Barbell Shrugged - Perfecting the Third Pull in the Snatch w/Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Coach Travis Mash - Barbell Shrugged #548

Episode Date: February 15, 2021

In this Episode of Barbell Shrugged: What is the power position and how do you get there? How do you prevent the bar from getting away from your body? How do you increase speed under the bar? Drills to focus on triple extension Tempo eccentrics and how they can help working from the top down   Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram ———————————————— Diesel Dad Training Programs: http://barbellshrugged.com/dieseldad   Training Programs to Build Muscle: https://bit.ly/34zcGVw   Nutrition Programs to Lose Fat and Build Muscle: https://bit.ly/3eiW8FF   Nutrition and Training Bundles to Save 67%: https://bit.ly/2yaxQxa   Please Support Our Sponsors   Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged   www.masszymes.com/shruggedfree  - for FREE bottle of BiOptimizers Masszymes   Garage Gym Equipment and Accessories: https://prxperformance.com/discount/BBS5OFF Save 5% using the coupon code “BBS5OFF”

This week on Barbell Shrug, we are talking about perfecting the third pull in your snatch. The things we are going to be going over, the power position, how you get there, what it looks like, what it should feel like most importantly, and why it is the universal position that everybody in weightlifting says you have to get to. There's a lot of ways to get off the floor, there's a lot of ways to get past your knees, there's a lot of bar pass you can take to get to the power position, but everybody that is strong in this world understands that the power position is the most important position for generating a lot of force on the barbell, getting it over your head. Also, how you prevent the bar from getting away from your body. We see

a lot of people that are used to swinging kettlebells and have a horizontal hip, teaching them how to keep the bar in tight with a vertical bar path. Also, increasing speed under the bar, some of the drills, tips, and techniques that you can implement right now in your training to build confidence and get increased speed under the bar. Also, drills that you can focus on to work on the triple extension. This is for a lot of people that don't finish. You may see yourself on video, the bar gets to your thighs, and then you jump and you're too fast and you need to build patience getting under the bar. Also, tempo eccentrics and how working from the top down in the snatch is going to give you a massive benefit in loading your hamstrings position getting your weight into your midfoot and drills and tempos

to use to help you get there but before we get into the show I want to thank our friends over at Organifi the green and the red and the gold we take these things every single day every single year month every single year I hope to never have to stop in the future. If you are looking for the easiest way to get vitamins and minerals into your life, the second thing that you need to be doing every single morning is taking your green juice. And I say that because the very first thing should be combined with the second thing. And the very first thing being getting water into your body. So you wake up, you need to get water, getting some vitamins and minerals moving. And the most perfect, delicious combination is to go down to your fridge, grab some cold water,

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buyoptimizers.com forward slash shrugged. Use the coupon code shrugged. Friends, let's get speedy on the bar. Let's get into the show. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Varner, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mass. Today on Barbell Shrugged, we're talking about how you can get a stronger, faster, more powerful, explosive, speedier, run it out of adjectives. We're going to help you get under the bar faster in the snatch. And one of the most complicated things, it looks like a magic trick, right? The bar gets to your hip, everything looks so good. And then somehow you're supposed to pull yourself all the way into an overhead squat, catch that thing overhead. And this is where we start to see some of the wheels come off,

mainly because the mechanics of the movement and really how you actually pull yourself under the bar can be a little confusing. And we start to see some of the form break down when people are overthinking it and not letting just nature happen. Because trust me, nature wants you under that bar. You just got to figure out and trust nature to get underneath the damn thing and catch it overhead. But Doug Larson, what do you think about the third poll? Tell me a little bit of the thought process and how we start coaching and getting people to understand that they are pulling themselves out of the bar instead of just David Blaine magically elevating it and it just happens to wind up over your head like some some Olympic lifting magic trick well I think that the biggest fault that I see with with third pole specifically is either a lack of full extension like they they quit pulling too

early or they don't actually pull themselves under the bar they kind of just like like hip thrust the bar and then they kind of hope they fall fast enough to get down there without like continuously actually pulling on the bar to get under the bar uh as fast as they possibly can uh travis you see the similar things at your place yeah we call it pulling and praying but yeah um pull and pray yeah pull and pray that before yeah but not in the context of snatching when or where i've used that but a lot of waylanders use it in the snatch as well as the bedroom but yeah so but yeah it happens a lot you know i think there could be i would agree with Doug. You know, there's times where an athlete is, like, learning, and then they're going to cut their pull because they're thinking of getting under.

But there's also the point of, like, pulling too long. You know, Don McCartney used to – I think the biggest thing I learned from him is the rhythm. A great weightlifter has great rhythm, and they know exactly when to pull under after pulling up. Example, James Tatum is probably not the most athletic guy. He's not going to jump the highest. He's not going to be the strongest.

