In my experience, the more I tame the arch and lean backwards to let the bell drop vertically, the more squatty my hinge becomes.
@Anna C @Steve W. What are your thoughts on this?
And as far as I can see a lot of strong folks around here emphasize the athletic hinge (with a little bit more knee bend), even in swings. Looks more like jumping motion than a Good Morning.
I have a lot of thoughts about this, but I'll try to stick to the big picture and not get (too) lost in the technical details:
GS vs Hard Style:
To me, THE biggest difference between GS and Hard Style is the straight Hard Style hinge vs the GS pendulum. Hard Style uses a straight flexion and extension rhythm to the hinge. GS uses a scooping double kneebend, where the knees straighten at the end of the downswing and rebend on the upswing. I just think of the difference in those technical terms --not in terms of intention ("one emphasizes power, one emphasizes efficiency"), but in terms of technique ("one does THIS, and one does THAT").
Hinge vs Squat:
I think people often go overboard in minimizing knee bend in the Hard Style hinge and take "it's a hinge, not a squat" too literally and absolutely. Hinge and squat are not really opposites. They are different variations of coordinated knee, hip and ankle flexion and extension. IMO, a good hinge is going to include knee flexion and downward displacement of the hips, and that does not turn it into a squat. The difference is that the focus of the hinge pattern is sitting back (butt moving behind the feet, as in the touch-the-wall drill) and the focus of the squat pattern is sitting down (butt moving down between the feet, going "a$$ to grass"). But the hips still move down AND back in both patterns.
[Notice I added the word "pattern" to the previous sentence to distinguish a more pure squat pattern from the low bar powerlifting style squat TECHNIQUE, which is actually more of a hinge PATTERN.]
A hinge is also going to stay shoulder above hip/ hips above knees, whereas a squat can/should/usually does break parallel.
Lighter vs Heavier Weight:
I don't think in terms of the hinge getting "squattier" with a heavy weight, but it does tend to get shallower (by which I mean the hips don't move back as far), just to maintain balance of the bell/lifter system. The knees will also tend to move forward more with a heavy weight, but I also don't think of this as being "squattier," since it's not about dropping the hips down as much as just keeping the center of mass over the base of support.
Snatch vs Swing:
The more vertical trajectory of the Hard Style snatch does affect the geometry of the hinge, but I don't consider it more "squatty."
Two things I strive for in my snatch form are pulling the elbow in tight on the drop to connect the upper arm to the torso, but also making space to sweep the bell into a nice backswing.
If you just drop the bell straight down, it's hard to sweep it into the backswing and you just have to catch it vertically at the bottom (which can lead to some squattiness in "riding the bell down" to absorb the force of the drop). So I do bend the knees a bit on the drop and sit/lean back to make space between the bell and my body.
I think of it as snatching "through the rack" and imagine dropping the bell into the rack and then dropping it from there into the backswing, as in the drop of a clean from the rack. Of course I don't actually catch the bell in the rack like in a "half snatch," but it's a visualization I use. Basically, I am shortening the radius of arc on the downswing from full arm's length in a swing to forearm's length (elbow in tight to body) in the snatch. That still give good leverage to sweep the bell in an arc into the backswing.
To the OP's original question, of course you catch and fixate the bell at the top of the snatch (none of this bottoms up, bell flying around the hand stuff). This has nothing to do with how powerfully you drive the bell up, it's just a matter of basic technique. Pick the heaviest weight you can complete 5 series with, without killing yourself, and without having to slow your cadence too much (cadence is largely determined by how long you pause in the lockout overhead, so if you HAVE to pause for more than a second in the lockout, the bell is too heavy). Over time, add/increase your aggressiveness with overspeed eccentrics as you are able. If you are just pausing for a momentary motionless fixation overhead, your actual cadence will not change much at all even with more aggressive overspeed eccentrics, so there's little point to chasing a faster cadence.
And lose the gymnastics grips.
