In continuation of the earlier blog post on whether not Olympic lifting complexes can be helpful or not, I want to take a close look at snatch complex work and it's benefit or detriment to your lifting. We see the sexiest complexes all over the place nowadays. You know which ones I'm talking about. The most popular of them right now is the three position snatch from the floor than the knee then the hip. There are some new ones out there making the rounds that include snatching plus snatch balances or crazy tempo overhead squats and pauses. There are so many different complexes written by so many different people that it's hard to make sense of what works best for you and what is going to specifically attack your weaknesses rather than just looking cool on an Instagram video.
In this article I plan to look at a snatch complex in three different ways. Should I even be doing complex work? How do I create a good complex? What are some things to avoid when creating a snatch complex?
To answer our first question, should I even be doing complex work, you need to take a hard look at how far along you are in your weightlifting career. As I previously stated in the last blog, complex work is not designed for the beginner lifter. If you don't know where your body is supposed to be at different positions throughout the lift then it is probably not to you advantage to be doing complex work before figuring that out. Furthermore, if you don't know what the position is supposed to look and feel like you're likely not going to put yourself in optimal positions for growth and technical precision smack in the middle of a tough complex. So to answer the question, should you even be doing complex work? For 50% of the weightlifting community the answer is no. If you have not had enough repetition or enough coaching you probably shouldn’t be diving head first into complexes. If you don't understand what each position is supposed to look like and what you're supposed to be feeling at that position nor have you created substantial muscle memory in those positions then complex work will only set you backin your pursuit of technical precision. For the other 50% of the weightlifting world, be careful how intricate you are when creating complexes. The intricacy should only match the level of expertise you have in the lift and the number of repetitions you have completed over the course of your lifetime. Complexes can be very very sexy on paper and ultimately do you no good in the gym.
Our second question, how do I create a good complex, is highly dependent upon your knowledge of the lifts. If you can pinpoint deficiency and weaknesses in your lifting but can't create movements or pick out movements that will best address those weaknesses, it is probably not in your best interest to be completing or definitely creating complexes. However, if you do understand these basic pieces of the Olympic lifts, the how part of a snatch complex is actually pretty simple. Pinpoint your weak areas, write down the specific positions and specific movements that address those weaknesses, and put them into a well written complex that matches with the cycle you're currently on and the volume and intensity you're aiming for. For example, let's say my biggest weakness is creating acceleration in the snatch once the bar crosses my knees and maintaining good position at the knee. Furthermore, let's say I am three weeks into a cycle that is 16 weeks long. With this knowledge I can pick out a couple of quick things. First of all, I'm going to need to do some sort of position work from my knee forcing me to create speed as the bar across as my knee. Also, I'm going to need to make sure that I'm in a perfect position at the knee. Lastly, because I am in week 3 of a 16 week cycle I know that the relative volume of the complex to be high while the intensity should be low. This means that the max effort percentage that I should be able to get to on this complex should be somewhere in and around 80% at most. That's going to mean multiple reps inside of this complex. With all that knowledge in mind, I would probably create a a complex to look something like the following: one snatch from the floor + two snatches from just below the knee. Another option would be to do three snatches from the floor with a pause below the knee on every rep. I would probably work up to the highest weight I could complete for the complex allowing for up to three misses and then I would complete three drop sets of the same complex at 8%-10% less than my max effort set. There's probably five or six more complexes that could accomplish some of the same goals, which is the beauty of complex work, but this one would certainly meet the stated requirements and help fix some of the weak areas in the snatch.
Lastly, and probably the most important question, what are some major things I should avoid when doing snatch complexes? The bulk of this answer is going to come from a safety standpoint. Many of the "sexy complexes" out there put lifters in varying degrees of risk and the ultimate reward is not worth it. One of the best examples I've seen of this right now is completing a snatch and then dropping the bar on your back and working into a snatch balance. This could be a good exercise for warm-up purposes at maybe 50 or 60% but pushing a complex of that kind to a max effort lift will often end with lifters dropping the bar on their neck improperly, possibly creating injury. Furthermore adding a snatch balance into a snatch complex does not make much sense given the previously stated ideas in creating complex work. There's no point in doing a snatch balance off of the snatch when you could just do this out of the rack. My point is this, consider the safety of your lifter when creating a complex. No complex that puts a lifter at high risk is worth creating or completing. A second concept to consider and possibly avoid when creating complexes is the addition of a tempo to the squat or the lift. There are some really good complexes out there that include a 10 second pause or 10 second squat or a 6 second descent in the pull. All of these complexes are great under one condition, the lifter is able to maintain proper positioning throughout the tempo. Adding an exaggerated tempo up to 6 or 10 seconds is a great idea unless it puts a lifter in a bad position. Tempo work only works if you're working proper positioning. Avoid adding extreme tempos at max effort weights until your lifter is able to maintain good positioning throughout the tempo. The point is to teach the body good positions not see what your body can sustain for how long. The last thing to avoid, and probably the hardest, is watching videos or social media posts of a lifter you idolize doing a really cool complex and then going to the gym and trying to mimic it. I get that it's fun and I get that it adds variety to training but it does not make you a better lifter. Make sure your complexes are designed for your weaknesses and your goals is not something sexy you saw on the internet. Avoid complexes that are not specifically tailored to you.
Bottom line: make sure that any snatch complex you create and complete is ultimately beneficial and also make sure that it fits into the desired volume and intensity of your current weightlifting cycle. More to come next time on things to watch out for and how to create clean complexes.