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We all know it’s important to keep the bar as close as possible in the snatch, but actually making it happen while also being maximally aggressive is another story.
 
Here are the 3 most common reasons your snatches are too far away, and how to fix them:
 
Imbalance in the pull
If you don’t immediately control the bar in the pull, it will move forward and take you with it. With any significant weight, once it’s moving forward, you won’t be able to stop it, and that forward momentum will only increase as the bar gets higher.
 
Break the bar from the floor in the proper position, balanced over the whole foot, and using your posture, and active back and shoulders to keep the bar as close to your body as possible all the way up.
 
Drills:

• Snatch Segment Pull
• Slow Snatch Pull

 

Banging off hips
Hip extension at the top of the pull should be as explosive as possible, but the contact of the bar with the hips needs to keep it moving overwhelmingly up, not forward.
 
This requires proximity prior to contact, vertical leg drive as aggressive as the hip extension, and using the upper body to guide the bar up instead of letting it swing away.
 
Drills:

• Snatch High-Pull
• Snatch from Power Position

 
 
Inactive or stiff arms
The arms need to be active as you transition at the top of the lift and pull under—it’s not a drop or a swing—it’s a pull as aggressive as the rest of the lift.
 
If you lock your elbows in the pull to prevent early arm bend, you’re just about guaranteed to swing the bar out and around—that’s the only place it can go.
 
If you’re not actively pulling under and keeping the bar close, it will move away. Initiate the movement under the bar by pulling the elbows up and out while pushing the bar back toward your body.
 
Then squeeze back like a rowing motion as you turn the arms over to keep the pivot point as far back as you can.
 
Drills:

• Tall Muscle Snatch
• Tall Snatch