Topic: Catapult Technique vs Triple Extension

[Nick Horton]

I put 3 videos on my blog of a lecture given by Don McCauley. 

http://thedojo.wordpress.com/2009/08/06/catapult-technique-vs-triple-extension-in-olympic-weightlifting/

He's got a totally different approach to teaching the lifts that gets rid of the triple extension.  Basically it goes like this (if I have understood him correctly):

Eliminate the ankle extension, use hip drive for your second pull, and leave the trap pull for the pull under the bar, rather than to put extra height on the bar. 

What do you guys think about all this?  It's certainly unorthodox. 

EDIT:  I noticed my original link wasn't working, so I redid it.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

I think it is bunk.

[Jack Dluzen]

chris , maybe this is the start of a good thread on the  w/e ...... would you elaborate on this more , with your opinon? it might be a good start !

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

I just think it is an outrageously impossible technique with which to lift effectively. Since any decent lifter will naturally not lift this way when lifting big weights, the coach that preaches this becomes incomprehensible and worse than useless. Just my opinion, especially from watching this technique taught and seeing good and great lifters taught this technique naturally abandoning it as soon as the weight on the bar says so.

[Jack]

Yes, his advice for the start position is to let the shoulders go forward, and stay loose. And, "keep your knees back", in different phases throughout the lift. Not really sure wich. He seems to encourage to keep your shoulders behind the bar at the same time. If anything, it's confusing. The advice to keep the heels on the floor is bunk also. The heel lift, hip forward and head backward movement (lever) facilitate squatting under.

Sjaak

[Brooke Burkhalter]

I just try to mimic what world class lifters with similar bodytype as me do. I look at a lot of the Russians because there are a lot of 6'+ guys with similar lever lengths to me.

I have not noticed any of them doing what he talks but I may not be clear on what he is looking at. All of these Russians exhibit similar technique, much like the Chinese do, and they all flex the lats and pinch the upper tris against them by pulling the rear delts back right before liftoff. So that to me says they are not keeping shoulders forward and purposely loose.

The Russians, almost all of them, seem to really focus on a fast, very explosive "pop" at the top of the pull which seems to help them quickly get under the bar. Also if you pause video of them right at liftoff they do not have that very low hip start he is talking about. Most of the Russians start the snatch with low hips but when the bar breaks their hips are either even with the knees or slightly above. In the clean all I have seen are above. The ones who typically do liftoff with hips low (below knee) and the the shoulders behind the bar all seem to then let the hips rise slightly faster than the shoulders which puts them in the same position as if the had started with higher hips.

[Nick Horton]

Brooke, I think you are doing exactly what you should do (mimicking lifters of similar builds). I tell all my lifters to do the same.  With Youtube, that is a pretty easy task now days.  Of course, it doesn't always work.  There are elite lifters with wonky form, but generally, it works.

I was watching the Iron Mind Bulgarian Training Hall tape last night again, and it is wholly apparent that they LOVE to triple extend.  It certainly hasn't hurt them.

I do admit that watching many of the chinese lifters, many of the them (especially in the lower classes) don't leave the ground, and shrug as a way of getting themselves down, rather that using the shrug as a means of giving the bar more height.  this supports Don's conclusions, some what.

Using the traps for the pull under is a sound idea.  Though, the bulgarians seem to use it as a last second effort to get the bar back, so that they don't catch too far forward.  Thus the famous "bow" shape they end up in.  This is also valid. 

But, I don't like Don's "loose shoulders" thing either.  I coach everyone to "pinch a pencil" between their shoulder blades (exactly what he was arguing against).  I've noticed over the years that they get more leg drive that way.  Loose shoulders leads to a loose back which translates into a mitigation of the force from the legs being transferred into the bar.  Bad! 

Don is right that the first pull really only exists to get the bar in position for the second pull.  And so, if an athlete does better starting with low hips, so be it.  (in my experience this is true of shorter, short legged, athletes.)  But, that goes the other way, too.  Long legged athletes nearly always do better with higher hips.  It just fits their levers better.  So, his insistance on a low hip position is very one sided and doesn't follow his own logic. 

He's worried about lifters catching the bar too far forward.  This is a valid concern, one that plagues tons of lifters.  But, taller lifters with short torsos and long legs rarely have this concern when starting with higher hips.  their torsos are so short that even with high hips, their center of gravity is well behind the bar.

With short lifters who have short legs and long torsos, that isn't true.  ANY forward lean (which is accentuated by a high hip position) causes the center of gravity to move over the bar.   So, starting with low hips can smooth over some of that natural tendency. 

Bottom line, for me, is that he's got some fundamentalist tendencies.  And that's what I don't like.  But, some of what he says has merit, even if it is surrounded by some strangeness. 

[Patrick Bateman]

I read about this on another forum, and from what i can tell, the guy who are insanely fast under bar use this.

Most notably khaki -  he pulls slow and controlled from the ground with hips low, pops explosively, and doesn't get much air time, but gets under the bar FAST.

i think perepetchenov is the same, dimas too, but less fast under.