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Old 07-25-2009, 10:41 AM   #214
Sy Labthavikul
Dojo: Aikido Academy USA of Alhambra
Location: Los Angeles area, CA
Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: 98
United_States
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Re: What is IT?

Quote:
In a standing snatch you add a rocking-like motion to the curl, so that you lift the weight using the combined power of the curl and the projecting/throwing of the hands upwards. Both are definitely not 'it'.
Having done my fair share of hanging snatches (a snatch with weight starting at waist height), I don't think this is an accurate description of whats going on, even on a simple level. "Curling" or bicep flexion plays only a very small part of the overall movement. The hanging snatch is like an explosive wave of a bunch of different muscles firing in sequence.

As taught to me by my lifting coach, the hanging snatch starts with an explosive hip extension, utilizing mostly the hamstrings and glutes, as if you were pelvic thrusting the bar, simultaneously driving the heels into the ground. Its less a muscular contraction and more focusing on locking out the hips. His words were "Like a folding chair being kicked and locked open." That provides the initial momentum, after that the wave almost immediately rides up to the upper back as the lifter performs a massive shrug, where the trapezius, rear and lateral deltoids, and all the other random muscles stabilizing the scapula and shoulder girdle pull upward on the bar. There is some bicep flexion here, but in no way like an isolated curl; if anything, its just to facilitate the elbows moving directly upward, helping to "pull" with the shoulder shrug at the apex of the "catapult" provided by the hip extension. At this point the bar is flying close to the body near the chest level; at this point, I was taught to completely relax, let the bar ride up more, then dive beneath and catch it.

I was also told that if my arms felt sore after a snatch workout, I was doing the exercise wrong, as I was using muscles in isolation. Especially considering a person can usually snatch a weight far, far greater than he or she can bicep curl.

I would say snatches, and most Olympic style lifts, are less about levers and more about compressed springs; a seesaw versus a catapult. Most of the work is done by the posterior chain of hamstrings, lower and upper back.

Last edited by Sy Labthavikul : 07-25-2009 at 10:53 AM.


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