He's definitely not going to be the most mobile. But what he is going to be is have the best timing I've ever seen, except maybe my kid Ryan. I would say that he does too. But, you know, it's just the knowing this. Here's the big key that I'm telling you, is that the moment your hips open, that's it. You cannot do anything to create any more height on the bar. So therefore, knowing the minute, just stand up and rip down,

stand up, rip down. Once you get that rhythm, man, that's the thing. Too many people try to really like shrug pull keep pulling get the bar higher which is a waste of time they should have just open and go open and go yeah i was always told the the shrug is you're shrugging yourself down yes you get the full hip knee and ankle extension then the shrug is pulling you under because you're not really lifting the bar very high with with your with your traps and and then with your arm pull right that's purely to pull you down you can get a really good plyometric effect out of your traps

too like if you if you practice that like the same way that when you're when you're running or doing jump rope or whatever and you're you're getting that that little stretch in your calf and kind of kind of creates that that bouncy feel that that in many ways is a plyometric effect where you're getting a little stretch on the muscle and then all of your involuntary muscle fibers kick in and they they assist with the movement you get the same thing with your traps and they get that little bit of a stretch um they they contract much more forcefully than you would be able to do consciously yeah the same way that like when a doctor you know knocks the front of your uh patellar tendon in the front of your knee your quad gets that

little stretch and then you kick your leg it's the same thing uh but you're doing it both with your with your uh non-voluntary and voluntary muscle fibers at the same time so anyway you get that stretch on your on your traps and it can help sling you onto the bar. Muscle spindles are a beautiful thing. Right. That's right. That's right. I actually always find, I shouldn't say always, but you know, a lot of times I find that people just don't understand the mechanics because they haven't done a lot of jumping in their lives or understanding leg drive. So you get into this position where they're, they may look great coming off the floor because they've done a bunch of deadlifts and they understand the mechanics of that but the idea that they're going to be driving the bar with their legs when the majority of time when they pick anything up and try and put it over

their head they do it with like a barbell curl or in a curling motion with their arms so trying to get them to conceptualize the fact that you're pulling under the bar instead of picking it up and putting it over your head really takes a long time. And when you think about the mechanics of what's going on, just the fact that they have to use their legs and finish is tricky because they get too far ahead of themselves in where the bar is supposed to be versus how they're going to be getting it there. And that often leads into, one, opening the hips way too early or doing it with their back and their chest flying up. And then all of a sudden you've got people trying to pick the bar up with their arms. And it's really obvious and it looks really awkward. And that really turns into kind of understanding where a lifter's at in their training age and understanding how to actually aggressively move a barbell to get it overhead.

But I feel like the positioning side of things, if we can get people to understand just staying in their legs, staying over the bar, and then elevating the bar with their legs, almost naturally, I was kind of joking in the intro about like nature taking over, but in a way, naturally, if you can get the bar in a good position and use your legs, you should just in a way, even if it's just a power snatch, be able to pull yourself under. I often find that people just lose their legs. They pull with their back. The back isn't strong enough because they're

using their low back and their chest flies out. And the next thing that they kind of revert to is the next muscle that your body goes to, which is your arms to try and pick something up instead of just being athletic around the bar. And that's, really you know for me when i'm watching people lift just the biggest sign of athleticism and and training ages is can they stay in their legs can they stay over the bar and then when they go to jump does do they just naturally kind of take over or does nature kind of take over and allow them to pull themselves onto the bar right travis what are your thoughts about using you know snatch bounces even muscle snatches just to learn out about how to keep pulling uh or or like the chinese high pulls like panda pulls you know panda pulls are yes this is going down because that's a unique thing that most people

don't talk about that often um you guys use use panopoles and how do you use them? We do. If people can use them properly, instead of doing the typical snatch pull where you just kind of shrug up and everything is focused on the up, the panopole is you finish the pull and then you're going to start the movement under. The key is can they get it right? Can they do the panopole and keep their torso upright? A lot of people do the panop pull and they pull their chest down, which is incorrect.

So you need to be able to make sure you pull with the torso staying upright. If you do that right, you know, you got it made, I think. Yeah. When you were talking about the rhythm and timing of getting the bar to your hips and then pulling under, is that a drill that really helps a lot with that? I feel like people, when I see them doing pan pulls, they're always doing it way too heavy, and they end up pulling themselves, like you're talking about, like their chest forward versus finishing with their legs and letting their elbows kind of pull high and outside. And once, you know, when you're teaching someone, obviously you've got to be light. But then once they get the rhythm and, you know, like the advanced people can go heavy with it as long as they do it correctly.

Like Ryan, you know, we have Dean, Sean, some of our new guys who are very good. You know, they were at Lindenwood with Coach Ma. And so for all they don't know he's he's from china and he was a chinese olympian so he's go to his instagram account it's like ma strength right yeah i think so awesome and so um yeah they they do it really well and like i think this kid i'm coaching named sean he is Sean Hamels, his name is from Kansas. He's like a white Chinese athlete. He like moves, he moves so well. But like, you know, that's the key is like,

is the understanding that it's about, you know, movement more than it's about, you know, being strong and explosive. It's both, but you got to have the movement. That's one thing you have to have. You don't have the movement. It does not matter how explosive, how powerful you are.

