Fancy foot-work; figure out your strategy for landing.

When you watch weightlifting at the top level, be it the World Championships or Olympics, you’ll notice that even at that elite echelon there exists quite a bit of variety in technique. I don’t believe that any two people will necessarily require the exact same movement strategy due to their limb lengths, strength differences, injury history and time in the sport. There are some definite truths, mechanical facts and undeniable errors but outside of the larger elements of the technique there can be quite a lot of room for individual differences.

One big difference you see is whether a lifter ‘jumps’ or ‘slides’ his/her feet out when repositioning under a barbell in the receiving or catch position. Is one wrong or less beneficial than the other?

Firstly let’s address what is actually happening in both instances. The ‘jump’ style is a fairly obvious one where the feet leave the ground, move up and usually outwards before landing. Key to this is that the feet land flat to maintain balance. Clearly while in the air there is no resistance or friction and the lifter can exert force against the bar to move under quickly.

The ‘slide’ style in contrast is where the feet barely leave the ground (or not at all) but instead literally slide into position (usually wider but in some case just a turn out or only one foot moves). Due to the feet not moving as high/far this could be a faster strategy, however there can be some negatives.

I find in practice with beginners there is a tendency to rush under the bar and not finish their extension. When you encourage the lifter to really try to leave the ground and re-place the feet wider it can help make them finish this extension upwards. Although I don’t often use the cue “jump” there are occasions it can be useful.

In contrast when someone is “donkey kicking” where the feet leave the ground, moving backwards under the lifter then back into a squat stance (a large amount of wasted time and effort) it can useful to encourage sliding the feet outwards and have them travel less. The downside can be inconsistent left/right motion and sometimes dragging the feet with the weight too far into the toes.

Stability, Speed, Timing

All weightlifting is a combination of balance and timing. The lifter and the bar must remain over the base of support for a lift to be successful and that has to happen with enough force produced quickly enough to beat gravity’s attempt to flatten us.

My personal preference when lifting is to lift my feet and put them down hard and flat. I’m not a world class lifter. In this video from 2015 you can see a great example of both. Skip to 1min 30sec if you’re impatient).

If you watch someone like Apti Aukhadov or Artem Okulov you’ll see a really obvious foot lift and they come down flat and stable. This seems to work for many top lifters.

In contrast watch Tian Tao who slides much more. There aren’t many better lifters in the world. All were successful (excusing the drugs bans for the first two).

Only once you’re experienced should you worry

I try to get lifters thinking of being aggressive and active on the pull under which tends to start everyone off with the more obvious ‘lift and put down’ foot movement. Once you’ve established a sold foundation you can play around with the slide variation and see if it helps to improve your timing or stability under the bar.

In the meantime, make sure you’re moving your feet, staying balanced and finishing the extension in the first instance.