Let me first start by stating that I know this blog post will ruffle some feathers. I’m okay with it only because it does not take much to ruffle the feathers of staunch, tunnel-visioned USA weightlifting coaches. Secondly everyone lifts the best way that is designed for their body and this is simply the way I (and most traditional, successful coaches) see the lifts.
Someone listened to a podcast from Weightlifting Talk from last week and heard some of the banter between Travis Mash and I about difference in lifting styles. His question was simple. “When should I think about getting behind the bar and re-bending my knees?”
That answer is far from simple and you could talk to 100 different coaches and get 100 different answers. Personally I don’t teach re-bending the knees and I don’t teach getting behind the bar. Anyone who knows how to jump will do that all on their own. I know this is an old-school way of thinking and a very traditional approach to the lifts. However, the reality is that a lifter with significant amount of weight on the bar is naturally not going to want to hold that extreme amount of tension for an extreme amount of time in their hamstrings and posterior chain. For that reason it is always going to be a fight to stay over the bar with their shoulders and to keep their knees back. Teaching a lifter to push their knees to the bar and pull the shoulders behind the bar, even at the appropriate time, more often than not leads to an early second pull and swinging him the barbell out in front of their body. I do not teach the re-bend of the knee in the same way that nobody teaches LeBron James to bend his knees when he goes to jump and dunk a basketball. It’s a natural part of hip extension and, especially for beginners, it can make the lift more complex than it needs to be. Teaching the lifter to be explosive and extend the hip naturally creates a re-bended me.
Here’s what I know that statement is going to do. First, it will likely create some banter and some arguments among new and old weightlifting coaches alike. The one thing every weightlifting coach agrees on is that everyone else is wrong. That likely is the only thing we will ever agree on. The other reaction to that approach to the lifts will be an attack on my coaching credibility and potentially an attack on my capability to coach successfully. Those attacks will serve as a source for humor tomorrow.
Here’s the truth of the matter. Most coaches I know (noticed that I said most) encourage the lifters to delay the re-bending of the knee for as long as possible and keep the shoulders over the bar as long as possible. Even coaches who teach the re-bending of the knee encourage lifters to keep their knees back and shoulders in front of the bar as long as possible in order to create more hamstring tension and therefore more bar speed. Even those coaches out there with a very different view of the lifts then me agree that hamstring tension is good for the successful completion of a snatch or a clean and would agree that delaying the re-bended knee for as long as possible is a good thing.
I wanted to clear up my understanding and viewpoint on this portion of the lift and encourage lifters who struggle keeping the shoulders over the bar to transition their mindset away from a purposeful re-bending of the knee. Stay over the bar, continue to drive through your feet with your knees back for as long as possible, and only at the very last second allow an explosive hip extension to create the re-bend and pull the shoulders behind the bar. Watch great lifters. Many of them lift this way.