Yeah. How do you get people to conceptualize the rhythm and timing of bar to your hips, pulling under bar to your hips, pulling under, because that really is. And maybe even going back to kind of what I was saying is with the biggest issue of getting people to connect their legs to then pulling under the bar versus throwing it up with their back and and losing their entire midline but how do we start to get people to connect with the rhythm and timing it's just warm-up work bar you know hang

snatches just my favorite my favorite drill and i think most of my athletes would agree it would be like a no hook no feet snatch because you can't over pull because you're on the grip you know and uh it just a lot of a lot of people move their feet too dramatically like they they'll jump their legs super high and out and there's so much room for error but with the uh no no feet you just kind of put your feet where they're going to be and you keep them there and you just you really get that up and down motion yeah they even saw you know norik who's probably norik rhodanian who probably has the most beautiful technique i've ever seen uh he does a lot of no hook no feet no contact now that is a whole different ball game because rhythm is all you have you're going to you can't pull it very high because you don't

have a hook and you don't get that lift from it hitting you know making contact with your hips so man do you ever have that perfect you know perfect time even is it like it just an rdl straight into pulling under i've never done the no contact i would i'm like conceptualizing that in my brain right now i don't think i've ever pulled a snatch and not had it connect with my hips i don't do as much you know like don uh don mccauley my guy he my old coach he was uh he was totally against him because he you know he thought that the rhythm of it you know making contact was important but like i know with norik he does this a lot so if people are really banging the bar out in front of them you know the horizontal it's the best so all you're doing is just literally not not sweeping at all with your arms you just kind of leave it in front a little bit because then you know that guarantees a couple things it guarantees

you're going to have good rhythm at the top because you have very little time to get on the bar and what it guarantees is that you're not going horizontal with the hips which peter osdemus would say that is the biggest mistake that americans make is like um is that they they're pushing their hips into the bar and banging he calls it you know f in the bar and so yeah um you do that it would definitely stop that for sure well that i do you remember when john north put the youtube video out hit and catch and he was talking about the rhythm and timing of feeling the bar and snapping under as fast you can and just doing it with an empty barbell just to kind of create that connection from your brain to your hips of saying if you feel this you better be under the bar already and kind of create that connection from your brain to your hips of saying, if you feel this, you better be under the bar already

and kind of creating that timing. I think that's especially because that was like early, I don't know if it was early YouTube days, but it was like when weightlifting really started to come on to YouTube and he put that up and it, I don't even know how many people have viewed the video, but that caused a a mess that caused a disaster on the internet for about a week and a half of is this the right thing because

he was having people swing the bar away from his body and then bring it in and then immediately go into a snatch just with an empty barbell and what is what he was teaching is your ability to feel the bar hit your hips and pull under as soon as contact's made and every crossfitter in the world i think thought oh i'm supposed to have a horizontal hip and the bar is supposed to be away from me so bang the hip bang the bar yeah yeah and i bet there was a cracked pelvis somewhere in this world because john north told them this hit and catch drill. But what he's really trying to do is just get you to connect and recognize that as soon as the bar hits your hip, you should be able to create speed and power and pulling yourself under it.

There is a time and a place for that drill, but putting it out there for everyone to see without, it's probably not good. I even, my first coach, Wes wes barnett had me do that very thing once he had me do it one time one day because then once i realized and my body realized what it should feel like making contact i was able to do that and that's all it's for it's really here's where the bar should meet i should feel the bar you know i should feel a lot of pressure on my upper you know upper thigh for clean hip for snatch. And then once you understand that, go away from it. So it's a one-day drill.

It's not an evergreen YouTube video. What are your thoughts on the big arch as opposed to just standing as tall as you can? I would say that I think he overdoes it. I don't think a vertical finish is very smart where you finish literally straight up and down because if you think about it, like the bar, if you finish straight up and down, the bar is going to take that straight path and it has to loop back to be in the right position. So I think a vertical and then a follow-through slightly back, you know,

more of a follow-through versus like way back. That can cause a lot of – you see, the problem with him is that, like, if you watch his – his lifting is perfect. It's teaching sometimes. It can cause a lot of issues. But, like, we teach it up and then slightly back, like a follow-through back, but not like way back archangel that he talks about um so it works for him but like you know this video if you go watch him lift he doesn't

do quite like all the things that he's saying he does so i've actually because anytime people come into the gym and and have a video watching somebody that appears to have this gigantic arch back. And I would always just tell them, well, stand on your tippy toes and extend as far as you can. And as long as you continue to push the ground as far away as possible, you start to develop, especially if you have a giant load in front of you that you're trying to elevate as high as you can. The idea that you're leaning back, it almost automatically happens, even though you're trying to elevate as high as you can. The idea that you're leaning back, it almost automatically happens, even though you're trying to go straight up. You're in a way just counterbalancing and holding the bar in as tight as possible to your body,

and at the same time, getting as high and extended as you possibly can. And on video, it looks like people are leaning back, but if you start leaning back you just lose all of the power that goes yeah that's it's it's almost like your eyes are telling you to do one thing but in reality how you get to where your eyes want to be is the exact opposite of what makes sense because you're really just trying to elevate extend as far as possible but because there's a giant weight in front of you you have to kind of lean back a little bit naturally you have brought

us to a perfect example of like why weightlifting coaches argue is that there's a group who tells you something that's you know they'll explain it exactly the way it looks and is and then there's a group over here who will explain it because they want, they know that if they tell you, you know, like follow through back, that you're going to get back too soon. So they're going to say vertical, completely vertical, even though they know you won't be completely vertical. And so these, and these two groups will literally,

they're both trying to accomplish the exact same thing and they will fight to the death over those damn cues i'm like man it doesn't matter if your athletes are making team usa and your athletes are making team usa you're both right you know just like why get caught in this dogmatic view so like i will tell some people finish completely vertical i'll tell them that and some people i will say hey finish like do a backflip i mean if i have, because like there's a kid, the Sean kid I was talking about was too vertical. So he kept missing in front, in front, in front.

