EP54, Olympic Lifts Made Simple, Part 3

Here's the sentence that changes everything about Olympic lifting: your job is not to pull the bar up to you. Your job is to get yourself under the bar. That sounds like a riddle, and it's the most important idea in this whole episode.

This is Part 3 of the four-week Olympic Lifts Made Simple series. After breaking down the lifts (Part 1) and the pull (Part 2), today Matt 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.

The bar travels a certain height because of your second pull. Once it's at its peak, it's coming back down. Gravity wins, always. So what determines whether you make the lift or miss it? Whether your body can get down to where the bar is by the time it gets there.

Questions this episode answers:

• Why do I keep missing snatches and cleans in front of me?
• Why do coaches yell "feet, feet, feet" during Olympic lifts?
• What does "catch high and ride it down" mean?
• How is the snatch catch related to the overhead squat?
• Why does my front rack collapse during cleans?
• How do I fix a clean where the bar slides onto my wrists?
• What is a vertical finish in Olympic lifting?
• Why does leaning back at the top of the pull cause me to miss?
• Should I catch the bar in a deep squat or a quarter squat?
• How do I improve my catch without going heavier?
• Why is the catch a dropping movement and not a pulling movement?

In this episode, we dig into:

• The Mental Flip: Why Olympic lifts are dropping movements, not pulling movements, and why beginners struggle until they understand this one shift.
• Speed Under the Bar: What "fast feet" actually mean, why your feet pick up and replant slightly wider, and the tall snatch and tall clean drill we use at Juggernaut to teach it.
• The Snatch Catch and Your Overhead Squat: Why your overhead squat is the ceiling on your snatch, and why building one builds the other.
• The Clean Catch and the Front Rack: Why the front rack is where most cleans go to die, the mobility issues that usually cause it, and the 30-second front rack hold drill that fixes it. Bonus: how to drill at home with a broomstick if you don't have a PVC pipe.
• Catch High, Ride It Down: The single coaching cue that has unlocked more pounds for Juggernaut members than anything else. Why catching high removes the fear of dropping under a moving bar, and how it bridges you to a deep catch over time.
• The Vertical Finish: Why leaning back at the top of the second pull sends the bar forward, and the simple cue that fixes it. "Your body is the launcher. If the launcher tips back, the rocket tips forward every time."

Unstoppable Challenge: Pick one Olympic lift session this week and don't try to add weight. Use that session to drill the catch. Empty barbell or training weight only. Catch high, hold it for a beat, then ride it down. 20 reps and go home. Skill before strength. That session will pay you back for months.

Up next: Part 4 closes out the series. We talk about how to actually get good at these lifts over the long haul. New episodes drop every Tuesday.

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Transcript

Matt 0:16

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 three weeks into our Olympic lifts series. We've covered what the lifts are.

Welcome And Series Setup

Matt 0:33

We broke down the pole. And today we're going to get into the part of the lift that breaks most people's brains. And that's the catch. So here's the thing about the catch that nobody tells you when you're learning. Your job is not to pull the bar up to you. Your job is to get yourself under the bar. That sounds like a riddle, but it's the most important sentence in this whole episode.

The Catch Is Getting Under

Matt 0:56

The bar travels a certain height because of your second pull. We covered that last week. Once it's at its peak height, it's coming back down. Gravity wins always. So what determines whether you make the lift or miss it? Whether you can get your body down to where the bar is by the time it gets there. That's why beginners struggle so much. They think the goal is to pull the bar to their shoulders or pull it overhead. So they fight with their arms, they yank, they get the bar maybe an inch higher, and they completely forget to move their feet. They stand straight up, holding a half pulled bar. The Olympic lifts are not pulling movements at the catch. They're dropping movements. The bar comes up because of your hips, and then you drop yourself underneath it. That's the lift. So let's talk about speed under the bar. This is what coaches mean when they yell feet, feet, feet across the gym floor. The transition from your second pull, remember that's that explosive part from last week, to your catch happens in a fraction of a second. Your

Fast Feet And Tall Lift Drills

Matt 1:58

hips finish snapping open, you go vertical, and then your feet pick up and replant slightly wider, like jumping out of a small box and landing in a squat stance. Fast feet means your body drops fast. Slow feet means the bar comes down before you can get to it, and you miss it in the front. Here's the drill that we use at Juggernaut to teach this. Empty barbell. We have people do tall snatches or tall cleans. The bar starts at the hip already. No pole needed. The only job is the second pole, the foot switch, and the catch. You strip away everything else. So the only thing being practiced is the speed of getting under. 20 reps of that, and the light bulb usually comes on. Members feel for the first time that the catch is its own skill, separate from the pull. That's a different lift after they figure it out. So the snatch catch, let's talk about the snatch part first. So let's go specific on each lift starting with the snatch. The catch position for a snatch is the overhead squat. It's the bar locked out over your head, arms straight, head pushing

