Starting Strength

above your pubis. This placement gives you a range of a couple of inches on your belly, and about an inch either way at the hands. When in doubt, go wider, since the point is to shorten the bar travel. After setting your grip, refer to the bar markings and spot your position so that you can duplicate it quickly and precisely every time.

    Figure 6-51. The grip at the proper width will leave the hand at an angle that minimizes the contact between the ring and little fingers and the bar. The hook is the primary holding mechanism in the snatch.

    Go ahead and use the hook grip you learned earlier in the clean. This grip width will result in a rather acutely angled hand position on the bar, so that the thumb, index finger, and middle fingers do most of the gripping, with little contribution from the ring finger and little finger. This angle makes the use of the hook grip more important for the snatch because fewer fingers must do most of the work of holding the bar. You already know how to make the hook from doing it for the clean, so you should not have a problem adding it now. Chalk is important, too, and any gym that lets you snatch shouldn’t have too big a problem with a little judiciously applied MgCO3.
    Once your grip is set, note the position of the bar against your belly. It should be in contact with the skin when you are standing erect, with chest up, elbows straight and internally rotated, knees and hips extended, and eyes looking forward and slightly down at the same point 15 feet away on the floor. Your stance right now will be the standard pulling stance used for the clean and the deadlift: heels 8–12 inches apart and toes pointed slightly out. We’ll modify the stance later.
     

    Figure 6-52. The hang position.

    The internally rotated elbows are important. They are your reminder to keep your arms perfectly straight during the pull. When you set your grip, set your arms into position by rotating them the way you would if you were standing with your palms facing the floor, and then pointing your thumbs down at the ground. Later, when you rack the bar at the top, the racking motion will involve rotating the arms externally, the opposite direction. This rotation provides much of the “snap” that is characteristic of racking a snatch.
    The next position is the rack position . The snatch racks overhead, just like the top position of the press but with a wider grip. The bar is in balance when it is directly over the shoulder joints, since that is the point at which no moment arm exists between the load and the point of rotation. The rack position has nothing to do with your head or your neck, especially considering the fact that your neck can move around quite a bit under the racked bar. In this position, the bar, the shoulder, and the mid-foot will be vertically aligned, something that is very important when the weight gets heavy.

    Figure 6-53. The rack position in the power snatch. The bar is supported overhead by the shrugged traps, which support the scapulas and thus the arms.

    Get the bar in position over your head with your snatch grip any way you have to, and don’t let go of your hook. Your arms must be perfectly straight. They will go from internally rotated in the hang position, to externally rotated overhead. If you point the palms of your hands directly at the ceiling, you will produce this position. Holding onto the hook prevents the bar from rolling back into the fingers to make a long moment arm between the bar and the wrists. Some leverage is inevitable, but the hook keeps it from getting excessive.
     

    Figure 6-54. The correct grip (A) will hold the hook in place with the palm of the hand facing up. Attempting to hold the bar in the web of the thumb (B) prevents the load from being correctly supported by the arms and places the elbows in a potentially dangerous internally rotated position.

    After the bar is in position overhead, make sure it is in balance over the shoulder joints. Push the bar back a little to feel the posterior extent of your balance; then bring it forward until you feel the weight start to pull the bar forward. The balance point is right in the middle, where the rotation force on the shoulders is neutral. For most people, this position will be a little behind where they think it should be, especially if they have been told to keep the bar over the top of their head. During this process, the elbows remain perfectly straight.

    Figure 6-55. The bar in balance