If anyone were to ask me what my favorite exercise size is, I would say, the Snatch.
The snatch is more mentally challenging than the clean and jerk and it is more rewarding. It’s more rewarding because most experienced lifters cannot make a new PR snatch with bad technique; So, if the lift is stood up with, the lifter can know for certain they did something right. Thus, there is less margin for error in the snatch than that of the clean and jerk.
Snatches also leave a more vivid imprint in my head. I have 3 specific snatches that I can feel, not remember, but feel. I can feel myself moving under the bar and catching in a solid position, and every day my drive is to make that number go up to 4, and then 5, and 6 and so on.
2004 (right before Schoolage Nationals)- Glenn had us doing what we called 20-10′s. My snatch PR before this day was 82.5kg and I was doing my work weight at 75. On reps 15 and above I started to increase my numbers. By the time I got to 85kg, it was rep 18. New PR. Then, the grand rep 19 came about with 87.5. Something about being 19min into the workout and 18 heavy reps behind me made this lift special to me. Who knows how it looked, the camera was probably pointed at one of our greats at the time, but I remember how it felt to this day. Every position was solid, concluding with a PR. Call it the exhaustion that made this so memorable, but who cares, because it was the monumental day for me that I realized how great this lift was.
2006 (right before Schoolage Nationals, again)- I hadn’t been snatching for what I can remember 6 months. Any time I lifted the bar above my head with a snatch grip, my back would almost go into complete spasm. Once this was fixed we literally had to start from the basics, and work my way back to the weights I need to win a meet like this. We were training in Sammi Nichols’ garage on one platform and the weight was 110. It was my 3rd single with that weight and for some reason this one felt completely different; it was the first time in 6 months that I had felt “back.” Again, every position just felt perfect along with a solid catch. It felt quite like Deja Vu, in that I was feeling the same way, yet I wasn’t in the same place or around the same people. I tried to explain to Glenn how perfect it felt and that it was the second time I had ever done that, and I got his normal response “It was a good lift, Caleb. Let’s go up.” Something about this lift just helped solidify in my head that I was back in the scene, ready to lift.
2009 (recovering from Junior Worlds)- Yes, I had to wait 3 years from this one. Going into Worlds this past year, I was a mess. I was having a rough time in my own life and it just seemed to follow me into the gym. Also, I couldn’t seem to stay healthy, in a physical sense. February 14th, 2009 I tore a muscle in my back. 2 weeks before Juniors I tore some ligaments in my foot (the one that bends for the jerk) along with back pain. April 18th, I had drove to Collegiate Nationals to watch and while training I re-injured the muscle in my back. Memorial day weekend I was healthy, made a PR snatch of 160, then the next day I strained a muscle in my quad (Thank you to Lancaster back and joint who helped me through it all). So, needless to say I needed some down time after Worlds. We focused a lot on strength in July, when I trained, and not the lifts for the first time in my life. We only were snatching once a week and clean and jerking once a week, but when we did do the lifts we wanted to make sure my technique was back to where it was before all those bumps. To do this we mainly did doubles and only counted the ones that were as close to perfect as I could achieve. One day, getting ambitious and tired of doubles, I went ahead with singles past 140 (which was not ok with Glenn, but he was chatting with a friend and not watching me). When I got to 148 I performed my normal routine before I grabbed the bar, everything the same as always, except the feeling. That feeling came back that I hadn’t had in so long. Another perfect lift achieved according to my standards. The important this about this lift was it showed me the importance of strength in training. I’ve never been a strong lifter, I could barely dead lift 200 when I cleand it the first time, and I’m still not a strong lifter. But having done that snatch with all the strength training we had been doing made realize how much stronger, not technically proficient (I have that now), I need to become to reach my goals.
I believe my strong point in the snatch is that I’m not intimidated by the lift. It doesn’t make me nervous, although I do feel relieved after making my opener at a competition. I am able to see the lift in my head as I will do it in the near future and that’s the key is focusing on a positive outcome.
I talk to myself on the platform in both lifts. People tend to ask me after I compete, “What are you saying up there?” I mostly talk out loud, in a whisper, to keep myself calm. There is so much noise in the room, that if I can hear myself say something, I can focus and breathe normally like I need to for a big lift. The words that come out of my mouth hardly every make sentences either. I tend to just say key words that Glenn has said to me in practice recently and that I know I need work on. But the thing that makes this whole process for the snatch good for me is that I am able to remember those 3 perfect lifts before I lift. I think about how normal things were on those days, and that the present moment is just like that. I can focus all the positive energy from my head to the bar and usually compete a successful snatch.
I’ll follow this blog up with why I hate the clean and jerk soon.
