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to the barbell and the floor. This is actually the way all cleans and snatches were dropped before bumper plates were widely available, so it can be done, believe it or not. But it can be tricky, since it really hurts to actually drop the bar right on the thighs. You have to release the bar but retain enough grip on it to be able to slow it down before it hits your thighs. It is decelerated with the traps, using a movement that is the opposite of the shrug used during the jump. The bar needs to stop here under control before being lowered on down to the floor. And if metal plates are used, it would be prudent to use rubber mats to protect the floor. But really, get some bumper plates. They are important enough to consider necessary.

The Power Snatch

Although it has the reputation for great technical complexity and for being difficult to both learn and coach, the power snatch is not any more complicated than the power clean. The power snatch also is a jump with the barbell in the hands and a catch in the rack position. It’s just that the rack position is overhead in the hands, in balance directly above the shoulder joints, instead of on the shoulders. The power snatch also obeys the laws of balance, force transfer, and leverage. It has a longer range of motion than the power clean, and a longer distance to travel after the force stops being applied to the bar, so it has to be done with both lighter weight and more speed through the jump. But it can often be done by people who cannot rack a clean for various reasons, and the lighter weights used make it a viable option for some training programs. Don’t be afraid of the power snatch – it’s just not that big a deal to learn, and it is useful enough that all lifters should know how to do it.

The most noticeable feature of the power snatch is the grip – it is wide, sometimes, for some tall, long-armed people, as wide as the bar permits. This would be a sleeve-to-sleeve grip. The width is needed to reduce the bar path’s distance; just as in a clean, the application of force to the bar stops after the jump, and since the bar has to fly up under the momentum imparted to it before the loss of foot contact, it would be best if the distance the bar had to travel unpowered could be reduced. The wide grip allows a savings of 5–6 inches over the distance of the pull, although it alters the start position on the ground. A wide grip produces the functional equivalent of short arms, making the lifter’s back angle more horizontal in the starting position. You may need to compensate for this angle by pointing your toes and knees out a little more to provide more clearance between the thighs for the belly.

Figure 6-48. The difference in back angle in the two pulls, resulting from the change in grip width.

The snatch, upon superficial inspection, looks like it is accomplished by using the arms to lift the bar overhead. Perhaps the wide grip fools the uninformed eye – the clean seems easier to understand as a pull. But the movement must be appreciated as a jump with the barbell in the hands, followed by a catch overhead, made possible by a drop into position that straightens out the arms. The bar is not lifted into place with the arms, and it is not swung into place through an arc-shaped bar path. The jump carries the bar up in an essentially vertical line if it is done efficiently, just like every other barbell exercise performed while standing on the floor.

Figure 6-49. The power snatch.

The power snatch – frequently the hang version done from what we call the jumping position – is a favorite exercise of post–high school strength coaches because it is a long movement, it requires some athletic ability, and it is explosive. In fact, the highest power outputs ever recorded in human movement are generated at the second-pull position of the snatch. It can be done by bigger guys who can’t rack a clean, it’s no more difficult to learn than a power clean, and if you know how to do it already, you’ll impress the right people in the college weight room. But it is done with