Wednesday WAR Strength & Conditioning

Rest Day

Below is a portion of  a very good article on Clean & Snatch High Pulls. A lot of you are starting to grasp the concept of the high pulls, but this article will bring some stuff to your attention.  Dom and I have mentioned these mistakes in the class, in which we have noticed that a lot of you are not finishing on your high pulls, meaning not in a vertical position, and you lower your upper body downward to meet the upcoming bar.  The clean & Snatch have to be pulled to a certain height in order for you to be able to complete them properly - and get stronger at them, which is why we do high pulls.  High pulls also teach you the proper path the bar needs to travel in order to properly do the clean & Snatch.  It also teaches you how to properly use your hips to generate speed going into the pull.  Read the article, and examine your high pulls.  Have a good day off.  Thanks for being apart of this.

Hawk

A Stronger Finish

by Bill Starr

The exercises I’m recommending will help you achieve a more powerful finish which, in turn, will allow you to snatch and clean heavier poundages. First on the list are high pulls, using both the wide, snatch grip and the conventional clean grip. I’m assuming that you know how to power clean and power snatch, so the line of pull is familiar to you already. High pulls are excellent exercises to learn how to get a stronger finish because you do not have to worry about racking the weight on your shoulders or locking it out overhead. You can concentrate fully on the mechanics of the pull itself and since a great deal more weight can be used on the high pulls than on the power movements or the full movements, it is a good way to overload the pulling muscles.It needs to be understood that some athletes are unable to get a strong finish to their pulls because the muscle groups which are responsible for that part of the exercise are not yet strong enough. This is always true in beginners and females. They have not yet developed their traps to such a degree that they can provide the necessary power at the conclusion of the pull. A steady diet of high pulls and several of the other exercises that I am presenting will solve that problem. But the process does take time. It isn’t going to happen overnight, and this is actually a good thing. The body must have time to adapt and when it’s hurried, as when taking some sort of strength-enhancing drug, problems invariably occur.Then there are those who cut their pulls way too soon, so those groups that are involved in the very top part of the pull do not get activated and therefore do not get stronger. This happens when the athlete has been taught to move under the bar too early. Coaches have him key on moving his feet as fast as he can and slamming them into the floor. As a result, he never climbs high on his toes while at the same time shrugging his traps powerfully. That combination is what provides a strong finish. These exercises will help you learn how to do just that.The high pull is really a simple exercise – a deadlift followed by a shrug. Yet it is without a doubt one of the more difficult movements in all of strength training to master. That’s because the transition between the deadlift part and the shrug part must be done smoothly. The slightest hitch will negate the benefits. Proper technique comes from repetitions. In other words, lots and lots of practice. Both snatch and clean high pulls should be done in a program, since the two work the pulling muscles in slightly different ways. I’ll begin with the clean high pulls.Grip the bar where you normally do for power cleans, full cleans, or cleans and presses. Feet should be at shoulder width, toes pointed straight ahead with your frontal deltoids a bit out in front of the bar. Flatten your back, set your hips, and look straight ahead. With the bar tucked in against your shins, you’re ready to start the high pull. Now, instead of thinking about pulling the bar upward, try to push your feet down through the floor. This will help you to maintain a perfect starting position and will set the bar in motion and in the proper line, which is tight to your body from start to finish. Don’t rush the start. This will cause your arms to bend and you don’t want that because it will throw off your line of pull and affect the finish in a negative manner.It’s okay for the bar to come off the floor slowly. As it passes your knees it should be picking up speed. When it reaches your waist, drive your hips forward forcefully and contract your traps. Then and only then will you bend your arms. Once your have involved your traps, drive your elbows up and out, not up and back. Once your elbows turn backward, you can no longer apply pressure to the bar and have to depend entirely on momentum. As you contract your traps and bend your arms, you should also be climbing high on your toes so that your entire body is extended vertically. That combination of arms, traps, and calves provides the power to lift the bar, not only higher but with a jolt. That explosive finish is what is needed on a heavy attempt because it allows you time to move under the bar and find a firm bottom position to rack the weight on a clean.You should be concentrating on two things: height and speed at the finish. The upward moving bar will resemble a whip when the exercise is done right. Slow at the beginning and a blur at the finish. Learn the proper form while using light to moderate weights before loading on the plates. You may not need straps in the learning stage, but once you start using demanding numbers you will, so it’s a good idea to get used to them early on.The most common mistakes made on high pulls are: bending the arms way too soon, letting your hips climb upward at a faster rate than the bar, allowing your back to round, not finishing in a vertical position, and lowering your upper body downward to meet the upcoming bar. This last one is most prevalent for beginners and must be corrected if the exercise is to have any positive effect on the top pull. In fact, all these form faults need to be cleaned up as soon as possible. Otherwise, you’re going to be wasting time and energy with little or no reward for your efforts.