Now he's got this little fall through back and now he's like missing rarely. And like, so it just, I'll say whatever I got to say, you know? Well, it's just like in martial arts. A lot of people say like you should, you could punch somebody in the face or you should punch through their face through the face or you should punch through their face through the face like both of those cues can work depending on depending on your your personality your temperament and whatever your anger level there's many that's right there's many factors there that that determine like what kind of cues you respond to

but but in the end you're both trying to accomplish the same thing as you said so i think that happens in in basically any coaching situation where there's like telling someone the exact realistic reality of the situation and then there's telling them something that's maybe slightly not exactly the way reality is but it'll get them to do the thing you want them to do that's exactly right it's a balancing act the whole time i watched don mccauley and uh sean waxman fight to the death over, should you say shrug up or shrug down? I'm like, and then when I talked to them both separately, they both want the exact same thing.

And then I wrote an article explaining that so they would see how silly they are. And then they got mad at me for trying to make peace with them. I feel the answer should be if an athlete is just not getting under the bar the way it's supposed to and you and you say you say shrug up if it fixes it great keep it and if it doesn't go oh okay maybe i should try the other one right down and then oh that one works okay for you let's use that one for that guy let's use the other one because i hate people who him. I hate people who are so dogmatic.

They're like, it's this way or nothing. I'm like, so if this athlete doesn't get it using your cue, what do you do? You just say, next athlete? I mean, like, you just move on? I mean, or the jump. You know, like, I know that Anders likes to say jump, and people fight over that. You know, there's a group group like uh that will say like to

use the word jump at the top and then there are people who say that's absolutely taboo and i'm like if it works it works like i use it a lot for new athletes because uh we're getting them to understand to use their legs and finish with their legs but then i do move i try to move away from it when they become more advanced so they don't they don't try to finish too much at the top. They just open and go. So, like, I hate people like, why do you want to corner yourself like that where you can't say things? Crazy.

Well, I think that that – when you say jump, everybody understands what you're doing. Right. But try and jump with 300 pounds in your hand. It's not going to go anywhere. Right. And it's also just being able to set a precedent for, as a coach and talking to people about things, you have to find out where they're at in the

journey. So if you would walk up to somebody that's only been doing snatch and clean and jerk for three months and you're like, I need you to drive through the floor. And they're like, what, how in the the what are you talking about or like make sure you're nice and patient getting over the bar transitioning into the third like power position what that makes no sense where so just just jump figure it out and they want to know what these positions look like like when whenever i was teaching a lot of the lifts especially like getting people to the hang like early on in their lifting career be like can you just do a broad jump for me or can you do

uh like a max vertical jump and then they jump a couple times you're like well those that's where your feet should start and that's where your feet should land and when you go to jump as high as you can that's pretty much instead of having your arms behind you like you're going to try and dunk, if you just get them to stop in the bottom of whatever their vertical jump is and put their hands in front of them, it's pretty much the perfect hang position. So finding ways to talk to people and connect the actual, what you want to have happen with the actual movement, I'd rather just use words that get people to do the right thing versus try and be right i'm with you man all right that's exactly what i said i've written two or three articles about those two people about waxman mccauley about like you know like the the catapult versus the triple extension like it's so silly like you both are good like we're both here at the world championships.

You're really going to say the other guy sucks? You're like mean mugging somebody in the warm-up area. That guy over there, we don't like him. He says catapult. He's a stupid coach. He doesn't know anything. Oh, well, that's weird because his

athletes are here too. Does he suck? i don't know it's all posturing for status in a very small world i mean like some people call it the power of small differences it's like you will you will fight to the death over whether to call something a long first pull or some other term or whatever it is but you don't argue with anyone that's outside of that world they're not they're these vicious debates about is distance running good for you with some random person online because they're like, oh, no, that's just not close enough to what I do.

I don't care. I'm not attached to any answers, whatever. Get that guy out of here. Back to my weightlifting only world. Only world where I can fight to death, where I think somebody is a bad person because they don't say catapult. Like a a bad person because it's crazy I would I refuse ever you know people are always like you know are you a catapult coach I'm like absolutely not I am a weightlifting coach I do not want to be put in any kind of frame you know it's like it's like

people Max Shank used to say like it's like it's like talking to a carpenter and being like, are you a saw guy? And he'd be like, oh, yeah, I'm a saw guy. I'm mostly a saw guy. I use a saw for everything. Why don't you use hammers and screwdrivers and all the other available tools? All the tools available should be a part of your arsenal. If you're just a saw guy, then you're going to do really well at some things that require saws and everything else, you're going to fuck it up you're you're gonna do really well at some things that require saws

and everything else you're gonna fuck it up i i'm 100 with him like i i won't get pigeonholed into like this one way of thinking so but i learned a lot from both of them so i feel like my advantage was like being friends with both of them i learned a lot from both instead of like trying to like say i'm all in you know you still have it because now that even you know don is dan he is a great coach let me be first but like now you still have it because you got my my buddy vin and um does it there's another coach uh up north who like carry on the whole you know i guess catapult you would say but so it's it's funny still i mean like vin is some people that are listening to this and have no idea what this catapult thing is.

