Kettlebell Snatch and bicep fatigue

[Gypsyplumber]

I haven’t snatched much over the last year as I’ve been running the Giant series a lot. I just started KSK with a 24 and noticed my biceps getting pretty fatigued at the end of my session. I’m wondering if it’s due to not snatching much as of late, is the bell im snatching too heavy, is it my form, or is it just part of doing snatches? This set was my last set of the day so I was already a bit fatigued but please if you see any areas in my form that need improvement I’d appreciate the feedback.

August 8, 2022

youtube.com

 

[Steve Freides]

I haven't watched your video, but your words suggest that you might be pulling the bell as opposed to creating force with your hips and then merely steering the bell.

-S-

 

[Boris Bachmann]

I haven’t snatched much over the last year as I’ve been running the Giant series a lot. I just started KSK with a 24 and noticed my biceps getting pretty fatigued at the end of my session. I’m wondering if it’s due to not snatching much as of late, is the bell im snatching too heavy, is it my form, or is it just part of doing snatches?

It's possibly all of those.

This set was my last set of the day so I was already a bit fatigued but please if you see any areas in my form that need improvement I’d appreciate the feedback.

August 8, 2022

youtube.com

Different angles might show show more, but your snatch looks a little 'squatty' to me. Some of that can be a build thing - people built to squat, tend to swing and snatch in a 'squattier' fashion (and I include myself in this group), but some of it is just time w. hinging and learning the intricacies of the swing and snatch like "pulling" into the hinge w. the hip flexors. Why does this matter? Well, if you're not really exploiting the hinge and hip drive, the arms just have to do more work to get the bell overhead and to brake the bell as it falls.

 

[Adachi]

So, I just watched The video, it looks like the bell is going up mostly ok. Although the bell does look a little bit on the heavy side for you, I think only by a bit.

The elbow does stay down at your side while the bell goes up so I have trouble saying it's the upswing.

In which case, I might say the the downswing may be the culprit.

If that's so, on the down swing, you may want to experiment with a further arc, away from center to see about whether that's help your with more of a swing like silverback stance.

It may help two fold, to help reduce the load in the bicep, due to catching the bell, at the bottom, and to help you access more hip drive from the bottom to reduce pulling sensations from the shoulder, involving the bicep.

One of the drills I run is to alternate 3 reps of swing and snatch, to try and get a more similar bottom stance.

Swing , snatch , swing , snatch , swing , snatch.

Try to make the back swing as similar as you can.

 

[TomP30]

It's possibly all of those.

Different angles might show show more, but your snatch looks a little 'squatty' to me. Some of that can be a build thing - people built to squat, tend to swing and snatch in a 'squattier' fashion (and I include myself in this group), but some of it is just time w. hinging and learning the intricacies of the swing and snatch like "pulling" into the hinge w. the hip flexors. Why does this matter? Well, if you're not really exploiting the hinge and hip drive, the arms just have to do more work to get the bell overhead and to brake the bell as it falls.

That is similar to the issues I have was having until recently doing my 1-arm swinging with a heavier bell in my S+S routine, not enough force through the hips and I was compensating with my upper body, putting stress on my latissimus and lumbar region. Hinging deeper enabled me to drive harder on the up swing with more force, improving my swing substantially and reducing fatigue.

 

[Boris Bachmann]

That is similar to the issues I have was having until recently doing my 1-arm swinging with a heavier bell in my S+S routine, not enough force through the hips and I was compensating with my upper body, putting stress on my latissimus and lumbar region. Hinging deeper enabled me to drive harder on the up swing with more force, improving my swing substantially and reducing fatigue.

Yes, exactly. It probably wasn't until I had hurt my lower back a couple times and I had to continue doing swings and snatches (because I was teaching a class/seminars/etc) that I really learned how to engage the hips fully. The adage from Cook and Jones "the hips are a bad neighbor" is absolutely true - if the hips aren't carrying the load, other areas (shoulder, low back, bicep, grip) will.

 

[TomP30]

Hope the link works, but I think this video of Ksenia Dedyukhina is great to watch for pointers on form. I haven't practised the snatch in quite a while as I'm focussing on getting my swing right, but this is one I'd go back to once I'm ready. As always YMMV!

 

[Gypsyplumber]

So, I just watched The video, it looks like the bell is going up mostly ok. Although the bell does look a little bit on the heavy side for you, I think only by a bit.

The elbow does stay down at your side while the bell goes up so I have trouble saying it's the upswing.

In which case, I might say the the downswing may be the culprit.

