Beating Gravity: Pop, Drop and Lock

When people think of Olympic lifting they immediately say, oh you lift the weights over your head. Yes we do. We get the weights over our heads, but we drive it up, we don’t lift it up.

Not making sense? Here’s where I am going with this. Too many people think you lift the bar from the ground to over your head. We don’t. We lift the bar to a point, and get under it. Hence beating gravity.

The best drill to demonstrate this is the drop Snatch. Start with the Bar on your back with a wide snatch Grip. Rise onto your toes and and immediately drop into a full snatch position. There should be no pressing of the bar higher than the starting point. So when you watch a drop snatch you should only see the bar moving in one direction, and that is down.

Everything around weightlifting revolves around beating gravity and getting under the bar.

We are not simply lifting the bar; we are driving it to a point, and getting under it as fast as we can. Drive the bar off the ground with your legs, and at the hips accelerates the bar as fast as we can. While the bar is still traveling on it’s upwards trajectory we get under the bar and catch it. That’s the principle of Weightlifting.

Stop thinking I need to lift the bar higher, and start thinking I need to get under the bar faster. I see big strong guys in many gyms struggling with this. They pull the hell out of the bar up to their chest, but then they don’t want to get under it to catch it. They want it to magically appear on their shoulders or overhead.

Speed against gravity is king. The ability to drop under a bar while it is still moving upwards is the key to a good lifter. Pop the Bar off your Hips, Drop under the Bar, then Lock out your arms.

Pop, Drop and Lock.