You know, and there's – They just walk through the two. I'm not sure. They're basically the same thing, but – I'll tell you. Like, so, like, here's what I've gathered in my research is that catapult would say, you know, they don't like to emphasize the ankle extension. Over pulling at the top, right? Yeah. Especially the ankle extension and the shrugging up. And, uh, they, they don't, there's really two

things. There's that. So there's plantar flexion and then there's like moving your feet. And other than that, you know, um, and there's a few other nuances like, you know, can that back angle change, um, uh, and like vertical versus like, you know, finishing that back angle change? And like vertical versus like, you know, finishing back. That would be the main things. But the big one is the plantar flexion. And the big one would be the moving your feet. That's so silly. Like, and I've watched this.

So one time when I wrote that article, I like, here's what I did. I did the most unbiased thing. I went to YouTube, to Hook Grip, and I took the first 10 videos, and I analyzed the first 10 videos, and I found that it was pretty darn even. Most people move their feet, and then there's about a 50-50. Some people extend massive plantar flexion, and some people don't. So here's the conclusion i've drawn to put it simple i believe here's what i believe i believe that you know the the um gastro it

crosses the ankle and so it's a and it crosses the knee so it's biarticular and so like when i finish massively at the knee the amount of plantar flex flexion is simply a carryover of extending the knee, you know, very violently. And the amount of plantar flexion, I believe, comes from where somebody's, where the gastric ties into the ankle. How far across the ankle does it actually attach? And so wherever that is, is how much your plantar flex. Does that make sense yes

i also uh you can teach all these things but at some point you're just confusing the shit out of somebody that wants to lift some heavy ass weights and put it over their head like if you're sitting there if you're a coach and you're listening to this show and you're like man i should really start talking about uh you shouldn't the muscles and how it connects into the coach and you're listening to this show and you're like, man, I should really start talking about the muscles and how it connects into the ankle. And you might be one. Don't. Don't. Just teach them to get the ball out of their hips and be a little bit more patient.

And then rip under it as fast as they possibly can. Right. Those. Yeah. Okay. So simply put, my point was, is that don't really think about the plantar flexion. Don't tell someone don't to do that. That can cause problems too.

Remember when we were down in Jamaica and we're down there, we're with like a bunch of 16-year-olds that are running sub-10 100s. They don't even talk about – they're so fast. You're not – it's like if you've ever gone to a weightlifting meet and you check in and you snatch over 100 kilos, you don't ever say like, oh, my first weight is going to be 103 kilos. You go, three. Or if you're really strong, you go like 20.

You don't ever say like 120 kilos. There's like a language of strong people. When you're running track in Jamaica, you don't say, I run 10.4. You go, nobody runs 10.4 down there. They all run sub 10. And they all say, oh, we've run eight. We've run seven because everybody knows that nine is the first number. And then we show up and there's people talking about where their toes are pointing as they go down the track. Is plantar flexion the right way to do it? You go, why don't you just let the fastest people in the world be the fastest people in the world and get out of the way?

Granted, I'm not the best track coach in the country, but every time I hear people that aren't as athletic, that guy's born to run as fast as you possibly can. He's been climbing mountains in Jamaica in poverty to get groceries home to his family he's the fastest human in the world just let the man be the fastest human in the world nature nature designed that guy to go from here to there faster than anyone he's been challenging people to foot races his whole life just let the boy run let him go sprinting is very

close to like weightlifting in that they have in that, in that world, they have a lot, you know, dorsiflexion, plantar flexion. They have, it's just like, it is so similar to weightlifting. Anytime you get something that's technical, you know, it draws a certain type of person. Like it draws a very analytical person. And so like that person is like, you know, they're going to have their beliefs and it's going to be, they think based on science and then they're going to die over that because they think you're a fool

not to believe what they're saying. And so like, I'm like, you know, if you're producing, you're producing, you must be good. If you're not maybe consider learning something new, you know, like it's that simple, but yeah, I don't talk about it at all. Here's why the finish of that is that if you talk about the plantar flexion, you know, you could cause people to like delay. However, if I say, if I say don't plantar flex, then you're going to cause, they're going to decelerate because the person who's naturally going to, to stop it, the only way to stop it because the muscle is biarticular, it crosses two joints, is to slow down.

It would be the only way to do it and so like i just think it's stupid to talk about period so that's one thing you'll never hear me say is you know don't plantar flex or plantar flex i just won't say either ever sometimes you get people just get hung up in that battle of trying to be the smartest to be the strongest if you want to prove that you're the smartest coach, produce then, is what I would say. I have 27 Team USA athletes. I'll say what I want to say.