If that's so, on the down swing, you may want to experiment with a further arc, away from center to see about whether that's help your with more of a swing like silverback stance.

It may help two fold, to help reduce the load in the bicep, due to catching the bell, at the bottom, and to help you access more hip drive from the bottom to reduce pulling sensations from the shoulder, involving the bicep.

One of the drills I run is to alternate 3 reps of swing and snatch, to try and get a more similar bottom stance.

I was wondering myself if it was from strain on the downswing or the “catch” I think I might try doing half snatches on my next session to see if I feel the same fatigue. This could work as a good process of elimination.

I know I tell myself in my head “let the hips drive the bell” and I believe I am doing that, but whether I actually am is another thing lol.

 

[Steve Freides]

I think this video of Ksenia Dedyukhina is great to watch for pointers on form.

GS is a different thing than what we do at StrongFirst. If following a program in StrongFirst style, I wouldn't recommend trying to emulate what's shown in that video.

-S-

 

[Adachi]

I was wondering myself if it was from strain on the downswing or the “catch” I think I might try doing half snatches on my next session to see if I feel the same fatigue. This could work as a good process of elimination.

I know I tell myself in my head “let the hips drive the bell” and I believe I am doing that, but whether I actually am is another thing lol.

Yeah there's some evidence in your shoulder that you may be employing the bicep in the upswing, as the shoulder does raise slightly, but it seems to retreat into the lockout rather quickly. And the lockout at the top does seem good. So I'm hesitant to suggest that the bicep fatigue is sourced from the up swing portion.

 

[Adachi]

Just in case here's a nice drill for the snatch.

Maybe see if this helps.

 

[TomP30]

GS is a different thing than what we do at StrongFirst. If following a program in StrongFirst style, I wouldn't recommend trying to emulate what's shown in that video.

-S-

Apologies if I've posted incorrect or misleading information, that was not my intention. As I'm still a novice can you point what are the key differences in the styles?

 

[Steve Freides]

@TomP30, it's a different approach entirely, and often discussed at great length here and elsewhere on the Internet. In a nutshell, GS is trying to be as efficient as possible since the goal is completing the movement over and over within a fixed period of time with only one hand switch, while in StrongFirst style, the goal is to express near-maximum power repeatedly. Note that the GS snatch is performed in competition for twice the length of our SFG-I Snatch Test. Contrast the earlier video link with these, and note Derek actually doing the SSST, which is our 10-minute test that is not required in any of our certifications. Derek is among the very few who can do some of the things he does, including what you'll see in these video clips.





NB: This topic invariably generates a lot of responses. I will bow out here, hope I've been helpful.

-S-

 

[TomP30]

That illustrates what you're saying very well Steve, two quite different styles,

 

[Steve W.]

From what I see, the most likely culprit is the drop. It looks like you're trying to brake the fall of the bell with a bent arm, which will certainly fatigue the biceps. You want to get your elbow in and your upper arm connected to your torso, let your arm straighten with minimal tension as the bell drops, and then absorb the force of the drop through your straight arm, into your torso, and then into your hips. There's a subtle timing to it because if your arm is loose and still partially bent when the bell hits the bottom, it's going to pull on your arm very abruptly. So you need to kind of ride the bell down with your hand and take the slack out of your arm, but without tensing it and pulling on the bell as it falls.

I notice that when you initiate the drop, your elbow goes out to the side a lot instead of coming in to the body. This doesn't give you a good connection to the torso to transfer the force to the hips.

I think I might try doing half snatches on my next session to see if I feel the same fatigue.

This might be revealing, but the same issue can occur in the clean. Psychologically, because of the bigger drop on the snatch, I think people have more of a tendency to be overly tense and try to brake the bell on the way down. IIRC, you do double C&P with bigger bells than you are snatching here. The technique on the drop of your double cleans should have a lot of carryover. Think about the snatch drop going "through the rack." Not an actual catch in the rack like a half snatch, but getting the elbow in sort of like you would drop into the rack and then finishing the drop as if you are dropping a clean.

On the upswing, it does look like you are pulling with your arm, but I wouldn't expect this to cause as much biceps fatigue as braking the bell on the drop. I think "Arm down!" as I extend my hips, and then let the bell go as I finish my hip extension. You want to get the most power transfer possible from your hips, and when you start pulling with your arm before your hips are fully extended, you lose some of that hip power. It's a natural tendency to pull up because the whole intention is to get the bell UP. But if you are more patient in keeping the arm down, you get more power from your hips and the bell will fly. You want to launch it to lockout with hip power, not pull it up with arm power. This also naturally keeps the bell path in closer on the way up.

