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The Finish

You Drive Your Hips Forward Instead of Up

The fault

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

Why it happens

A forward hip drive sends the bar out on an arc. A vertical finish sends it up. The difference is easy to see on video and almost impossible to feel in the moment, which is why it persists.

The fix

Jump out, then jump up, back to back, so you can feel the difference in your own body. Then take that vertical feeling straight into a clean.

About this fix
Originally published as "How to Use Your 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 have Adrian here who's going to help me out with something as I kind of help her with something as well. So we're going to film this video about her clean. All right, off of the blocks, she has a problem when she was throwing her hips into the floor instead of finishing up.

So again, it's always making her nervous, but let's do that again real quick. So just to clean like you were doing, kind of get into the bar. So notice that as you really finish your hips, it's out. So the idea is to finish with your hips up, okay?

More of like a jumping motion than a hips out motion. We want the bar to go up, not out. So to fix that, we're going to take a step back onto the turf right here, and then go and shoot that way. So then jump out, jump as far as you can.

Alright good, now I'm going to come back here. Now I just want you to jump as high as you can, use your arms as high as you can. Good, and one more pass. Good.

Now we're going to come over to the bar. Now you can feel the difference between out and up. All right, on this plane, I want you to think of up, jump up as you finish. Here we go.

Alright. Thanks very much. So, it's not perfect. We can do a few different things like move our feet, but what we're trying to fix, the goal is to fix the hit motion to get it up instead of out-finished, and that's exactly what you did.

Thank you for your help. Yeah.

More finish fixes

See all

You Bend Your Arms Too Early

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

The Finish2:10
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

Your Turnover Is Slow and Your Arms Are Late

Taking too long to turn the bar over once the extension is finished.

The Finish1:27

Want the rest of this category?

Every fix I've filmed for the finish, 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.