I've produced. Don't argue with me. I'm going to say what I have to say. That's what I'm going to do. I will never say, I guess I'm saying it right now but i hate you know making absolutes i'll do what i gotta do you know yeah the uh well getting back to like some of the more technical pieces of getting in there i think one of the

hardest positions for most athletes especially when they're learning lifts to understand is uh getting into the power position and and what that shape of the body actually looks like, how long it takes to get there. How do we describe in kind of the best way actually getting to the power position and the patience that it takes to get into a good pulling position? I think one of the biggest things we were talking about in the show intro is just people pulling early for me is is probably one of the biggest mistakes in getting people to pull under the bar properly because if you pull from mid-thigh we've we've lost so much

of the leg drive so how do we get people into a better power position and and understand kind of what that what that position actually looks like and feels like. Well, I teach it from the top down. So I teach the power position first, you know, from the very beginning. And once they perfect that, then we move to the knee. But here's what I do differently than most coaches. Once they go, you know, obviously power position is really you just bend your knees and your shoulders are on top of the bar. You don't do a whole lot of, like, hinging.

Then to go to the knee, then you hinge. And then what I teach them from the knee knee i teach them to push with their legs staying over then back to the power position and once that becomes a natural thing we go faster with that and so so really i guess you're kind of teaching them how to properly get into a double knee bend after a very long first pull but i don't talk about any of those things i just say you know one and they go power two they go to the knee three they push staying over four back to power five they they snatch and once that becomes super easy then we go faster and faster we do it without counting and then we move to the floor and then we do it from the exact same thing from the floor we do first pull in the power and the finish and so like that's i feel like

that's the only thing i do maybe slightly differently than other people i think top down is so much easier to teach just getting people into a starting position is challenging enough much less everything else on the way up i think getting if you can get somebody to the power position that's key most of the time we don't have to worry about everything else we're talking about in this show because there's no way to swing the bar out in front of you. If you have a vertical torso, your hips moving up, not forward, you're going to be using your legs to get into that position because if you weren't, you would have already yanked the bar up with your back.

It's just the amount of time that it takes, especially somebody that's kind of an intermediate lifter that's really interested in ripping the bar off the ground and getting over their head. Like that person rushes through that lift. And I think as I progressed as a lifter and as I took, you know, snatch a clean jerk much more seriously and in coaching it, that was probably one of the hardest skills to learn is how, how long you have to stay over the bar before you're actually in that, that power position to get the bar, to keep it in tight to your body. It just takes a really long time and you know we've talked about it on the show before and in that when you've done enough

snatching and cleaning jerking you know if you're going to make a lift within and just coaching it you can see in your athletes that they're either going to make or miss the lift within the first millisecond of getting the bar off the floor you could see if they're pulled forward it just your eyes are able to slow the movement down and when it's your own lifts you can feel the position of everything you know that you got pulled forward off the ground immediately i actually saw a video on um i want to say it was hook grips I love when they put up the slow-mo stuff. And I wish I could remember who it was. But basically, you've got this miniature human snatching way more weight than should be humanly possible.

And he basically like bottoms out. I mean, his butt is a centimeter from touching the ground. I've never – like the amount of mobility that some of these guys have to be able to be strong and stable with their hips, all with their butts touching the ground and their knees are, and it's insane. But you can see in the slow mo that his heel comes off the ground, this tiny,

tiny, tiny amount. And as soon as I saw it, I was sitting there thinking, he thinks he missed this forward. There's no way because as a lifter, you can feel that bar pull you a little bit forward. You feel your heel come off the ground. And if you're not patient, you can immediately, when you get the bar to your mid thigh,

just feel that you're either forward, you're in a bad position if you rushed it. So the amount of time that it takes, just as you progress, you start to get more and more comfortable with that, that patience that's needed to get the bar to your hip and, and actually get it into a good position to pull. So teaching it from the top down, man, if I, if I was to take some kid, like, I don't know, my daughter in 10 years and teach her how to lift weights, which I'll probably end up doing.

You just, you could spend pretty much, you could spend a very long time just teaching the power position and getting to the hang and get the majority of the benefit out of, out of the lifts and understand. I feel like once you can master that position, you've done a really good job of teaching the really complex parts of it. And then getting off the floors, you know, it's its own problem, but getting off the floor is much easier than teaching that patience and,

and getting them to keep the bar in tight and driving with their legs. I think Klogoff said that the only thing that, you know, that every lifter has in common is the power position. You know, everything else is very like you know individual but you do have to finish i mean i've never seen i have yet to see someone you know with a bad power position do really well i don't think that exists but like everything else is optional like some people start with their butts high some low you know in the start you know some people stay over a very very long time some. Some people are pretty average.