 

[Boris Bachmann]

Apologies if I've posted incorrect or misleading information, that was not my intention. As I'm still a novice can you point what are the key differences in the styles?

Yeah, you've inadvertently stepped into a potential can of worms there. There are a lot of potential lessons to be learned from Girevoy Sport, but it can be quite different from RKC and SF practices. Imho, there are more similarities than differences and the differences are often overstated.
Girevoy Sport, Hard Style, Soft Style, RKC, SF, whatever, however the overly squat-like motion is just not going to be anyone's kettlebell snatch friend if they are doing more than low reps with light weights.

 

[Steve W.]

Hope the link works, but I think this video of Ksenia Dedyukhina is great to watch for pointers on form. I haven't practised the snatch in quite a while as I'm focussing on getting my swing right, but this is one I'd go back to once I'm ready. As always YMMV!

IMO, there's actually a lot of overlap between GS and hard style. The most essential defining difference between the styles is straight hinge hip action in hard style and the pendulum hip action in GS. In hard style, the downswing is all flexion: hips, knees, ankles (dorsiflexion). The upswing is all extension: hips, knees, ankles (plantarflexion).

In the GS pendulum, the knees straighten and hips raise at the end of the downswing, and then the knees rebend on the upswing. This rebending is considered a fault in hard style.

People tend to fixate on the corkscrew drop in GS as the big difference between hard style and GS, but as far as I'm concerned a corkscrew drop with a hard style hinge is still legit hard style, although you rarely see it and I don't know how "officially" approved it is.

Although it does strike me as odd to post a GS video in a thread on hard style snatching without any specific comment about how it is applicable, after watching the video there are definitely some principles that apply to the OP.

Starting around 3:00 (the video is cued to that point below), when the video goes to more of a side angle, you can see how she gets her arm connected to her body on the drop, so when she absorbs the force at the bottom, her arm is straight and locked down to her torso. Joe Daniels comments on this in the narration at about 3:05 and 3:32. Even if you ignore all other aspects of her style, this element is directly applicable to the issue the OP asked about.




Although I basically practice hard style, I think StrongFirst has missed out on a lot by being overly doctrinaire about building a wall between hard style and GS. It's like teaching the powerlifts or Olympic lifts (which StrongFirst does) but dismissing a lot of the technique of competitive athletes in those disciplines instead of synthesizing and assimilating it. In commenting on the high tension techniques from PTTP, Louie Simmons once said that Pavel "reverse engineers what strong people do naturally." But when it comes to GS, it's dismissed as "not what we do."

The video above is a great example of Joe Daniels watching a world class athlete and analyzing and reverse engineering her technique to apply principles to his own practice. The overall technique might not be hard style, but that doesn't mean hard style lifters can't learn from it.

There are a lot of potential lessons to be learned from Girevoy Sport, but it can be quite different from RKC and SF practices. Imho, there are more similarities than differences and the differences are often overstated.

+1,000,000

 

[TomP30]

Guys please accept the apologies of a newb blundering in here, I wasn’t aware of such differences but that really highlights my ignorance. I was really just trying to elaborate on the point that Boris made about the hinge. The video I posted I’d seen before and thought it showed some good points, but I wasn’t aware of the differences that exist between the styles.

 

[silveraw]

Imho, there are more similarities than differences and the differences are often overstated.
Girevoy Sport, Hard Style, Soft Style, RKC, SF, whatever, however the overly squat-like motion is just not going to be anyone's kettlebell snatch friend if they are doing more than low reps with light weights.

IMO for the snatch they are kind of trending towards a merge to some degree. I learned KB snatches from ETK which was basically a high pull that ends at the top position. When I worked with an SFG many of the fixes he gave me were straight out of what I've seen in more GS style videos like KBOMG (I forget the video creator's name but the kb guy with the quads.). Specifically keeping the elbow close to the body and letting the momentum peel it up to the top position.

 

[Anna C]

In which case, I might say the the downswing may be the culprit.

From what I see, the most likely culprit is the drop.

I would also suspect the downswing.

Your form looks very good, @Gypsyplumber.

I tweaked my biceps a couple of times when I ramped up my volume doing A+A snatches a few years ago (here's the point in my training log if it helps... seems like the recovery went on for a number of weeks). I think it was holding a bit too much tension on the drop, which is probably common and would be no big deal if doing a few times, and/or doing with light weight... but doing many more times than that, especially with a challenging weight, eventually causes a problem.