This week’s education lecture was lead by Bill Stearns, who was a former intern at Northeastern who is very well versed in Olympic lifting techniques. This education lecture was a hands on demonstration, where we physically did the Olympic movement, where we were able to receive immediate feedback on our technique. We ended up only having time to be presented on the snatch, which is one of the lifts I am less familiar with. This experience was a great way for me to see the lift broken into different movements, which helped me learn the lift as well as being able to have a simple way to teach the lift. As any individual should do, we began the snatch movements on a PVC pipe just to establish the movement pattern first. Before beginning the movement, we determined the proper hand positioning of the bar, where we placed the PVC pipe at our midline and gripped the bar where our elbows were extended. This allowed that when the bar was lifted above an athlete’s head that is was about 5 inches off the athletes head. The first movement we started at the bar was at our knees and essentially standing up to fully extend the hips. It’s important for the hips to be higher than the knees at the start position, along with keeping the chest up, no matter what type of snatch, whether a hang, power, or from the ground. He had us perform this movement for several reps to get comfortable with this motion. Once we were comfortable, he had us shrug up after our hips had fully extended. I found breaking the movement down in this example was extremely helpful to me because I was more focused on achieving each movement, as opposed to focusing on one element I know needs attention. Breaking down the movements in this method allowed for the importance of keeping the bar close to my body, an easy task, and created the proper lifting technique for the snatch. The important movement to think about to get the bar to travel straight up is, which can be achieved by driving straight down. During the snatch, the finishing position is to have more weight in your heels and sit back, which will prevent the bar or the athlete falling forward. Once the athlete has landed in an athletic stance (or ¼ squat position), it’s important for the athlete to keep pushing the bar overhead, straight overhead and not back. But the head will come through your arms as if coming through a window.
We also had the chance to experiment with a snatch from the ground, where it is more important than ever to keep the hips higher than the knees along with chest up as well as keeping the bar as close to your body as possible. One of the most important positions to watch is the starting position, especially here at Northeastern, where many athletes have subpar posture and as a coach we want to see their extended back. We had the chance to perform the power snatch, but due to an injury I was unable to perform the movement, but I am eager to experiment when I am feeling better. I am hoping we get the chance for Bill to come back to teach us more lifts and cues to further our knowledge on Olympic lifts.