Foot Lift Timing
In the snatch and clean, we want powerful leg drive through the top of the pull, but we do NOT want to actually jump.
A jump wastes some of the bar’s upward momentum because it delays our movement under it.
Instead of thinking of the pull as extending your body up, try thinking of it as stretching your shoulders away from your feet.
As you hit the top of the pull, use the arms to change directions and begin pulling down, and then lift and move your feet—we want the feet off the floor only when the body is moving down.
To be clear, a jump is the actual elevation of the body as a whole from a standing position—lifting the feet, no matter how high, is not jumping if the rest of the body is not also moving up.
The key is timing the pull under with the upper body relative to the push into the floor with the legs.
If there is a delay between the finish of that leg push and the start of the arm pull, you’re going to jump or float with lighter weights, and with heavier weights, you’re going to lose that critical window of upward bar momentum needed to get under.
This can be very difficult to do with light weights because it’s hard to control the force at the top of the pull enough that you don’t unavoidably float up slightly. Do your best to control the power without changing the motion itself while working with light weights, and don’t try to receive light weights in a deep squat.
If you do float somewhat on your lightest weights, it’s not the end of the world—some of the best lifters in the world do it. What matters is that you understand what should be happening, and that you are able to execute it properly as those weights increase, rather than trying to literally jump through the top of the pull.
A jump wastes some of the bar’s upward momentum because it delays our movement under it.
Instead of thinking of the pull as extending your body up, try thinking of it as stretching your shoulders away from your feet.
As you hit the top of the pull, use the arms to change directions and begin pulling down, and then lift and move your feet—we want the feet off the floor only when the body is moving down.
To be clear, a jump is the actual elevation of the body as a whole from a standing position—lifting the feet, no matter how high, is not jumping if the rest of the body is not also moving up.
The key is timing the pull under with the upper body relative to the push into the floor with the legs.
If there is a delay between the finish of that leg push and the start of the arm pull, you’re going to jump or float with lighter weights, and with heavier weights, you’re going to lose that critical window of upward bar momentum needed to get under.
This can be very difficult to do with light weights because it’s hard to control the force at the top of the pull enough that you don’t unavoidably float up slightly. Do your best to control the power without changing the motion itself while working with light weights, and don’t try to receive light weights in a deep squat.
If you do float somewhat on your lightest weights, it’s not the end of the world—some of the best lifters in the world do it. What matters is that you understand what should be happening, and that you are able to execute it properly as those weights increase, rather than trying to literally jump through the top of the pull.
