Starting Strength

overhead will be vertically aligned with the glenohumeral joint. Any distance forward or behind this point will be a moment arm that will have to be handled.

    Once the balance point has been identified, the final part of the rack position is added. Shrug your shoulders up, like you are reaching for the ceiling with the palms of your hands. Shrugging the traps in the rack position recognizes their anatomical role as the main supporters of the scapulas, and thus the bar. Think of it as though the delts and triceps are holding the arms straight and the traps are holding the bar up. The shrug also allows the rack position to be met with a solid base of upper-body support; instead of just holding up the bar with your arms, you’ll be supporting it with the strongest muscles in your upper back. Remember that your palms are pointing at the ceiling, your elbows are perfectly straight, and your eyes are looking forward and slightly down.
    Lowering the bar from the rack position correctly at first is an important way to teach yourself more about the bar path in the snatch, starting from the very beginning. Just as we did in the clean, we’ll start practicing a close, vertical bar path from the very beginning, preparing early for what comes later. Barbells are in balance when they are directly over the mid-foot, so when you lower the bar from the rack position, keep it there: unlock your wrists and let the bar fall straight down past your face and chest, and then catch it at the hang position. Wrists were the last things to extend on the way up, and they are the first things to unlock as you drop the bar back down. As it falls straight down, in balance over the mid-foot even with the light weight of the empty bar, you begin the process of learning that arms do not power the snatch . They don’t lower the bar, either – the bar falls and you catch it. Don’t try to slow it down with your rowing muscles, but rather just cushion the fall with bent knees and hips. Aim for your nose the first couple of times to learn how close the bar can actually stay on the way down. Make it touch your shirt after it falls past your face – not by slowing the bar down with your arms but by keeping it close from the top as it falls. It helps here to actually think about the mid-foot and the slot directly over it in the air that you drop the bar into. You will still have your hook grip, so you won’t lose the bar as it hits the hang position. Practice this a few times.
     

    Figure 6-56. The change in position from the hang to the rack is one of internal vs. external rotation. This change is what enables the vertical bar path through the top of the pull.

    The next position is the jumping position , just like the clean again but with one important difference. In the clean, the bar leaves the thighs at this last point of contact somewhere in the mid-thigh, where the knees and hips have unlocked, the bar is touching the skin, and your elbows are straight; the jumping position is both the knees/hips-unlocked position and the point on the thigh where this occurs. In the snatch, the jumping position is just the knees/hips-unlocked position because the bar will slide up to touch the belly with straight elbows before it leaves the body. The jumping position for the snatch is the belly – the same as its hang position – not the thigh like the clean.
    Unlock your knees and hips, just like you do for a vertical jump or standing broad jump. As you do this, slide the bar down the thighs, never letting it leave contact with the skin. It is common to bend mostly the knees here, which will leave the shoulders behind the bar. The involvement of both hips and knees in the jump is critical, since two joints extending explosively generate more power than just one. If both joints are unlocked, the shoulders will end up directly over the bar with it this far up the thighs. (The shoulders go forward of the bar, into the standard pulling position, when the bar gets lower.) The elbows are still straight and internally rotated, eyes are looking forward and slightly down, and feet are in the pulling stance.
    From this position of contact on the thighs, slide the bar up to the belly and jump as high as possible. This should be a smooth motion that accelerates as the bar slides up. Before it leaves the body on the way up, the bar touches the same place on the belly that it did in the hang position. As you leave the ground, make sure your elbows are straight and that