Vertical and Horizontal Hip Extension

One of my lifters this morning made a really astute observation about her Olympic lifts that I thought was worth mentioning. She has the common habit of jumping forward when she pulls under her lifts. She noticed that her bar track was a little out front of her center of pressure and did some of her own video analysis work to understand why. She compared the second pull of her snatch to her max height vertical leap. She put the two jumping motions into coaches eye side by side and saw the difference. Her vertical leap displayed an obvious vertical hip motion. What she noticed was that the movement of her hip during the snatch was far too horizontal to be efficient.
With that statement in mind, she has set to fix her snatch and clean by visualizing a more vertical jumping motion rather than a horizontal hip hinge. The reality is that the hip must move forward more during a snatch or clean then during a vertical leap. However, often we move our hip too far horizontally and as a result the bar is well out in front of our center of pressure. Trying to create a vertical hip motion often is the answer to fixing this. I was pretty proud of my lifter this morning for her observation and I already saw some improvement in her bartrack during her snatch workout.
Tomorrow I will compare a vertical leap, a poor horizontal hip motion during a snatch, a well performed second pull, as well as a kettlebell swing to show you the difference between the four. There are some subtle differences specifically between the vertical leap and the second pull of a proficient snatch. I think taking a look at all of those movement side-by-side will be beneficial.
Until tomorrow…