The bar crosses the knee, and then they start into the power position. But the only common trait is that power position. So you've got to get that right. Yeah, and having a vertical torso, when you – and I guess this kind of goes back to knowing your athletes. But I've talked to you about this and i think it was don that was very against this but in teaching the speed under the bar you don't teach people to do tall clean or tall snatches from that extended position and then just immediately pulling themselves under the bar it's all rhythm and timing for you right sometimes no i mean we

don didn't and um but we do we do some you know like we actually this week we had some people warm up with that and then they're using the shrug to initiate because if you're in the tall position and like and you're shrugged there's no way to actually you know what are you gonna do you know like so like um you know we get the tall position with the you know the traps relax yeah we initiate it with some you know you know like um but like the amount of weight you're able to use it's like it's hard to make you know using 50 kilos like translate to a 300 pound snatch or you know so like it's so sometimes though at the beginning because we're i have two groups right now i have my advanced who we don't do that with. And I have my rookies in that we're doing a lot of tall snatches,

you know, snatch from the hip, like, you know, very beginner type movements. Yeah. So yeah, that was,

that was who we would typically use it with was people that just needed to understand how to connect to the barbell and use the weight of the bar to pull themselves down. Once you get to a certain point, that drill pretty much loses just because it's so it's awkward yeah um i still do it every once in a while just to kind of dance with the bar like and feel the pulling under like i'm never doing it with weight it's very rarely an exercise but in warm-ups just to feel yourself pulling under and to feel that connection to the bar, it's a great drill to just put in there and be able to like really connect your, your body to the bar and feel yourself pull under.

You know, it was, uh, it was snatch. Uh, what did he call it? Like dissection, but it's Chris Wilkes, who is like the final, he was like, he was after me at muscle driver, but did he call it, like dissection. But it's Chris Wilkes who is like the final. He was like – he was after me at Muscle Driver. But like he would teach, you know, when people were having deconstruction, snatch deconstruction. So he would do a tall snatch. He would do a snatch balance. Then he would do snatch.

And he would do – so he would all in the same day. And like so it would basically be a whole day worth of snatch. And I think a few people got a lot of benefit from that because the tall is teaching you to pull under, and then the snatch balance is teaching you. It's more of a push than a pull, but you're learning in that final catch phase is a push-up. So it's teaching that.

So you got the pull, the push-up, and then you do snatch. And that can help a lot of people and muscle driver. Yeah. We actually, I had it in my notes to talk about snatch balances and how that drill can kind of, it doesn't help necessarily

with the third pull and that you're going to be developing speed pulling under the bar. But I think that there's a large benefit in helping your third pull and just staying connected to the bar. But I think that there's a large benefit in helping your third pole and just staying connected to the bar and teaching kind of that speed and athleticism that you need to be able to push yourself and move around a heavy weight. It's definitely not going to teach you to pull under. But I think anytime that there's a drill that you can load a head,

like we were talking about tall snatches, you're not going to be able to put 225 on the bar and do that just doesn't exist. It's not possible. But if you put a snatch balance and you have the weight on your back, it's not directly related to pulling under the bar. but anytime that you can find a drill that's going to teach that connection and forcing your body to move around the barbell, I think does a great job at helping with the third pull, just in overall athleticism and being able to dance with a barbell. I agree 100%. We do a lot. I do overhead squats you know there's some there's once again there's a group of coaches who say absolutely no overhead squats but like it's how heavy do you have people doing overhead squats i mean fairly heavy you know because i want them to

the cold you know i need a load to what i'm trying to do is stabilize overhead so like i'm you know if you go light like you're missing the point i I think what is the point then? But if they go heavy, you know, and like, you know, you have to, to, to get, create adaptation. So they get, they get very strong in that position. Like Hunter did a lot of those because we did overhead squats. We did benches, anything I could do to stabilize because she's hypermobile. She can do some crazy stuff with her arms. And so we had to do all this work to, you know, create a little bit less elasticity overhead. And it definitely worked. But I like the snatch balances because the last phase,

like as you're pulling under and now your arms are turning over, is the snatch balance. The last few inches is you're pushing yourself now and you're pushing up against the bar. So it's important because most people want to catch the bar versus like punching up the bar. And when they catch it, you're going to get the elbow bend. But like I tell you, the person to watch with the best arm action is Maddie Rogers. The best thing about her technique is her arms.

Like they're fast and then they punch up. The stability that she presents catching a snatch is the best in the business. So it's good. I want to say it was Coach Bergener talking about this. I think he was referring to his son Casey at the time where, you know, Casey was a great weightlifter, and he probably – I don't know what the exact numbers are, but he's probably snatched in the high threes or whatever it is. And, uh, he's having trouble getting through some type of plateau.

And so, uh, I believe he was told to go do snatch balances at like, you know, 10%, 20%, whatever it is over his snatch weight. So he was just used to catching that much more, you know, 400 pounds overhead or whatever, whatever it was. And then he broke through some plateaus just because he got used to getting under a very heavy bar much more often than he would have otherwise. I totally 100% agree. Do you have a standard for that, by the way?

How much you should snatch balance relative to your one rep max snatch? I like what you just said, 10% to 20% above. Some people can't do as much. It's crazy. Like John North could not snatch balance as much as he could snatch, which is, you know, that is a person who is super efficient at the snatch. You know, it's not because they're overly strong. They're just really good at the movement.

And so I think that's a dangerous thing because, you know, that question, does he have the stability that he needs to do that over and over? But, I mean, he has been for a while. I could snatch balance more than I could overhead squat. I think Hunter would say that too because she's good. She became so stable, I think, yeah, because you don't have to push it as high. The overhead squat, you got to like shove it up there,

whereas really you don't snatch balances. You got to step up a little bit, and then you drive under the bar. So I think there's some people who would say that they could do that. I get snatch balance just because the holding the weight overhead just started to beat the crap out of my joints once I got into like 275 range. That was my best one RM overhead squat. But I could snatch about 300 or not 300, but like right about 275

just because I could like drive myself under the bar and catch it down there. And then the squat part was the easy part. It was always the jerk to get it overhead. That was a really scary part. Did you guys see Ryan's jerk, the 400 pounds he did yesterday? I haven't seen it yet.

