Glenn Pendlay: Olympic Lifting Techniques—Hand Position for the Snatch

Sometimes, it’s the simple things that matter in Olympic Lifting. Glenn Pendlay takes you through proper hand placement for the snatch for safety, efficiency and power.

I’m going to have Jon put his hands in a little bit on the bar. Put the bar up on his shoulders. The first thing you want with your hands, you want a grip on the bar that allows you to put the bar on your shoulders with your hands outside of your shoulders. (Put your hands in and show them getting your hand on top of the shoulder.)

You do not want the fingers or the hand between the bar and the shoulder. You want your hands outside.

Once you’ve figured out where to put your hands, make sure that the bar is resting on the front of the shoulder. Go ahead and put the bar up, Jon.

You don’t want the bar resting on the middle of your chest. You also don’t want the weight of the bar held in your hands. You want to move the shoulders forward and shrug up, so the bar is actually resting on top of the shoulder. Okay, so do it right now, Jon. There you go.

The bar is not being held in his hands. The weight is not resting on his chest.

It’s actually resting on the top of the shoulders.

Interested in more from Glenn Pendlay—a top US Olympic weightlifting coach who has coached his lifters to over 100 national championships.
He shares this level of experience in this live workshop video,
Olympic Weightlifting Techniques.