Thanks Steve, I will try! (Does that basically mean, just a tiny bit "squattier"?)
Closer to a deadlift... yes, that makes sense. I will try it today, probably with a 32kg. Coincidentally, I'm also deadlifting today.
Not that Steve, but here's what I see and how I think about it:
I see that on the down swing, after your hips finish going back, your torso continues to fold forward. Then on the upswing, your shoulders start to come up maybe a smidgen ahead of your hips starting to come forward. So I'm not looking at body position in isolation, but at the timing within the swing.
I try to keep the hips going back, hips flexing/torso coming forward, and the knees and the ankles flexing all starting and finishing together. To me, it feels smoother, better balanced, more powerful, and more aesthetically pleasing.
So especially with a heavy bell, I'm thinking about two things.
First, I imagine pulling up on the bell during the downswing. The purpose of this cue is to resist the bell folding me forward. Another visualization I use is imagining there is a spring or rubber band between my head and the ceiling trying to pull me upright as I hinge. I also think this is related to the "separate the sternum and hands" cue that has been mentioned a few times recently here on the forum (although that is a cue I hadn't really noticed in the book before and haven't tried to implement).
There's a balance to be struck between too much tension resisting the hinge and pulling up on the bell and not enough. Too much, and the swing loses fluidity and gets too "grindy." I'm not trying to noticeably slow the hinge, just subtly resist it to keep from getting folded forward too much or letting my hips get ahead of my shoulders. Finally, I should emphasize that "pulling up" is a visualization/cue. I am not pulling in the sense of bending the arm (the resistance comes from the hips), and the bell is not actually going up. Another way to describe it is keeping slack out of the arm, and ramping up the tension smoothly in response to the drop of the bell.
Second, I imagine the bottom position I want to hit at the bottom of the swing (which, to piggyback on
@Steve Freides's point, is basically the bottom of my deadlift). Then, on the down swing I think about hitting that position all at once. I find that imagining the endpoint, and knowing what that position feels like (from patterning the DL), helps me to hit it all together -- shoulders, hips, knees and ankles finishing at the same time.
These are things that I am always monitoring from rep to rep and making adjustments. When I observe myself getting folded forward too much or my shoulders finishing the down swing behind my hips, I go back to these cues, pulling up on the bell and hitting the DL position, and find my pace and power instantly increase.
Hope this makes sense (and helps).
