Topic: Newbie help with straight bar path.

[sekke]

Hi all,

I just recent started to get into the olympic lifts.  I switched gyms to a place where there is a head coach who has a decent amount of training experience and has also competed himself.  They have a team and are currently training for a competition mid summer that I hope to compete in, so I think I'm at a good place to train and learn.   I had been doing starting strength (minus the cleans) pretty strictly for the past 9 months or so, and only have about 3 weeks experience since starting at the new gym and getting coached on the olympic lifts.   

Last night, one of the assistant coaches was helping me with the power snatch and pointed out that my bar path is not straight, it goes out and curves back in.  The asst. coach was really cool about trying to help but he even admitted he doesn't have close to the experience as the head coach in training oly lifting and wasn't sure of exactly how to help me straighten the path.  The asst coach actually noted two problems:  the first was I wasn't full extending before jumping, so jumping to early, and the curved bar path.  I was able to self-correct the extension part and got to the point where I could feel when I jumped too early, but I was still having problems getting the bar path straight.  I'm not sure if they are interrelated, but the asst coach said I was getting my jump timed better towards the end of the session but the bar path was still pretty f*ed up. 

The problem is my next session with the head coach isn't until next week and I have two more training days before then.  Since it I wasn't able to self-correct and feel when I was doing it wrong, I'm worried that I could reinforce the bad technique over the next two sessions unless I can correct it. Does anyone have any good cues or drills that I could practice to help straighten the bar path or anyone who had this issue and can give advice as to what they did to correct it?

[Matt Erdman]

First, the bar path should NOT be straight. However, if the bar is moving away from you on the pull, that is a problem. Usually it is due to a lifter not pushing the hips back during the first pull. Because your knees are directly over the bar at the start, they need to be moved out of the way. The best way to do that is to push the hips back and the knees will follow. Another thing that helps is to tighten the lats and pull the bar toward you. Of course you want to keep the arms straight while doing that. Here is a video that shows what the bar path generally looks like.

Chigishev 210kg