Tommy Suggs Teaching the Split Snatch

Great video of Tommy Suggs teaching the split snatch over at Starting Strength's YouTube page.

Suggs is a legend and a boa fide weightlifter. As summed up by this article at 70s Big:

Suggs was one of the most dominant Olympic weightlifters in the sixties, a member of the original York Barbell Club, editor for Strength and Health, the head strength coach for the NFL’s Houston Oilers, an outstanding Olympic weightlifting coach, and an all around nice guy. Bill Starr paraphrased someone in an old article about Suggs saying, “I never met a man who didn’t like Tommy Suggs.”

Note the low receiving position he coaches in this video, which requires a high degree of mobility. Starting Strength has also featured some other split snatch videos in which Mark Rippetoe takes on the teaching role, such as this one. I'll note that it seems like Rippetoe teaches a higher receiving position - the "power" version of the split snatch, if you will - which places fewer demands on hip and ankle mobility.

Jim Schmitz on Split Lifting Technique (Ironmind)

 One of the very best to teach and coach the lifts, Jim Schmitz, has an article over at Ironmind.com on Split Lifting Technique. It's a relatively short article, but packed with great information from discussion of advantages/disadvantages, technique, programming, and his personal experience:

My personal experience is that I was a split lifter from 1960 until 1965 when I finally learned how to squat snatch and squat clean. I was a squat lifter from 1966 until 2010. My knees and shoulders just don’t like the full squat lifts anymore—I can do them, but it takes too many days and too much ibuprofen to recover. Now I’m splitting again, and not lifting as much as I did squatting, but my knees and shoulders feel so much better. The splits just don’t put the same amount of stress on the joints. 

Also, a note to those who would contend that the split lifts are a waste of time:

Don’t be a “squat snob”—if you are a competitive lifter, strongman, or highlander, incorporate split lifts into your training from time to time for speed, fitness, balance and athleticism. If you are a strength coach, split lifts have tremendous carryover to running, jumping, and throwing. If you are a personal trainer, split lifts are a great addition to your training tools.   And finally, after all the power and squat technique workouts, the split technique is a great diversion, and is actually a lot of fun.

Read the whole article at Ironmind.com.

Finally, from Cal Strength's Facebook page, footage of the man himself splitting in competition in 2013:

Darth Vader Split Snatched

Fun fact: the late David Prowse, who played the physical role of Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy, was a successful weightlifter who won the British weightlifting championships in 1962, 1963, and 1964 in the heavyweight category at 200 cm and 109 kg. And he was a splitter:

David Prowse split snatching, circa 1962

This picture shows his rear knee touching the floor. Unknown whether this was the receipt of a full lift or some kind of overhead split squat exercise.

Considering that the squat lifts were definitely in use at this time, it would be interesting to know why Prowse might have chosen to use the split.

The Split Style Isn't Dead - Dresdin Archibald (Breaking Muscle)

Skipping forward several decades from Charle's Coster's Squat Style vs the Split, we have Dresdin Archibald's commentary at the Breaking Muscle site on the resurgence of the split lifts among masters lifters, CrossFit, and athletes training for other sports.

This is a really great article that provides a very balanced discussion of some of the advantages and disadvantages of the split lifts. He also provides some excellent commentary on technique, including an observation that elite-level split lifting requires a significant degree of lower body mobility:

This rebirth of splitters has not usually been accompanied by improved split technique. This is because few of these new splitters are elite lifters. They thus have little real incentive to improve their form. Overhead positions in the squat style require good flexibility. Splitting is friendlier to those older lifters without this ability. Since their splits are a compromise between that style or not lifting at all, they are happy even if they split imperfectly.

Things are different down below though. In order to do a full split, full enough to get as low as a squatter, one has to have excellent ankle, knee and hip mobility, adductor looseness, foot displacement speed, plus the stability to get to that position and recover with heavy weights. Few non-elite lifters of that era could actually get as low as the champs then.

