not. I’ve actually trained with a college powerlifting team many years ago and had gym buddies with HS and college athletics experience so I’m pretty familiar w/ the classic powerlifts and some other basic strength moves but the SGHP is totally new to me and I’ve only dabbled with different power variations of the Oly lifts over the past many years. So that’s why I decided to post this.
Thanks for the help everyone, it’s really great to have a resource like this during a time I can’t go the gym!
Alright… I tried to really push the floor away during triple extension, I think my form is better but not at all perfect or close to it. I dropped the weight 20lb and using the cues and tips I got from this thread I was actually not able to do as much volume with 20lb less so I’ll probably drop the weight even more next time to make sure I get the volume I want.
I’m not experienced enough in this exercise (or snatches and cleans for that matter) to comment on your triple extension, but one thing I noticed is your elbows look quite low to me compared to the bar and your hands.
I don’t know if that’s the weight being too heavy or if it’s a technical issue and it shows on your warm ups too, but lowering the weight to dial that in would definitely benefit you.
Bert is actually correct, the elbows should be pointing upward, not rotating down. I also find the movement jerky in that you can’t seem to keep accelerating past the point of initial explosion. This is likely a combination of the weight being too heavy and the poor elbows/arms direction.
I really tried to keep my elbows above my hands for as long as I could and fully extending with my hips and feet by pushing through the floor. It seemed inconsistent but on the right track. I had some minor balance problems at the top of the movement.
A few reps were decent. As you got fatigued the elbows got down and the wrist had too much flexion at the top. Probably too much arm pull still.
That is really poor form. The darkness seems to be helping you. In day light it would look outright horrible. Drop the weight a little more there is no shame in doing that.