EP53, Olympic Lifts Made Simple, Part 2

If your snatch or clean feels like a guess every time you grab the bar, this episode is for you. This is Part 2 of the four-week Olympic Lifts Made Simple series, and today Matt breaks down the pull from the floor, the part where most lifters fall apart.

The pull is not one motion. It's three different phases stitched together, each with its own job and its own speed. When you don't know which phase you're in, you can't fix what's broken. By the end of this episode, you'll be able to listen to your coach differently, watch a snatch on the platform differently, and feel your own pulls differently.

Questions this episode answers:

• Why does my snatch or clean keep falling forward?
• What are the phases of the Olympic lift pull?
• What is the first pull and why is it slow?
• What is the transition or scoop in Olympic lifting?
• What is the second pull and why does it matter?
• Why is yanking the bar off the floor a mistake?
• What is the double knee bend?
• How fast should the bar move off the floor?
• Why do my hips shoot up faster than the bar?
• Should I pull the bar up or pull myself under the bar?
• Why does pulling harder with my arms make the lift worse?

In this episode, we dig into:

• The Three Phases of the Pull: First pull (floor to knee), transition (knee to mid-thigh), and second pull (mid-thigh to full extension). Each one has a different job and a different speed.
• Phase One - Peel the Bar: Why the first pull should feel slow on purpose, almost boring. The biggest mistake people make in the first three inches off the floor, and the cue that fixes it.
• Phase Two - The Six-Inch Window Where Lifts Die: What the scoop or double knee bend actually is, why most people blast right through it, and why this is the answer when your lifts keep missing for "no reason."
• Phase Three - Stand Up Tall and Finish: Coach Jess's cue and why the second pull is the only place in the lift where you get to be violent. Why this phase lasts about a quarter of a second and determines almost everything.
• The Physics Most Lifters Ignore: Why the bar wants to travel in a straight line, why pulling harder with your arms makes things worse, and the mindset shift from "pull the bar up" to "pull yourself under the bar."

Unstoppable Challenge: In your next Olympic lift session, slow down your first pull. Don't yank the bar off the floor. Set your back, take a breath, peel the bar up. Pay attention to how much more in control your transition feels when you don't rush the start. Just one session. See what changes.

Up next: Part 3 of the series tackles the catch, the part of the lift that breaks most people's brains because it's completely backwards from how they think it should work. New episodes drop every Tuesday.

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Transcript

Welcome And Series Setup

Matt 0:00

Let's go. Welcome to Unstoppable by Design, where we talk all things fitness, mindset, and what it truly means to be unstoppable inside and outside the gym. I'm Matt Terry, and we're back for week two of our four-week Olympic lifts series. So last week we covered the high level, you know, the two lifts, why they matter, why they belong in your training, even if you've never planned on competing. And today we're gonna go where most lifters fall apart, and it's the pull from the floor. So here's what I want you to think about. The lift feels like a wild guess every time someone grabs the bar. Some days the snatch goes up, some days it doesn't, and people have no idea

Why The Pull Makes Or Breaks

Matt 0:40

why. The problem isn't strength, it's that the lift needs to be done in one motion. It's three different movements stitched together. And when you don't know which phase you're in, you can't fix what's broken. So today we break the poll into its three phases. We're gonna name them, define them, and by the end of the episode, you're gonna be able to listen to your coach a little bit differently, watch a snatch on the platform differently, and feel your own poles a little differently. So let's go. So the three different phases, you're gonna want to memorize these, just kidding. Just listen back if you need a refresher. But phase one is the first pull. It's gonna be from the floor to about your knee. This one is always meant to be a little slower, a little more patient, and a little more controlled.

The Three Phases Explained

Matt 1:27

The bar leaves the ground and travels up to about your kneecap. All right, phase two is gonna be the transition. This is going from that knee area to your mid thigh. This is the part most people don't even know exists. The bar passes your knees, your shins push back, your torso comes up. It's a setup move, not a power move. Now, phase three, this is gonna be our second pull. We're going from that mid-thigh area to full extension. The bar hits your hip crease or as close as you can on the upper thigh, depending on your arm length, and your hips snap open. You go vertical, and this is the explosion. This is where the power lives. Each phase has a different job. We're going slow on the first, patient on the transition, and aggressive on that second pole. If you get these three speeds right, you have a chance at a good lift. If you blend them all together at the same speed, you're guessing it's a recipe for disaster. So let's talk about a little bit of a deeper dive into that first pole and a little bit more on the patience. So it's the floor to the knee. The biggest mistake we see every day is people yanking the bar off the floor like it's a deadlift PR. They

