Snatch Mobility Tips to Improve your Lift and Movement

WHY IS YOUR MOBILITY SO IMPORTANT?

Mobility is a vital aspect of any athlete’s movement and coordination, and is inextricably tied to many other areas of training. If you can move well, without pain or injury, and you constantly work on your technical ability and strength, then you will improve as an athlete. If you are unable to move in certain ways then your progress will face restrictions because of poor mobility.

Say for example you struggle with bad hip mobility, then this will negatively impact not just your Snatch, but your overall performances as well.

HOW WILL SNATCH MOBILITY WORK HELP YOU TO IMPROVE?

Source: Brucklyn Complex

Working to improve your Snatch Mobility will help you with the lift itself, and in other areas of your training. It will:

• Resolve pain
• Prevent injury
• Strengthen movement patterns
• Improve Range of Motion for many different exercises
• Optimize performance
• Improve your general well being

MOBILITY IN PRACTICE: THE SNATCH

The snatch is a full-body exercise that demands acute focus, mental strength and excellent technique. From a stable core and strong shoulder mobility to aggression, power and guts, it is one exercise that really tests your holistic ability as an athlete.

Source: Brucklyn Complex

The Snatch incorporates such a wide range of muscles, from your feet to your shoulders, that you must be able to use your body effectively in order to execute it properly. There is no use having incredible strength from a huge Deadlift or Strict Press, yet lack the mobility to support the bar during the catch for example. Without the necessary mobility, you will never be able to fulfill your potential for this exercise.

SNATCH MOBILITY ROUTINE

Try this routine involving stretch-band mobility drills to improve your Snatch:

WORK SMARTER, NOT HARDER

Increasing your weights and intensity is not always the best way to get better at the most challenging Crossfit movements. If your form is not good, then often it will only lead to injury and bad movement patterns.

This is where mobility work comes in: Ensuring that your joints, muscles and ligaments don’t restrict your movements and end up reinforcing that bad form will only help you to improve. Working towards excellent mobility is the first step in becoming a fitter and more capable athlete.

DO A LITTLE OFTEN, SMALL STEPS ADD UP TO BIG RESULTS

Make Mobility a small part of your everyday regime, and in no time you will reap big benefits from just a few minutes spent on flexibility and joint mobilization: more stability and power in your lifts, and a better recovery afterwards.

Source: RX'd Photography

PLACE QUALITY AT THE HEART OF EVERYTHING YOU DO

Crossfit teaches quality in all aspects, from programming and training, through to great nutrition and getting the right amount of rest. It makes you work for your life goals, push hard for what you want and take responsibility for your own development, as an individual and as an athlete.

This same principle should also be applied to the equipment you use. If you want to be the best that you can be, quality should be a part of everything that you do. Investing in quality Suprfit mobility bands is a recommendation that will make sense once you’ve made these mobility drills part of your good Crossfit habits. High quality materials are mandatory for anything that comes into direct contact with your skin. The additional benefit from quality is that it will do the right job, properly, and for much longer. This will save you the time, hassle and cost of regularly replacing the bands in the long run. These bands are incredibly versatile, and can also be used for:

• General Mobility drills
• Stretching exercises
• Muscle Up Progressions
• Pull Up Progressions
• Adding resistance to barbell work (Squats, Bench, Press etc)

Source: Suprfit

RANGE OF MOTION

Range of Motion is the linear or angular distance that a moving object may normally travel while properly attached to another. This describes your ability to move a weight through the motion of an exercise.

For example, the Snatch requires a complicated range of motion. There are many different stages to the exercise, and the barbell and weight must be moved through each one effectively. You need strong movement patterns and good mobility to shift serious weight with this exercise.

Source: RX'd Photography

Crossfitters strive for constant improvement in functional strength and athletic ability. We challenge ourselves, working with complex movements that involve our whole body instead of just isolated muscle groups. This puts mobility at the heart of all aspects of Crossfit, and makes it incredibly important. Humans are designed to move, and so dedicated mobility work for specific exercises will have beneficial effects throughout the rest of your everyday life as well.

MOVEMENT PATTERNS IN EVERYDAY LIFE

The beauty of functional movements is that they are applicable everywhere. When you smash out a 100kg Power Clean PR for example, you have hit a benchmark number, and you can clearly see that you are progressing in your training. Outside of the Box, this is also useful. Knowing you have the strength and effective mobility to complete such a feat transfers into activities such as stacking heavy logs into a woodshed for example.

Correct movement patterns can be incredibly effective for preventing injury in the long run. If you are serious about being the best that you can be, as an athlete and as an individual, then making all your functional movements as technically precise as they can possibly be and regularly doing mobility work is a positive step forward in the long run.