” Did they try to re-teach you technique while you were there? Would be interesting to know how they teach the lifts.”

Yes and No

I train under a modified Chinese system that fits the needs of North American athletes. My basics were quite Chinese already but that doesn’t mean they didn’t change things. They pinpointed my weak areas and basically gave me building blocks to really reassess my lifting. The first cue i got on both my lifts was relaxing the arms on the start. This wasn’t so hard on the snatch but for the cleans i am still struggling to relax my arms.They are big on relaxed arms and real tight back. Now people always argue shoulder position, the Chinese teach shoulders over the bar on the start but a lot of Chinese athletes are very flexible so when they sit upright their shoulders aren’t necessarily over. They end up over the moment they come off the floor though.

The bar path is straight from start to finish, they focus a lot on that element. This was a big change for me, i never thought i hit the bar out so much until the coaches were on me every rep telling me to pull straight and not out. The bar is also not pulled into the hip but the hip is brought to the bar. The one thing i did notice was that there was considerable difference in how the lifters lifted and how the technique was taught to beginners. The Chinese are interesting because they teach the IDEAL technique but also realize that there will be individual difference so they don’t necessarily try to fix certain individual quirks as long as the athlete is consistent with their lifts. Also the issue of knees out or in is another one that some coaches teach out others teach in. Most said knees out for snatch and in for clean and jerk. There is still tension in the quads going outwards but you don’t actually force your knees out as you do for the snatch.

So cue’s for the snatch were relax arms, shoulders slightly over the bar, chest and head up and pull straight.

The clean is where i got my biggest change. when i visited the army team they taught us the clean, the following video has some of the instructions we got over the 3 hours. I apologize it’s broken up and just few segments of what the coach discussed.

For the clean the bar path was same thing as the snatch, straight. The unusual thing was that they wanted the bar to pop at the hip, this was new to me since i graze the bar mid thigh. I spent three hours banging the bar and getting a massive bruise at the hip because my timing was off but i got the hold of it after a while. In comparison, the higher popping of the bar is more powerful. The bar flies up if you can time it properly but it takes some time to get the timing. For most of us the grip will have to be moved out farther and that was what i did to try and get the bar to the hip. Side comment: I still brush lower than the hip but much higher than my previous spot.

This is where the clean concept got confusing though. Even though they teach hip clean they said they DID NOT want arm bend to achieve the hip pop. I asked repeatedly to few different guys at the gym and they all said no arm bend/pull. This makes it complicated because i don’t have the proportions some of the athletes in the gym had, they could just stand up and the bar sat at the hip in their clean grip. For me the bar is a bit lower still and they were ok with that. Once again the ideal was hip but if the body type doesn’t allow it they don’t care as long as rest of the criteria are met. so as long as chest is up, arms relaxed, straight pull, you finish your pull and catch elbows/chest tall you are good. If you do have levers or can catch with a wider grip then go for the hip and i am confident you will feel the bar accelerating much faster once the timing is there. The pocket for the clean had a range, as long as you could hit between the hip and just below you penis it was considered good. If you were below that, it still works as long the pull is finished because like i said they respected athlete preference as long as there is result.

An example from one of the lifters at the gym:

The one thing they were obsessed with was torso angle, they did not want any variation from completely upright. They squatted very upright and they caught cleans very upright. Even on heavy squats I never saw anyone change torso angles which is amazing because mine is all over the place once i get “heavy”. I don’t think i can say heavy anymore 😦

Another thing different about the Chinese is they care more about torso angle than the knees caving in on heavy lifts or squats. They honestly didn’t care about knees caving in as long the torso stayed upright. If your elbows dropped and chest caved in you were getting paddled lol..

Final note, we asked few different athletes on their idea of how they clean and opinions were all over the place lol. Some said they popped at the hip others were bit lower and some said they didn’t necessarily pop at all. This and all the coach variations taught me that individual differences play a role in finding ideal technique, there is more than one way to produce same results. You have to be the perfect fit for a certain technique, so try out some different ideas and find what is ideal. If you watch a lot of youtube I will caution against the superman pull idea and basically anything that teaches pulling bar in and back. The Chinese argue there is simply not enough leg power in that technique to produce the results they seek. The Chinese are not doing anything some Americans claim that the international athletes are doing. I had dinner with 3 weightlifting coaches that had produced international athletes. I asked about the catapult idea, “superman” pull and what not while the topic of technique came up. The answer went something like this laughter laughter laughter “Americans are such amateurs” and they went on with their drinking of some gross wine that was like 52% alcohol. I had the 72% variation on another occasion and it honestly smelled like nail polish remover.

The guy in the red on the right is the head coach of Beijing University, guy behind me is Coach Wang (he has the 20yo 77kg with 165/195 and 3 other National guys currently), the guy behind that is the assistant coach for the university. The guy in the red right in the middle is an international level Tae kwon do coach and to the right of that, one of the top strength and conditioning coaches. This was a fun dinner to say the least!

Well i don’t know if i have much else to say about this but If you have any questions let me know and ill add the answer to this. THANKS 🙂