Training Notes

“Why the DB Snatch is King”
The DB Snatch is one of our favorite movements at the gym, and as far as total body taxation, there are not many rivals.

With the fitness industry’s recent obsession with all things Olympic barbell lifting, this movement tends to fall by the wayside and it’s one of my own personal favorites.  There is a reason we, and other gyms across the nation, stock dumbbells along with barbells.  They both have different benefits the other can’t achieve.  For dumbbells, the stability requirements are much greater as you are relying on just a single shoulder to stabilize the weight overhead.  As such, with one side of the body heavily weighted, the other side must create counter stabilization in order to achieve balance.   This provides work on the obliques that a barbell typically does not reach, and as far as performance goes we could make a very convincing case that the obliques are the most important of the abdominal family.

Mark is using his entire body in an athletic, plyometric manner. He is not muscling it up slowly.

Further, it is just plain very challenging to snatch something 100 or 70 pounds up overhead for multiple reps.  It takes power in our legs, transfer of force capability in our core and both strength and stability in our shoulder to finish it off and receive it for a rep.  One single rep from the floor will engage just about every muscle group in your body.

The DB snatch is also a great tool to teach full hip extension, and a very powerful 2nd and 3rd pull, as they cannot be performed correctly without really driving the hips through.

The lack of mobility limitations a dumbbell offers make these perfect for beginners, and the fact you can run them up to the triple digits make the benefits endless for even the most experienced weight lifters.

Off-the-floor DB snatches require speed, athleticism and stability that no other movement on this list requires.  If you want more power in your later pulls, get on DB snatches.