Has your coach ever told you to keep your eyes straight ahead throughout the lift or to keep your head neutral? There is solid reasoning behind this. When the head is thrown back at the top of the pull the traps cannot fully activate. Keeping the head in a neutral position allows for more force to be utilized from the traps. Watch the video to find out exactly what a neutral head position can do to help you shrug under the bar.

When performing overhead squats most of us think of just push pressing the weight overhead and squatting with it. This is a key exercise to build your overhead strength, but consider the fact that there are many variations of the overhead squat, all of which can be used to master certain aspects of the snatch.

Have an athlete that has a problem keeping their elbows up in the front squat? Maybe it’s their mobility. Here is a great stretch to work on front rack mobility. Have the athlete place their elbows around the bar like a front squat with a bar that has enough weight on it to where it will not move. Push the elbows up for 10 seconds and then tell the athlete to push down against your hands. After about 10 seconds of this tell them to release and it will bring about a great stretch.

This week’s performance care segment is a great pre/post workout routine to keep your joints healthy and mobile.