Assessment #3

The big difference between lifting and carrying weights is the direction of the line of gravity. In the assessment with the squat it’s more about axially loading your spine which means carrying weights.

But if you bend forward the line of gravity results in a shear force in the spine, which means lifting the loads. In weightlifting the lifting part from the floor creates the shear moment in the spine that builds up around knee level and finishes at the end of the pull phase. After the turn of the bar, in the receiving positions of catch and rack, it is more an axial force on the spine.

In our assessment you put the stick along the back with contact points at the back of your head, upper back and sacrum.
In stead of bending both the hip and knees, you start with a mini-squat and then continue with a hip hinge.
Then push the hip backward without changing the knee angle while controlling the stability of your spine.
The feet are at hip width and point straight forward. You bend forward untill the shoulders are at knee level or maybe even a bit further.
You can try to really feel the differences of the engagement of your muscles around your core with the changing angle of your trunk.
Some of our athletes struggle also with the head alignment – so keep the back of the head back, and do not flex when you tuck your chin.
Also try to bring your chest up and forward, this helps bracing your core. And lastly, try to lift the back of your sacrum up. It helps the stability of your lower back muscles.
If you’re able to control this untill approaximately knee level you can bring the stick forward in a narrow grip and do the same hip hinge untill knee level. After this hip hinge you start to squat. Your trunk (around 45 degrees trunk-floor) is fixed and you end with the stick around mid-shin, your shoulders slightly over the stick. If you would draw lines from the knee heigth till the low position you see a parallelogram – shoulders-trunk.
And the final challenge is to move the hands outward as far as possible (snatch grip), mini-squat, hip-hinge and do again the squat below knee transition. You probably end up with the shoulders twice as far in front of the stick compared to the narrow grip and the trunk more forward (around 30 degrees trunk-floor).