Also note his comments regarding the ideal receiving position, which undoubtedly require great mobility and strength at limit weights:

The receiving position is as follows:

• Front leg - The ankle is dorsiflexed while the knee is well forward of the toes and foot flat on the platform.
• Real leg - The foot is balanced on the toes while the knee is nearly straight while not touching the platform
• Torso – Upper body is fully perpendicular to the platform
• Hips - The hips are below the level of the forward knee
• Barbell – Straight overhead in snatch, not in dislocate position. No difference in clean.

 As in the jerk it’s advised that the forward foot travel about 1.5 times the length of the foot. However, in the snatch or the clean the split will be deeper, so the feet will end up farther apart.

This receiving position calls to mind images of Norbert Schemansky split snatching elite-level weights.

Schemansky displaying ideal low receiving position in split snatch

The entire article is worth a read. Considering Mr. Archibald's background, he speaks from a place of authority.

Squat Style vs The Split - Charles Coster (1955)

The excellent Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban blog reproduces one of the seminal articles comparing the split and squat styles of weightlifting here: http://ditillo2.blogspot.com/2009/11/squat-style-vs-split-charles-coster.html

Coster wrote this article at a time when the squat lifts were still a new development and not used by a significant number of lifters.

Interestingly, he notes that use of the squat style for the snatch can yield good results for those with the mobility or anatomy to take advantage of it. For lifters like Dave Sheppard and Pete George, it was their ability to put their shoulders in the dislocate position:

This dislocation is seen to advantage in lifters such as Dave Sheppard and Pete George, and it enables them to fix their weights more securely overhead than would otherwise be the case – prior to the final leg straightening movement being undertaken.

For lifters like Tommy Kono, there was a lack of need to use the dislocate position, likely owing to his anatomical proportions:

There are a few squatters however who do not dislocate when they snatch either because they cannot, or do not, choose to do so. The amazing Russian featherweight Saksonov, and the American lightweight Tommy Kono both come into this category – and they both once held World snatch records.

Coster was much more skeptical of the utility of the squat style for the clean:

The fact of the matter is that squat cleaning involves split-second timing, and a balance that must be mathematically perfect if near-world record weights are to be succeeded with. Failure to whip the elbows well forward so that the bar is securely held high at the sternum usually means that the lifter has to lean forward – and once the trunk is forced out of the upright position the lifer’s task of straightening his legs assumes superhuman proportions.

Sagging elbows, or a lean forward with a rounded back, almost invariably means that the line of the bar is somewhere above the lifter’s toes, and it is impossible to exert maximum muscular effort once the line of gravity is at fault.

However, his own commentary near the end of the article gives a clue to overcoming the limitations he observes in the clean - namely, increase squatting strength:

It is important to keep an open mind when studying weightlifting phenomena, and any tendency to get into a rut with certain training habits is much to be deplored. Just as there is a sticking point which it is difficult to negotiate during the Olympic Press, so there is a certain sticking point encountered as the squat lifter fights his way to an upright position during the halfway stage of a clean.

I am glad to say American lifters are using great imagination and enterprise in their efforts to solve this little mentioned problem of leg recovery. Both Pete George and Tommy Kono are taking steps to improve their fundamental basic power all the time, and undoubtedly the sticking point is being gradually made less dangerous in competition by the practice of deep knee bends and half knee bends – with the bar held in front of the neck. By methodically attacking the problem in this way a lifter can increase the power of his thighs, hips and back by gradual degrees, and at the same time form the habit of keeping trunk perpendicular at all stages of the movement. This form of training is most logical, and, theoretically at least, it has much to recommend it.

Finally, he suggests that split style lifters also consider incorporating specific leg strength exercises:

The time honored split style of lifting has been in use for a long time – but I wonder how many lifters have ever tried to improve the strength of their back, hips and thighs by

“getting up” from the split position with weights which were substantially heavier than poundages which could be handled in competition. Not many, I’ll bet. The practice of standing up with weights which are supported on a couple of stands has much to recommend it, in my opinion.

The whole article is worth a read for historical significance if not for any particular technique or programming information.