Starting Strength

the most efficient physical model of a pull from the floor. We’ll start at the top. From the hang position, slide the bar down into the jumping position, slide it up as you jump, and catch it in the rack position a couple of times. Then slide the bar down to the position just below your kneecaps, below the joints but not much below the very top of your shins. Slide the bar up slowly until it reaches the mid-thighs, and then accelerate it up and jump, making sure to touch the belly and to keep straight elbows when you jump. Do not stop at the mid-thigh position – treat it like a “trigger” for the acceleration, just as you do in the clean, so there is no pause in the pull. Rack the bar, unrack it, and repeat the snatch from this position a couple more times. Set the bar down if you need to between these steps; the snatch can be hard on the hands.
     

    Figure 6-59. The below-the-knees position, on the way down to the floor.

    The mistake you’re going to make here will be letting the bar lose contact with the thighs, either just above the knees or at the mid-thigh. If you get in a hurry and lose patience with the pull, the usual result is an early jump, well below the correct level. This inevitably carries the bar, and you, forward. Or you might think that the bar actually leaves the thighs at the jumping position, but this is a misunderstanding of the motion. Drag the bar up in contact with the skin, never leaving the thighs. The bar must be in skin contact until it leaves your belly for an efficient vertical bar path. Take your time, and remember that fast happens at the top, not at the bottom or even in the middle, at first.
    The next position will be at the mid-shin, where the bar would be if it were loaded with plates on the ground. This position will challenge your ability get into a good, mechanically correct deadlift – with shoulders in front of the bar and the back in hard extension – because of the width of the grip. Compensate for this more horizontal back angle by making sure your knees are out enough. Most people will touch the inside of their elbows with the outside of their knees if they are correctly set up, with contact similar to the deadlift start position. This knees-out position gets the thighs out of the way of the belly, and makes the more-horizontal back angle easier to use. Make this a feature of the start position from this point forward: reach out with your knees to touch your elbows before you squeeze up into the pull. Toes-out enough makes knees-out much easier, so adjust your stance now if your feet haven’t already sorted this out for themselves. From this position, slowly pull the bar up the shins as the knees extend, then past the knees, and up to the mid-thigh, staying in contact with the skin for the whole pull. When the bar gets to mid-thigh, accelerate into the jump and rack the bar.
     

    Figure 6-60. The mid-shin position, where the bar would be loaded with plates on the floor.

    Most people tend to pull the snatch too fast off the floor. Even after the movement has been learned correctly, the tendency will be to hurry through the “floor pull,” the first part of the pull from the floor. Make up your mind now that the first part will be slow and correct, and that the explosion starts only after the bar is in the higher part of the pull.
    At this point, you are doing a full power snatch. Rest a second, and put some light plates on the bar. The power snatch is best practiced with light plates at first, especially if you are not already pretty strong. “Light” may mean lighter than the commonly available 10 kg bumper plates. If this is the case, they will need to be obtained. They tend to be expensive, and their lack of availability may be a deciding factor in using the power snatch for trainees who cannot easily manage a 40 kg load. If they are available, use them; they make the process of learning to jump with heavier loads much more seamless than does an abrupt jump from 20 kg to 40 kg. Too big a jump here often results in an arm pull and a complete breakdown in the careful progression we have detailed. Go up slowly and convince yourself that the snatch is a jump with straight elbows that ends with a drop, not a panic-stricken retreat into a wide-grip upright row.
    When the snatch is up to 40 kg on the bar loaded with bumper plates, most people drop the bar from overhead to the platform in one movement, letting the rubber do its job. Before the invention and