I like to use golf analogies a lot in comparison to weightlifting because there are so many similarities and I love both sports. I remember the very first time I hit a long drive off the tee and the ball went exactly where I had planned on it going. I remember it to this day down to the exact driving range that I was on. The crispness of the swing and the full contact that I made was remarkable. Anyone who has hit that type of drive knows exactly what I’m talking about.
The same feeling is found in the gym. The first time you discover a new aspect of a snatch or clean or jerk and you perform it perfectly you remember that feeling. I remember the very first time I snatched with the bar really really close to my body and how that third piull felt receiving the bar. I sprang up out of the bottom effortlessly with a PR weight. The video is remarkable. I have it saved it still to this day. The same experience happened about six months later with a jerk. I remember the bar going directly into place my feet hitting it at just the right time and the bar effortlessly stabilizing over my traps. It was a remarkable lift that I will remember for the rest of my life. The video is saved on my hard drive.
Those videos are precious and extremely valuable to me. Weightlifters work for hours upon hours to perfect very small minute pieces of their technique. Technical precision is everything in the sport of weightlifting. Personally, I will snatch thousands of reps with a small technical error before I hit one just right. Anyone who tells you they snatch with perfect precision every single rep every time is not only a liar but living in a dream world. Furthermore, anyone who tells you that every other rep is perfect is a liar and living in a dream world. There is so much movement and extreme technical precision required in the lifts that a perfect snatch or clean or jerk is as rare as me hitting a perfect drive.
However, when those lifts happen two things are important. First, remember exactly what was going through your head and what you were focusing on to make that happen. Then re-create that mental state. Secondly, video the lift! Having the lift on file allows you to go back and look at bar position as well as body position during that lift in order to create a mental understanding of how to accomplish this more often. This is why I have so many lifts saved. Over the course of 14 years these lifts have happened along the way. Some of them I was lucky enough to catch on video and can refer back to when ever I am struggling with a specific technical fault. Most recently that fault has been continuing to sustain a leg drive through the second pull. This past weekend I was able to do that and in the process PR my hang snatch. I have that video saved on my phone at this moment.
The problem now is re-creating it.