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The Finish

Your Hips Do Not Close Back Down After Extension

The fault

Opening the hips at the finish and then leaving them open.

Why it happens

Everyone talks about how the hips open. Almost nobody talks about what happens a fraction of a second later. If the hips stay open you cannot get down, so you end up waiting for the bar instead of moving under it.

The fix

After the big opening, the hips retreat and close quickly. That is what puts you in position to receive. Train the close, not just the open.

About this fix
Originally published as "It's All in the Hips", 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

The Lifting Fix. I've got Jay helping me out and we're going to talk about a problem people have with their hips. So when they finish in the snatch or in the clean, it's important that your hips should retreat out of the way. Hitting hip flexors want to make sure they're firing.

A mistake people make is that they just try to kind of go straight down and their hips don't come back out of the way. And so it kind of sometimes manifest in different ways, maybe they're turnover slow, they're not sure why, or they have problems getting their heels down and they're not sure why. So this is something that will help out best. So he's going to demonstrate a bad one and see exactly what's going on.

You'll notice that as he kind of finishes, his hips come straight down almost forward. Alright, and that's not good, okay? It makes it all go slow. So we want to do what a good one looks like.

There we go. So that's the hip retreat back out of the way. Okay, and that's important in your power. And also that puts you in position if you land here and you want to try and ride it into a squat, it's really kind of an awkward thing if you land it to the back to ride it into a squat.

squat is actually your natural squatting position. So one way to kind of work on that is if he has hands on front he goes up on his toes and then he's just gonna work on him back out of the way. Oh, okay good one more up on his toes and his back. Good and now if someone is still struggling to do that you can kind of give him a target or something to aim for.

You could just put him in front of a wall but walls don't move and telling someone to try and slam their button to a wall. I mean I feel good but you could set up something that you know has some gift to it so it's not a huge thing. You get a few inches out in front of there, step forward a little more. Good and up in her toes and you want to try and hit that PVC boom there we go It's about teaching because hips back from the finish all right Boom, there we go.

So it's forcing him to get his hips back because he has something to look for. Now he can actually grab the bar and we're going to kind of do the same thing from the hips here. He's going to kind of, yep, from there. And now again, once he finishes up, it's all about hips back out of the way.

More finish fixes

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You Bend Your Arms Too Early

The arms start pulling before the legs and hips have finished.

The Finish2:10

You Drive Your Hips Forward Instead of Up

Pushing the pelvis horizontally into the bar rather than extending vertically.

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With Ursula Papandrea

Your Change of Direction and Turnover Are Slow

A slow, drawn out transition from pulling up to pulling under.

The Finish1:16

Want the rest of this category?

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

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