Topic: Dropping Weights After Catch

[Craig Cheek]

For those of you who teach the drop, do you still teach athletes to drop the bar when performing lifts from the hang position?

It doesnt seem to make sense to me to have them drop the bar, pick it up again, then hang and go again. If they are picking it up anyway, shouldnt we just focus on lifts from the floor, always?

[Paul LaDuke]

Great question!

In my football S & C program, I have recently begun to teach the clean from the floor rather than the hang.  The reason is for the flexibility required in the hips and the back and strengthening a larger range of motion in performing the exercise from the floor.  It takes a lot more coaching time, but it is well worth it.

If you analyze the hang position and the position from the floor, you will notice the floor position is much closer to the positioning of your down athletes (3 & 4 point stances).  The hang position resembles your positioning for your 2 point stance and the body positions during play.  It makes sense to train both exercises for athletes.

I also have begun doing more combo exercises, such as performing a full clean and then a front squat and returning the bar to the floor in 2 stages (waist level then floor).    I will do 5-8 sets of 2 reps with that exercise.

[Craig Cheek]

Paul-
I also like the combo exercises. When carefully added, my athletes do not even realize that they squatted 5 days in a row. I just alternate between back/front squats when that happens. Front squat with the clean then the next day do back squats.