Any point in doing snatches in training if you’re all ready doing cleans? Won’t they impede bench pressing movements aswell?
actually, there are many points in favor of snatching…you can periodize cleans and snatches, with the former more suited in a strength phase and the latter in a power phase, due to the more dynamic nature of the exercise.
Regarding bench pressing, you should consider the respective volumes, but it can strengthen a weak upper back, thus enabling you to handle greater poundages in the long run…
Ok, thanks… I did find that my upperbody strength decreased when I laid off the bench pressing for a month or so.
What are you training for?
come on james, be nice to the olys 
Obviously, if you stop benche pressing, your bench strength decreases,you should opt to mantain some pressing volume, and off course it depends what are you training for…
LOL I am actually asking out of sincere curiousity, as the training means must be specific to developing the abilities which will lead to achieving the training goal.
Lacrosse/Hockey
I thought that jerks would maintain my pressing strength… but, apparently they don’t.
jerks can help with your lock out,but they are not a pressing movement!!
Then in my opinion, Snatches are completely unecessary and in fact more of a risk than a benefit.
The mulitiple high force contacts that you receive to the shoulde girdle, as a result of playing lacrosse and hockey, are a high stress. Catching a barbell overhead (as in the snatch lift) is the most compromising position to place the glenohumeral joint in (abduction and external rotation) and yields very high stress to the shoulder.
In your case, use the weight room to get strong and develop hypertrophy where you need it, and use your field practice and conditioning to develop RFD, speed, agility, mobility, etc.
You are a multi-directional athlete who requires strength, speed, RFD, agility, conditioning, and skill. Train accordingly and as efficiently as possible.
Benching has wrecked more shoulders than snatches ever will!!
I have hurt my shoulder bench pressing but have been snatching for the last 3 years and it has improved my shoulder strength and stability. I know of no athlete who has injured his or her shoulder snatching but many from benching.
Rob
Rob, the only athletes who are likely to injure their shoulders by bench pressing, are those who are also employing a high volume of overhead lifts.
Generally, what you will find is that the lifters and sprinters who tend to perform a program which is primarily rooted in Olympic lifts, with minimal bench pressing, do not experience many problems. HOWEVER, lifters and sprinters are not to be confused with contact sport athletes.
Overhead lifts, especially snatches, performed by an in season contact sport athlete are a recipe for shoulder disaster.
Once you have developed a fundemental knowledge of orthopedics, you will then understand that an abducted and externally rotated shoulder is the MOST compromising and unstable articulation to place the glenohumeral joint in. This is in direct contrast to internally rotated and flexed.
The glenohumeral joint is designed for mobility, NOT stability.
Any contact sport athlete would be wise to eliminate heavy overhead lifts, especially snatches, from their in season lifting.
Rob, I don’t know what sport you play, but I bet it’s not a contact sport, or if it is I bet you haven’t been playing it for that long.
If I am wrong, and you do play a contact sport, and you have been peforming a high volume of snatches, then knock on wood bro because you are an injury waiting to happen.
Ask the EX-coach from Colorado
http://www.regenerationlab.com/archives/000033.php
read and learn…
the snatch is ok for teaching some things but when you are lifting to get stronger weight will be the primary variable and loads can cause injury. The shoulder can be prepared to be a “tuff cuff” and this will be the next module for athletes in the lab lounge.
Still the snatch can be a great metabolic booster and various other side benefits are great such as joint angle programming and movement pattern prescription a la KT.
according to this poll http://www.strengthcats.com/images/wpe10.gif people do get more injured in bench presses than snatches, although this really isn’t the most correct information b/c people can lie in survey’s but i just wanna know how do most of these people injure themselves from the benchpress. Is it because they do it after a snatch workout or is it because they do their 1rm or they do it wrong?
I am just a lil worred because bench pressing is one of my favourite exercises. I think as long as i don’t go too heavy i should be fine. Any thoughts?
I think it is because bench press is the most popular exercise to anyone who wants to start training, and a snatch is an exercise that not nearly as many people will do compared to bench. Also, people could get injured if they don’t properly warmup and they most likely use too much weight.
Like I said, generally more people bench then snatch, so they will have higher numbers of injuries.
The problems with that survey is the number of athletes doing a bench press and the number doing a snatch is incomparable. The bench is the most recognizable exercise, while snatches are “those lifts from the olympics.”
More injuries occur in the bench press in my opinion for another reason. When athletes bench and they go below a 90 degree angle when the elbow is lined with the shoulder, after that ligament strength becomes the primary force, rather than the muscle. Ligaments are much weaker then muscle per sq. in. so if an athlete is lifting near maximal strength, and the ligaments are taking much of the strain, this is where more injury can occur.
I dont see much tension among ligament strength in the snatch, however I could be wrong, any ideas on that?
Fusion hits a good point…more car acidents then motorcycle acidents due to population and sample size…wouldn’t give my son a Ninja on his 16tg birthday!
Don’t tell me you are one of these lifters who reverses the bar path when the bar is about two inches from touching your torso.
Your assertion regarding ligament strength is misinformed. Ligaments connect bone to bone and are not directly activated, but rather indirectly activated by voluntary muscular effort. It is the tendons, which connect muscle to bone, which act as a vehicle to transfer the force created by muscular contraction which serve to articulate the various joints of the body.
It is the tendons which connect the pectoralis major to the greater tubercle of the humerus which are markedly subject to stress when bench pressing, NOT the ligaments which connect the humerus to the shoulder capsule.
The stress experienced by the shoulder, during shoulder extension/transverse extension in the yielding phase of a full range bench press, is FAR FAR LESS STRESS than that which is experienced during the abduction and external rotation of the shoulder while simultaneously fixing a heavy barbell overhead.
The injuries that do arise, when bench pressing, are often yielded by the tendon, NOT ligament, which connects the pectoralis major to the greater tubercle of the humerus.
These surveys and what not, which claim to compare the instance of injury from one lift to another are fallacious. One need only to possess a working knowledge of biomechanics, orthopedics and anatomy in order to assess which lifts present more of a structural risk to the body.
To summarize, the degree to which the shoulder may be extended/transversely extended, far exceeds the range of motion which is required to perform full range bench pressing. Thus, the stress yielded by the connective ligaments plays a minimal to non existant factor in relation to the role assumed by the connective tendons which connect the pectoralis major to the greater tubercle of the humerus which are subject to intense stress when performing high force bench pressing.
The technical descriptions above are a summary of information taken from Gray’s Anatomy.
James