Welcome to Part 2 of the Kettlebell Snatch Tutorial, if you missed part 1, click HERE
I have to say a big thankyou for all the positive feed back from last weeks post, including one guy telling me that the video was the most informative one he’d seen on the subject. Well, just wait for this and the following posts!
In this installment we look at one of the most difficult aspects of the lift to get right, the hand insertion.
The hand insertion is where you transfer the bell from the hook created by the fingers during the swing portion of the lift, to the heel of the hand in the lockout on the way up and reversing it on the way back down. Get this wrong, especially on the drop and you:
Increase the likelihood of tearing the hands
Fatigue the grip
Fatigue the shoulder
Drop the bell
Will become unstable in the lockout
End up working far harder than necessary!
Fortunately there’s a drill for this.
This drill serves to teach you the timing on the hand insertions, as soon as you’ve mastered this, the drill becomes defunct. So use this until you can do it, then bin it and just get back to training the snatch. All too often people get tied up in these kind of supplementary or “attribute development” drills and lose sight of the bigger picture. Don’t be that guy!
Although, this does look cool!
Essentially we change hands halfway through the lift. As we swing the bell up with one hand, we will swap it to our other hand to lock it out. This requires the development of:
A good, dynamic swing
An accurate swing that follows the correct path (more on this next week)
Development of the confidence to let go of the bell in mid flight.
Timing on the release from one section of the hand to the other.
Simply getting this drill working smoothly is one of the most all encompassing self teaching methods for smoothing out your snatch technique.
Enough words, here’s the video:
As I already stated, don’t spend your life being distracted by this drill, no matter how cool people think you look tossing a bell from hand to hand. But always remember, there is a risk of dropping the bell, make sure you don’t drop it on you or anyone else!
Next week we’ll cover both the drop and breathing patterns.
All this info and more can be found in the Level 3 Kettlebell Manual available by clicking the image below:
Click Image for more info
Regards
Dave Hedges www.WG-Fit.com