Frustration Learning the Snatch in Weightlifting

Does your Snatch Suck?

Many feel a great deal of frustration learning the snatch in weightlifting. In fact the snatch is an Achilles heel to many athletes that we coach. They start becoming frustrated and jaded, thinking that they’ll never get better. The truth is I understand their frustration. I’ve been through this frustration, I’ve even cringed every time I’ve seen the snatch come up in my program. You need to recognise the frustration learning the snatch, then move past it.

The honest truth is that the snatch is one of the hardest most demanding movements you will probably ever try to master. To just be competent at it you’ll need a high degree of power, flexibility, speed, strength and not to mention technique.

The important thing is to embrace the suck. It’s about your mindset, think about the snatch as a skill rather than an exercise. If you make a bad one, don’t throw your arms up in the air. Instead just re-assess. Look at the result you got from the way you did it. Then change the process and see if it yields different results. It might be a tiny different cue you give yourself but it could make all the difference. Trying to snatch over and over the exact same way just won’t work (this is also where a coach can come in handy). Assess the movement pick a point you want to work on and do that. Your snatches aren’t going to be perfect, but they can be better than yesterday.

Any way here’s a video of our team working on some heavy snatches. Each of them are in different phases of their athletic development, each with different good points and different flaws. All still trying to master the elusive perfect snatch ;P