Can you believe a 148 pound guy jerked 400? Anyway, there you go. We'll throw that out there. I rarely want... If I think about going back to college and living that life, I'm like, I think my life is better now. It was fun then, but I couldn't go back and do that.

But if I could go back as Ryan Grimsimsland right now for a week i would totally go back on sunday um he brought this cute little volleyball girl over to the farm for me to meet oh man tell me i gotta settle down it's too early to be getting locked down uh a lot of girls on the volleyball team, not just one. Yeah, he did pretty good, though. You know, like, I was impressed. I was like, see, that's what totally 300 gets you right there, boy. You know, like, he is on fire.

He battled this other kid yesterday. He's at this tiny little school out in the middle of North Carolina. Owning it. And everyone knows you're the strongest person on campus i think they're gonna change the name it's not gonna be lenore ryan i guess it will be that's so funny what a what a what a life he's a freshman right freshman oh my god that was six kilos under the senior world record i mean that's a cleaning jerk but just the fact that this little 148 pound guy that's 18 years old is like flirting with senior world records i was like it was impressive guy was deep down like there's no way he's jerking

400 and then sure enough smash that mess what did um what did oh jesus crystal's son i'm losing his morgan yeah what did morgan jerk the other day like power jerked 418 or something which is huge for him because you know like the you know he can 200, probably 210 if we wanted to right now. But the jerk has been the limiting factor. So we've been doing lots of power jerks. And now, yeah, he power jerked 190. So now I would be highly surprised if he does not clean and jerk 200 kilos. What's the world record in his weight class?

Because when we were out there and we did max out friday i want to say it was like 425 or something yeah it's right around what he's done you know he was flirting with it already unless some dude from you know uzbekistan or something has pushed it but like it's in the 190s and he's already cleaned you're at 190 you know in competition so he's all over that world that's the youth world record uh Senior world record in his weight class is crazy. I don't know what it is. It's probably, I don't know, 230-something, you know, like five-something. But definitely all over the youth world record now.

How power-jerking that is really impressive. You know what makes it awesome for him is the fact that he's in that garage with just him and Mallory and then Crystal. There's really just three people, and he's doing that, which is impressive. Ryan's now got this big group around him, and he's just crushing. When does he show up to campus? Is he next year? I think he's going to come in January.

He's homeschooled. He can go to college whenever you want as long as you have a degree. I have two of those right now. And then him and Hannah are coming in January. So a little early. They'll both be 17 still. But yeah. Then we'll be

we'll have a loaded team then. I think that's going to help. When those boys the other guys on Team C, you know, somebody clean jerking 190, 200, they're going to be like, well, I at least need to do 170, 180. I just love that all these kids chose to come on year one so they feel like they get – you could like see on Instagram that they're just stoked to be there

and they feel like they're doing something really cool. They are doing something cool. It's my favorite group I've ever coached. I was careful choosing people that are good people. I've turned down a couple boys that I just didn't get a good feeling, even though they were really good. They're Team USA boys. I wasn't hip on them because I just had a feeling they could ruin the whole thing.

Not that they're bad boys. It's just they didn't fit the culture. I'm not saying – they went somewhere else. But this group, they're so supportive. They're all coming to the farm on – hey, what are you doing Saturday? You should come over Saturday because we're going to do a little thing on the farm. You could meet them. It's possible.

Let's see what the family's doing. Yeah, yeah. Killer. Yeah, I'm excited. Travis, where can they find you? you could meet him it's possible let's see what the family's doing yeah yeah killer yeah i'm excited travis where can they find you mashley.com go to instagram mashley performance doug larson on instagram doug will see larson i'm gonna do this for the first time today fellas you ready i'm anders varner at anders varner we're barbell shrugged at barbell underscore shrug get over to barbell shrugged.com forward slash store. And for all of you people in San Diego, LA, and Vegas, get over to Walmart. We've got three training programs in Walmart that you can buy.

25% of what we sell them for on our shelves. And we are dying to make this the coolest thing that has ever hit the shelves of Walmart. Get over to Performance Nutrition right next to all of your proteins and pre-workouts and creatines. There's going to be a little thing called Transform Your Body by Barbell Shrugged. And my little girl just showed up. Get over to Walmart, San Diego, L.A., and Vegas. We are inside stores on the shelves now.

And we will see you guys next week. That's a wrap, friends. What a beautiful, beautiful way to start your day hanging out with travis mash doug larson recording talking about snatches what a beautiful day uh organifi.com forward slash shrugged you can get over to bioptimizers.com forward slash shrugged organifi.com forward slash shrugged that's where you save 20 on the green the red and the gold bioptimizers.com forward slash shrugged. Organifi.com forward slash shrugged. That's where you save 20% on the green, the red, and the gold. Buyoptimizers.com forward slash shrugged. That's where you save 10% on P3OM.

We will see you guys on Wednesday.