First Pull Patience Off The Floor

Matt 2:39

jerk their shoulders up, their hips shoot up faster than the bar, and the bar drifts forward immediately. Once that bar drifts forward, the whole lift is dead. You can't recover it. You'll either miss or you'll catch it ugly with the bar two feet in front of you. I want you to think back. Those times when you fail to lift and the bar just drops in front of you, you're like, ah, there's no way I could have pulled that back. Chances are we probably just yanked that bar off the floor. So here's a cue that I want you to think about. I want you to peel the bar off the floor. Slow, controlled, set your back, take your breath, and lift the bar like it's stuck to the ground with tape. Your shoulders stay over the bar, your hips and your shoulders rise at the same rate. When you do this right, the first pull feels slow on purpose. It feels almost boring. And that's the point. Your first pole is the setup for everything else. You're not trying to win the lift here, you're trying to not lose it. Now let's talk about the transition here or that second phase. And this is from that knee area to mid-thigh. This is a six-inch window where 90% of lifts get decided. That's just that's just me guessing. I actually don't know if 90% are missing here, but it does, it causes

Transition And The Scoop Setup

Matt 3:54

a good amount of misses. Here's what's supposed to happen: the bar passes your knee, your shins push back out of the way, your torso comes up a little, your knees rebend slightly underneath you. This is what coaches call the scoop or the double knee bend. If you've ever taken one of my classes, I always say your hips scoop. This is the scoop part of the lift. So you're you're loading your legs to fire, you're getting your body into a position to explode straight up. Here's what actually happens for most people they blast right through it, the bar passes the knee, and they just yank harder. The bar drifts forward and they end up muscling it up with their arms. If you've taken class with me recently, I'd be like, hey, you've completely missed your hip in that movement. This is where that happens. So we pass our knee and then we just pull right from our knee straight into the lift. All right, the cue here is patience. Again, the transition is not a place to rush, it's a place to set up. Slow shins back, stay tall, let the bar travel up your thighs while your body gets into the good position, then explode. I'll say it again because it's that important. The transition is where lifts die. If your snatch or your clean keeps falling off and you don't know why, this is probably the answer. Now let's talk about that third phase or the second poll. And this is everything. This is the reason all of this exists. The second poll is when the bar hits your hip crease and your hips snap open. Now, again, if you're somebody like me and your arms may be a little bit longer, like I've

Second Pull Finish The Extension

Matt 5:26

got I've got long monkey arms, right? I'm not hitting my hips without an early arm bend. So you want to get as close to that hip crease as you can. Full extension, stand tall, get aggressive, get vertical. This phase lasts maybe a quarter of a second. That's how fast it is, a quarter of a second. And it determines almost everything about your lift, how high the bar travels, how fast it travels, whether you can catch it or whether it falls in front of you. Coach Jess has a cue she uses all the time stand up tall and finish. That's it. After all of the patience and control of the first two phases, the second pull is where you get to be violent.

unknown 6:04

Right?

Matt 6:04

So violence here. Uh hips snap open, body goes straight up, like an exclamation point. Then and only then do you start thinking about catching the bar. People skip this phase all the time. They just start pulling under the bar before they finish standing up. They lean back instead of going straight up, they lose their feet. Any of those leaks cost you the lift. So if you take one thing from this episode, take this. Finish the pull. Stand tall, then move, not before. One more concept, then we'll talk about wrapping up. But a lot of people think the harder they pull the bar with their arms, the higher it goes. That's not how it works. The bar follows physics, not effort. The bar wants to travel in a straight line. Your job is to move the body out of

Bar Path Physics Not Arm Pulling

Matt 6:49

the way, keep the bar close, not muscle it around you. And if you keep pulling with your arms, the bar drifts forward, away from you, and the power leaks out sideways instead of up. This is why we teach people to think about pulling themselves under the bar, not pulling the bar up to themselves. It's the same lift, it's just a completely different feel. The bar gets to a certain height because of the second pull, and your job after that is to get under it fast. So this week's unstoppable challenge in your next Olympic lift session, I want you to slow down your first pull. Don't yank the bar off the floor. Set your back, take a breath, peel the bar up. Pay attention to how much more in control

Weekly Challenge Raffle And Next Week

Matt 7:30

your transition feels when you don't rush the start. Just one session and see what changes. But before we wrap up, our next raffle is teed up. July 4th will be the drawing. Support the show for as little as $3 a month, and you're entered to win a seat in the Ultimate Boot Camp Challenge, a $199 value. So we're giving away this seat. Don't miss your shot. And new episodes land every Tuesday. And next week, we're going to be tackling the catch, the part of the lift that breaks most people's brains because it's completely backwards from how they think it should work. And until then, or until next time, be well, be unstoppable.