A Guide to Blocks: @ the thigh
Hello and welcome to this excert from my up and coming book "The Modern Guide to Weightlifting".
This book series will serve as a oppurtunity to put great content out into the weightlifting community that is modern and relatable to todays weightlifting society, I hope to help athletes and coaches alike bolstering the intelligence and skill into our sport. Anything that may help someone out there or ensure our sports future i'm down with!
Now for what you came here for!
THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO BLOCKS
- AT THE THIGH WORK -
The “Mid Thigh / High Block” Positions
The Mid Thigh or High Block is every tall person's worst nightmare. This position places the athlete in a position that is “pre” extension and really challenges the athletes tension, leg drive, and most of all posture. The athlete on the Snatch or Clean is going to be tempted to lean back and sneak under the barbell rather than finish their vertical extension connecting leg drive to the rest of the pulls mechanics. Another great thing this position trains is the skill transfer of being ready for the barbell after a fast turnover, these lifts happen fast from this position and the athlete has to learn to be ready for the bar or risk failing the lift.
Areas of Focus:
Shoulders on top of bar
Shins slightly forward in setup
Bar slightly off thigh
Upright extension
Leg to shoulder connection
Turnover tension
Finishing the leg drive
What to do in receiving position.
The following is a great example of a snatch from the block at the thigh. Watch a few times and then follow on to a frame by frame breakdown of what we are looking for in this movement.
In the frames below we can see some important pieces being maintained that are easy to identify in your own training with just a simple video review.
Frame 1: Shoulders on top of the bar, shins slightly forward in setup, and bar slightly off thigh. (side note - extreme amounts of tension is present in the athlete-bar relationship here).
Frame 2: Upright extension brings bar into body as body obtains solid extension postion.
Frame 3 & 4: Leg drive is carried over, finished, and connected to the shoulders to help carry over higher bar height as well as create high levels of tension to "pull under" against the barbell.
Frame 5: As athlete pulls themselves against the bar to get under it the shoulders and back remain tight and engaged to make a strong recieving platform in the bottom of the snatch.
**sidenote** interesting how the bars height stays identical at "recieving level" as it did in the frame before it at the "end of the high pull" phase... :-p
I hope you enjoyed this blog and learned something from it. If you really enjoyed it please just click that little like button and regram it for me!
Ill be posting more post like this helping explain the blocks as I feel they are great tools but very misused by many out there. Hope this helps take you to your next level and go out there and practice!!
- Coach