Chest Bump Drill

You can call them Klokov pulls, Shankle pulls, arched angel pulls, or just learn how to extend pulls. But I call them Chest bump pulls, or even better… the Nations Guide to a great finish. This is just a drill, this will help you get those hips through and also teach you how to guide the bar back on the way down, not up. If you feel like you are going under to early, or if you feel you are catching the bar in front too much, then this drill will work wonders for you! I hope this helps, salute.

Once the hips come through and the shoulders go back you have already started to "pull yourself under the bar”, or a better word that I like to use is “guiding yourself under the bar”. I hate the word pull, because there is no pull in weightlifting. The first and second pull AKA (the superman pull) is a push back movement, not a pulling up movement. I should change the name to the "superman back", but pull just flows I guess. this drill will force you to guide the bar back not up, and force you to get in a more extreme finish aka (arched angel) than you usually would in the snatch.

You can start this drill with the bar already in the crease of your hips and then go from there, or you can start from the hang or the floor. The pull and the finish of this drill is the same as the regular snatch, the only thing different is that A.) you are not going to go under the bar, and B.) you are going to pull the bar back into your chest, and yes you should hit your chest hard with the bar! Elbows should be facing the wall behind you, not up toward the ceiling! you should be on your toes, hips in front of your body, and shoulders back behind your hips. Your shoulders and chest should still be facing the wall in front of you, this is a very important part of the finish. If your chest is facing the ceiling then you are what I call a "fish out of water". This leads to eyes not staying focused in front of you, leading to dizziness, unawareness of where you are in the lift, and the worst thing of all...floating!! Yes, floating also know as over finishing! Staying on the finish so long that gravity beats you down into the catch position. never a good thing, and very painful on the shoulders when trying to sneak under heavy weight. If you have time to get that far back with your upper body on the finish, then you are taking to long before going under.

Rhythm and timing are the two hardest parts of weightlifting. you don't want to cut the finish short, but at the same time you don't want to over finish. finding that middle ground will be a breakthrough. your relationship with the bar is going to be different then any other athlete. Get to know the bar, take her out to dinner, and dance the night away, because who knows when you and the bar will finally hit a home run.

your feet never should come off the platform. Yes your heels should, so you can get on your toes on the extension of the finish, but that’s it. You should here the bar rattle from your hips exploding through the bar, and then a second later instead of hearing those beautiful Ali feet you should here a Gorilla chest bump from the bar and your chest.

If you have trouble finishing in the snatch then this drill works wonders! I love it, my clients love it, Shankle loves it, and better yet Klokov loves it! Also it’s a great strength exercise for your whole body. If you are trying to fix up your technique then do this drill with lighter weight and more reps. If you are purely doing this for strength then slap those red slabs of beef on the bar and go hard in the paint! On your last rep go under the bar completing a full snatch! No matter what drill I do, I always end on the good old fashion snatch clean and jerk. well I hope the Nations Chest Bump will help and you will have some fun with it. Let me know what you guys think and if it helped any of your lifts.

Here is a video of me performing this badass drill outside my mom’s house in Redmond Oregon. I do reiterate on the video in case you want to visualize it. If you see a little lady in a pink shirt peeking through the window behind.....yes people that's the Mother Goose of the Attitude Nation!! Hope training is going well, and I will talk to you guys tomorrow. HAPPY ST. PATRICKS DAY!!

Family 2012