Do your pulls and do them right!

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Just snatching, or cleaning to improve your competition lifts is like learning to drive a car under race conditions, you need that quiet time to work on your control and movement patterns, so do your pulls and do them correctly!

Pulls are essential for technique and strength in the snatch and the clean!

Without them, you won't get enough volume to progress strength and technique on the correct positions off the floor eventually making your progress stall and causing you to shit the bed when it comes to heavy competition lifts.

When doing your pulls, you need to emphasise control through the first pull and acceleration in the second, finishing tall, with a shrug, the torso vertical and up onto the toes.

Finishing tall, and not with the shoulders behind the hips being the main thing I look for. Doing them this way does two things:

  • It reinforces a vertical extension rather than a hip thrust... very important for keeping the bar close in the turnover.

  • It'll give you immediate feedback to how balanced you are in the extension as you'll be pulled forward or backwards if your mass is out in relation to the barbell...

  • more balance = more power and more control.

Many beginners shy away from pulls often because they do not understand the purpose, nor feel the effect... I was the same for a while...

To quote myself around 4 years ago...

'I don't do pulls because you lack the intent to actually turn the bar over.'

I was wrong!

Pulls shouldn't and won't make you feel like you will turn the weight over because you and the bar are not moving like in a full lift, but don't worry, they will help!

I recommend multiple sets of 3 to 5 repetitions at whatever your main weekly percentage is.

Remember to take into account that your max pull will be around 120% of your max competition lift.

One last thing... I've had this conversation multiple times.

Forget how high you can pull the bar!

The Snatch and the Clean rely on much more than just strength and being able to pull the bar to your tits.

Relax those arms and after contact and extension and let the bar float and push those arms up, all the while staying in your extended position.

If you start to bring your arms into it, you'll create bad movement patterns and forever have a slow, over pulled turnover.

Adam Johnston, 15th March 2020