Home / Under the Bar / Your Feet Land Too Narrow in the Snatch
Under the Bar

Your Feet Land Too Narrow in the Snatch

The fault

Receiving the snatch in a stance that is too close together.

Why it happens

A narrow receiving stance costs you depth, hip position and overhead stability all at once. It is one change that improves three things.

The fix

Better foot positioning in the catch. Widen the landing and the hips can sit into a real bottom position with the bar supported over a stable base.

Guest coach
Charlie Zamora

This fix was filmed with Charlie Zamora. See every episode they appear in.

About this fix
Originally published as "Improve Your Footwork in the Snatch", part of The Lifting Fix, the free weekly technique series Danny Lehr started filming over a decade ago. He gave every episode away then, and they are still free here. Danny Lehr competed in Olympic weightlifting from 2010 to 2019 and won the 2019 Masters World Cup. More about Danny Lehr.
Transcript

perfect But it's not really caused by the sole repositioning. It's caused by a foot and hip issue. So what happens is when he snatches, his feet are extremely narrow. So do a couple of snatches from the hip turner.

Go ahead. So this is going to drop in more upright. Stronger or stable overhead position. All right, so how we can do that is stand up, sir.

And we're going to take this plank. And we're going to whack it gently between his heels. All right, does everybody come in here? All right, now.

He's going to come up. So it's the older and the widest part of the plate because he's tall and because he's relatively mobile. If something is extremely in-roll, it may start a little further back so they get a little closer and then work their way to the wider part. But Chuck here is a trooper, so we're just going to get it popped.

So he's out there, he's going to go to that position one, and he's going to smash from there. [BLANK_ Alright now as he stays there, you notice his feet are wider, his hips are sitting the edge further, chest is up better, and his shoulders will be able to get in a better overhead position. He's supposed to make a stronger overhead, he'll keep his elbows straighter, and he's going to make more lifts. Alright, first maybe good idea is having him do a squat or two and go, but he was ready for it, alright?

One more time, statue of energy. Now we can slide this pathway out of the way, get nice and personal. Obviously close friends. Alright, never been that close before.

We have an S for one moment, bring our feet in, and I want you to move it out on the catch. You'll see here. He's already wider than he was before we did a little drill. All it took was two reps and now he's ready to rip.

All right. Thanks for helping out. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Cosmic. You're welcome. Thank you, Canada. You cut.

More under the bar fixes

See all

You Are Too Loose in the Bottom and You Miss the Catch

Riding the bar all the way to the bottom and missing from there.

Under the Bar1:44

Your Feet Stay Planted, You Lift in Concrete

Feet that never leave the pulling stance.

Under the Bar2:00

You Land on Your Toes and Touch a Knee Down

Receiving on the balls of the feet, sometimes with the front knee dropping to the floor.

Under the Bar1:21

Want the rest of this category?

Every fix I've filmed for what happens under the bar, one a day for five days, in the order I'd work through them with you. Not the order they got uploaded. The order that actually fixes it.

Plus the snatch pull checklist. One page, nine points, floor to hip.

Free, and these videos are free on this site whether you do this or not. This is just me putting them in the right order and sending them to you, so you don't have to guess where to start.

Or just download the checklist, no email needed.