Every intelligent weightlifter is constantly critiquing and making small changes to their lifting. As we grow and develop our body changes or as we notice new habits that need to fixed, we change something about how he lift.
Recently, I have been more focused on the width of my feet both in my starting position and in my landing position. As I’ve watched and listened to Caleb and Kelly critique some of my lifts I think this is some of the reason I miss heavy snatches and have a hard time rebounding out of the bottom of the clean. Getting my feet to a proper width to allow for a more vertical receiving position in turn makes me more stable and strong in the bottom. I’m always preached this and I’ve always thought my feet were getting pretty wide. However, as we played with my landing stance and played with my squat stance a bit, we recognized that going a couple inches wider could make all the difference for my lifts.
The crazy part is the soreness that followed as I made these changes. A slight change in my foot position, even as slight as 2 inches, created a different kind of tension on my hip flexors and glutes and specifically the top of my IT band and my TFL. The tension I feel in the bottom is great but the new pressure and new soreness is a giant sign that there are muscles I haven’t been activating fully or properly when I lift. I’m 15 years into this sport and I’m still finding small muscle groups that are not working the way that they should! That’s mind blowing to me. I am imagine this will always be the case. We will always find things we aren’t doing well or things we haven’t been using properly as we continue to grow and develop in the lifts.
As all intelligent weightlifters do, pay attention to that different stimulus and different tension. It may be the key to understanding where some of the weakness is that prevents you from reaching your potential. For me, understanding that I want to properly activate my upper glutes and outer hip muscles may be the key to be understanding how to get the most out of my legs during the standup of the clean or be the most balanced in the bottom of the heavy snatch. Much of this is fixed by giving attention to the landing position of my feet. Pay attention to that change. It could make the difference between you hitting the numbers you want or allowing them to crush you as they always have.