Topic: An exercise that improves flexibility in the rack position

[Barry Kinsella]

Hello all,

I just wrote a brief article with a video included on an exercise that helps improve flexibility in the racked portion of the clean and front squat. It is a simple partner exercise that adheres to basic PNF principles. Have a look if you are interested:

http://weightliftingepiphanies.blogspot.com/

Kind regards,
Barry

[Erik Blekeberg]

I've used that before with people for the same reason. If there are no partners available, you can rack a tad more weight on the bar and just push against it and use it as a self stretch. The straps method I have only found useful in helping the shoulder flexibility while compensating for lack of wrist flexibility. If it's not one thing, it's another. Nice little article and great advice.

[Jack]

Hi Barry,

I do have some comments that address the "overall" approach. For flexibility for weightlifting I think it's more efficient to make sure to always include the full lifts or one of them in any workout even in lower intensity. Heavy chest or shoulder training, for instance, without including a full lift will hamper flexibility (range of motion). I doubt the static stretching will overcome the stiff tendons.

Sjaak Smorenburg

[Jim Hooper]

Someone who would use the exercise Barry demonstrates here -- the same exercise recommended by Art Dreschler for decades -- is not able to do "the full lifts."  That's the whole point of this supplemental stretching -- to become able to do "the full lifts."  If you could do "the full lifts" you would, by definition, already have the mobility necessary to rack a barbell, and would not need to do anything other than warmup to that mobility by racking light barbells.

[Jack]

The guy in the video had the bar already racked. For him, or someone with comparable flexibility like him, the elbow pushing would seem to be the last thing to do. Better practice the lifts. How far off must the rack position be to do the elbow pushing to be of any affect? One cannot push the elbows up when the trainee is very far off a reasonable rack without damaging or forcing something.  I think the rack is also a matter of strength+flexibility. Being able to flex the delts in that difficult position. That is also why the elbow pushing seems of minor importance at best to me. Working with as much full lifting (floor-> overhead) as possible will condition the person fastest. I didn't say I was against supplemental stretching/strengthening. In the overall picture the proposed exercise wouldn't rate that high with me.

sjaak

[Jim Hooper]

I agree that for a guy like the demonstrator in the video, this would be superfluous.  This stretch is helpful for lifters who cannot relax, or don't know how to relax, their lats and scapulae retractors, which denies them the ability to adduct the shoulder girdle and form a racking shelf.  The sort of guys whose "rack" position looks like a bodybuilder at the start of a military press, who cannot yet do a front squat in good form, etc.  With those issues, it can help, especially if the coacher tells the coachee that the point is not to torque their shoulder joint, but to relax their upper back and biceps and let their shoulders come forward and inward to form the shelf. The assisting partner need not torque the elbows up to some unusual and unnecessary angle -- he should just push up enough to keep the elbows up at a realistic angle, and let the lifter learn how to situate their shoulder girdle in a solid racking configuration.  When the lifter realizes that relaxing the upper-back flexors will magically make his shoulders move forward and inward, and his elbow rise several inches, a little light bulb will come on and stay on.

[Barry Kinsella]

Gentlemen,

I agree that this exercise is more useful to those who cannot rack a barbell and don't have the flexibility to do the full lifts. However,  I am going to have to respectfully disagree with your comments that this is not a useful exercise for those who already have the flexibility to perform the full lifts. I find the exercise very helpful and I am the person in the video. It is useful not only as a warm up, but also in achieving a fast and fluid pull under the bar and also an easier follow through with the elbows. In my experience, the more flexible you are in a given position--without the need to go to extreme lengths--the more fluid a movement can be. A different example would be the hip flexibility required to catch a deep snatch with a wider foot base than that of your initial pull. I do not think it is not enough to have a limit flexibilty where one would like their catching stance to be. The movement would simply not be comfortable in this instance. What do you think?

[Jim Hooper]

The lifter needs enough mobility to be comfortable and confident in all the critical positions.  Otherwise, they will not move into those positions as fast as possible.  Special stretches can be the fastest way to get that mobility for lifters just starting out.   But sooner or later, they get there, and enough mobility is enough -- there is, for example, no need to be able to do the splits, or to put your nose on your knees, or to do close-grip overhead squats (unless you're a squat jerker).  Once the mobility to perform the lifts in good form is in place, little or no "stretching" exercises are needed other than warming up dynamically with the empty bar.  I agree with Sjaak's point that the lifts themselves (and their squats), for lifters who can do them, will maintain or improve mobility better than anything else will.

My bias is that I am convinced that "stretching" routines before workouts are, for the vast majority of folks who have the mobility to perform their sport, largely a waste of time.  I hate to think of the sheer number of hours I spent in my youth going through stretching routines prior to sport practices, all because it was supposed to prevent injuries and make us faster.  Today there is some pretty convincing science demonstrating that pre-workout stretching has either no effect or, if any effect at all, the effect of increasing injury risk, and, if any effect on power, the effect of reducing it.

I quit making my football players do static stretching 10 years ago -- dynamic warmup is running drills and then we are immediately into skill drills that actually matter.  Same with my lifters who have sound mobility.  "Stretching" before snatching consists of doing slow, progressing to faster, snatches with a PCV pipe and then the empty bar.  Five minutes and you're ready to load the first discs and get on with it.

Wolves and cheetahs see a rabbit, sprint to it, and kill it.  They don't do hurdler's stretches and yoga poses first.