What is The Best Overhead Position in the Snatch?

By djpope

September 18, 2019

injuries, injury, overhead, pain, position, Shoulder, snatch, Technique

It’s time for another episode of STRONGER TV. In this episode we bring in our good friend Mike Cerbus. Mike is one of the head olympic weightlifting coaches at power monkey fitness (where I also work) and we love bouncing around training ideas together.

Mike has competed in the sport of Weightlifting at an elite level from 2005-2014. He medalled at 3 National Championships and 5 American Open Championships, taking out the title in 2011 as American Open Champion, while also being selected to the United States Pan American & Olympic Qualification Teams in 2012. As you can see he’s no slouch when it comes to olympic weightlifting. Mike also currently travels internationally coaching thousands of athletes every year on the olympic lifts

One hot topic right now is what is the optimal overhead position in the snatch for the long term health of the shoulder. Right now there are conflicting opinions. Should we internally or externally rotate the shoulder? Should we poke the head through at the finish of lifts? What about shoulder blade position.

In today’s episode we go over what we consider the best overhead position for performance and long term health. Check it out below:

That’s it! Hopefully now you have a little extra information to help you decide what the best overhead position is for you. As you can see there are a variety of factors that play a role in the best overhead position. Hopefully we’ve helped you figure out what’s best for you and your athletes.

If you enjoyed today’s episode and want to support us and learn more please head over to our youtube page and hit the “thumbs up” and “subscribe” button to give us a follow. We’ll see you on the next episode!

Snatchy,

Dan Pope DPT, OCS, CSCS