out of curiosity

[Stacey Greenway]

I've been playing around with the snatch and hang power snatch lately. The bar paths feel different to me. So I took screen captures illustrating differences in bar path from a couple of the videos on this site, and here's what they show:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8362698...74143/sizes/o/

In the hang power snatch variant, the loop forward away from the body is more pronounced. Why is this?

Just curious and trying to understand better.

Stacey

[Steven Low]

It shouldn't be.

Usually people who use hang power snatch aren't the most highly technical athletes.

And those who rarely use it are better with technique off the ground.

[Stacey Greenway]

Aaaahh, understood.

That's why the bar path in his snatch video is more nearly vertical: he's better pulling from the ground and all around more technically proficient anyway.

S.

[glennpendlay]

Its pretty common when doing any of the lighter variants of the Olympic lifts, like lifts from the hang or power lifts, for the bar to loop a little bit more. This is just a result of a lighter bar showing more horizontal displacement from the hip contact.... think about it, if you push a 70kg bar and a 140kg bar forward both with the same force, which is going to go further?

This is also why "bar loop" is not a major concern with me when i am teaching beginners who are using weights that are pretty light compared to their actual strength levels. The weights are small, they are going to fly around a bit. If the basic positions are right, the bar path will calm down once you get some weight on the bar.

On a related note, this is why i think the muscle snatch, though not a major exercise, does have some value for most lifters. It is a light weight, yet you must pull very vertically to make a successful lift. A 160kg snatcher might be able to muscle snatch 100kg. If a 160kg snatcher can pull as hard and as fast as possible on 100kg and still make it travel almost perfectly vertically, it is a good thing.

[Stacey Greenway]

Glenn,

With regards to the lighter variants, should efforts be made to minimize the horizontal displacement or let the heavier loads "fix" the problem, of course given that the trainee is otherwise proficient from the ground and demonstrates a bar path that's as nearly vertical as possible in this context? I know it might depend on why you're having the trainee hang power snatch anyway, but is their a risk of that horizontal displacement "bleeding" over into the full snatch. Or would including the hang power snatch assume that the lifter was already highly proficient at the full version so that it wouldn't likely be an issue?

[glennpendlay]

Stacey,

I dont teach the power snatch to anyone until they are already a pretty good snatcher, unless it is that 1 in 100 people who have really severe flexibility problems and its gonna be a long time before they can snatch. Thats not because of horizontal displacement, its for other reasons.

I tend to focus most on positions... the start position, the bar directly below the knee position, the second pull position, and the catch position. I believe that if these positions are correct, then whats in between takes care of itself most of the time. When it doesnt, cues like getting onto your heels as the bar goes from the floor to the knee are usefull, as well as staying on your heels as long as you can while pulling the bar up the thighs and executing the second pull... if the positions i mentioned are correct, and the weight stays on the heels long enough, looping the bar is very, very rarely a problem.

I know this doesnt really answer your question directly... but I see excessive looping as a symptom of other problems, i would very rarely tell a lifter "dont loop the bar"... id usually be trying to cue them to stop doing what was causing the loop in the first place.

[Stacey Greenway]

Originally Posted by glennpendlay

I know this doesnt really answer your question directly... but I see excessive looping as a symptom of other problems, i would very rarely tell a lifter "dont loop the bar"... id usually be trying to cue them to stop doing what was causing the loop in the first place.

I think you've answered (or helped me answer myself) those questions just fine. As usual, thanks for the input.

Stacey

[Greg Everett]

Stacey -

What Glenn said. Also keep in mind that 1) I'm a mediocre lifter at best 2) Those demo videos were shot consecutively and hurriedly and 3) It's tough to find perfect consistency among lifts except in extremely high-caliber lifters - I would attribute it more to general inconsistency than a difference between deck and hang.