Stripper Pole Lifter

How many times have you heard someone tell you your Olympic lifts resemble a stripper on a dance pole? This is a very common problem in the Olympic lifting world, and going to a strip club will not solve it, but lift offs will. There are many possible different causes for this. Some may be muscular, and some may be neurological. In this case, we will focus on the neurological. Essentially the Olympic Lifts are just complex movement patterns, and after doing a movement pattern the same so many times it is ingrained into your brain. In order to fix an incorrect movement pattern you will have to lower the weight and focus on certain parts of that movement. For the stripper pole issue, aka raising your butt too fast off the ground, the problem arises in the first pull. From the ground to the knees your butt is likely shooting up and turning your clean or snatch into a modified deadlift. Liftoffs can be used to fix this first pull. In a liftoff, basically you only perform the 1rst pull. The focus should not be on weight, but rather accumulating quality reps with correct positioning. Those shoulders and hips should be moving at the same rate. Preferably these should be done along with your clean or snatch pulls. Three sets of 5 reps with 80-100% of your best clean or snatch. Over the course of a few weeks you should see the transfer over to your cleans and snatches. If not this issue may be related to some muscular imbalance.