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Off the Floor

Your Chest Caves During the First Pull

Coaching by Danny Lehr with Coach Waxman2:25
The fault

The chest collapses as the bar comes off the floor.

Why it happens

A caving chest rounds the upper back and puts the shoulders in front of the bar, which pulls the whole system forward. Cue-ing 'chest up' out loud rarely fixes it, because the athlete cannot feel where 'up' is under load.

The fix

Coach Waxman's drill trains the chest position as a feeling rather than a cue, so the athlete arrives at the right first pull without being told about it every rep.

Guest coach
Coach Waxman

This fix was filmed with Coach Waxman. See every episode they appear in.

SnatchCleanOff the Floor
About this fix
Originally published as "Proper Pulling feat. Coach Waxman", 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

During training for high school days, I'm having a issue with my hips kind of shooting up off the ground. Coach Waxman's telling me that if I keep my chest up better and then he thinks I can get more kilos in the snatch. So this is what he really wants me to do, doing a partial pull and then a snatch from the deficit. So you want to please, everybody's raising the snips off the floor.

[BLANK_AUDIO] Kick the legs out of the exposible. By the time you get to walk past the knee here, you've been over and your legs really can't do anything. So, you're gonna keep your chest up and drop the walk past the knee. It's gonna allow you to really incorporate your legs into the squat.

So, not again. Using a deficit gives you the feel of what I've been working. It's like a little bit longer. So I'm going to just go to the knee.

Right, so there, lay that down. [BLANK_AUDIO] and the blades have. [static] The reason I have to step away is because you don't want to keep the legs, you want to teach him how to hold position. So it's certainly viable to have him stay in position, but then you're going to get the legs to keep to soon.

So in terms of teacher position, we don't want him to keep. So he certainly uses it as a conditioning pedal as well. It'll be a pull. back down and hold on to the bar and then to the left.

But that's kind of a different problem. So that's why I haven't stepped away from the bar. First stop. and the same wealth of form.

More off the floor fixes

See all

Your Back Lights Up When You Lower the Bar

Pain or a hot, fatigued low back on the way down rather than on the way up.

Off the Floor2:18

Your Hips Rise Before Your Shoulders

Off the floor the hips shoot up first and the shoulders lag behind.

Off the Floor2:31

Your Upper Back Is Loose at the Setup

No tightness through the upper back before the bar leaves the ground.

Off the Floor1:54

Want the rest of this category?

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