Snatch Catch And Overhead Mobility

Matt 3:06

forward through your arms, sitting at the bottom of a deep squat or as deep as you can get. It's a hard position. Mobility really matters here. If you don't have good mobility in your shoulders, it really, really shows up in the catch position. We're thinking T-spine, shoulders, lats, hips, ankles, all have to play together. So here's what I want you to know. The catch position for a snatch is the same as your overhead squat at full depth. If you can overhead squat with confidence at a weight, you can theoretically snatch that weight. So if your snatches are getting heavier, but your overhead squat is the same it's been for a year, your snatch has a ceiling that you can predict. If you want to snatch more, spend some time in your overhead squat. Build the position, build the confidence, and the strength will follow. Now, let's talk about the clean catch, because this one's going to be a little different. So you catch the bar in a front rack, top of your shoulders or in front of your shoulders, but in the bottom of a front squat. Your elbows are high. The bar is planted across the meat of your shoulders, not on your wrists.

Clean Catch And Front Rack Fixes

Matt 4:13

Your fingertips just touch the bar or you have a full grip. And the front rack is where most people's cleans go to die. If your elbows drop, the bar slides down onto your wrists. If the bar drifts forward, then your jerk is dead before it even starts. Common reasons that the elbow drops, it could be tight laps, could be tight triceps, could be a tight T-spine, sometimes weak upper back, and sometimes just the lack of practice. The drill for this is the front rack hold. Take a clean grip on the bar right outside of our shoulders. Get the bar in your front rack and just stand there. Push your elbows up towards the ceiling, breathe, hold for 30 seconds, three sets of that. Do that two or three times a week, and your front rack will transform. We've also got a couple other drills here, but this is just one example. And I'll also say this: if you can't get into a clean front rack with good elbow position, the answer isn't to muscle through it. The answer is to spend 10 minutes a day with a PVC pipe or a barbell drilling the position. It's a mobility problem. And mobility responds to consistency more than intensity. And look, if you're at if you're at the house and you don't have a PVC pipe, grab that broomstick. All right, that broomstick will matter just as much. All right, so with this movement, we're gonna catch high and ride it down. So here's the coaching trick that has unlocked more pounds for our members than anything else. Catch high, then ride it down. When you're learning, don't try to catch the bar in a deep squat right away.

Catch High Then Ride Down

Matt 5:48

Catch it in a quarter squat with the bar already in the right position, then ride that quarter squat down to a deep squat under control. This does two things. One, it teaches you that the catch position is a posture, not a def. You can be in your catch position at any def as long as your arms are locked overhead in the snatch or your elbows are high in the front rack. And two, it removes the fear factor. Most beginners miss because they can't make that position, that drop down into the squat, because they're scared of the drop fast under a moving bar. Catching high removes that fear. You commit to the position with the bar where you can see it, and then you can sit into the squat. Once you've drilled this for a few weeks, you start to feel you can actually catch the bar deeper. It starts to come naturally, but fight the urge to skip the step. Catching high is the bridge to catching deep. One more concept before we talk about the unstoppable challenge this week. It's going to be the vertical finish. Watch any great snatch on YouTube. Pause it right at the top of the pole before the catch. The lifter is stacked straight up. Bar overhead, ears, hips, knees, ankles, all in one line,

Vertical Finish To Stop Missing Forward

Matt 7:02

going up. That's a vertical finish. And it's a difference between making the lift and missing it forward. The mistake most people make is leaning back at the top of the second pole. They lean back, their head goes back, the bar drifts forward, and then they end up catching the lift two feet in front of them. That's an exaggeration. Sometimes it's only like one foot, or they don't catch it at all. The cue is simple. Stand up tall, then move. Not lean back, then move. You gotta be tall, gotta be vertical, be stacked, then drop under the bar. Leaning back leaks power. It also tells the bar to travel forward instead of straight up. Your body's the launcher. If the launcher tips back, the rocket tips forward every time. This week's Unstoppable Challenge, I want you to pick one Olympic lift session this week and don't try to add weight. Use that session to drill the catch position. Empty barbell or training weight only, catch high, hold it for a beat, then ride it down. 20

Weekly Challenge And Raffle Reminder

Matt 8:03

reps or so, then go home. Skill before strength. That session will pay you back for months. Just a reminder: our July 4th raffle is coming up fast. Support the show for as little as $3 a month, and you entered to win a seat in the Ultimate Boot Camp Challenge. A $199 value, easy entry, real prize. So, new episode every Tuesday. Next week, we close out the series. We talk about how to actually get good at these lifts over the long haul. So until next time, be well, be unstoppable.