One of the most common pieces of advice I’ve heard to strengthen your lockout in the snatch or jerk is to do more tricep work. 

This would make a ton of sense IF your lockout were the actual problem! 

Most people don’t actually have a lockout issue. If you aren’t sure, try this out, put your arm above your head and lock your elbow out. 

If you can lock it out without any trouble, then your lockout is NOT the issue. Instead, it’s likely one of two technique errors:

1. Inefficient bar path

2. Poor timing

Bar Path

Watching bar path, or the direction the bar moves during a lift, can be a great tool for improving your technique.

A good rule of thumb is that any time the bar moves away from the body excessively, either forward or backward, the lift will become much harder. Think of it like carrying your groceries out in front of you with your arms raised compared to holding them by your side. Much easier!

In the snatch or the jerk, lockout issues are often bar path issues in disguise.

Any time you catch the bar overhead, ideally the bar will be supported by your bone structure and you won’t need to use much muscle at all to hold the bar overhead. However, if the bar is slightly forward, you must now support the weight with your shoulders much more than you should, and then you’ll find it much harder to keep your elbows locked. 

Jerk Bar Path

For the jerk, your bar path is largely dictated by your dip and drive, as well as the direction your arms guide the bar as you transition to the split. For beginners, the dip and drive is usually the main culprit. 

Ideally in the jerk, your torso will stay straight up and down throughout the movement, however, many beginner lifters tend to lean forward or tip over as they get closer to the bottom of the dip. This already moves the bar forward outside of the ideal bar path, and this will only continue as the weight increases. While you may be able to get away with this technique at lighter weights, it will absolutely bite you in the ass at top-end weights. 

One of my favorite cues to fix this is “Dip back, drive back”, and while I don’t actually want lifters to lean back in the dip, it usually helps to correct a forward lean and gets the lifter to be more upright. If this cue doesn’t work, then I highly recommend one of my favorite variations, the Double Pause Jerk. To perform this lift, pause in the bottom of the dip, correct any forward lean or depth issues, then finish the jerk as normal from the dead stop, and again pause in the split, correct any issues here, and then recover. This drill works well as a movement primer, as a main variation, or as a learning progression as I use in my free WL101: Beginner Guide + 6-Week Program!

You may have the most perfect dip and drive, but your arms will still need to guide the bar back behind your head for a better final catch position. One of my favorite cues for this is “Behind the head” as it gets people to focus exactly on where the bar needs to be. A drill you could try to help feel the ideal catch position is the Behind The Neck Jerk, in which the bar starts on the back rack position and rather than needing to move behind the head during the lift, you just need to move the bar straight up as it already starts behind the head. This drill is not only a good corrective exercise, but it works really well as an overload variation, meaning you can often load it heavier than your front rack jerk which can help improve your confidence when attempting heavy clean and jerks. 

Snatch Bar Path

For the snatch, mobility is often a major culprit in your ability to get the bar far enough behind your head. If you struggle with this, then check out my free Mobility101: Guide for Weightlifters here and skip to the section about overhead mobility in the snatch. 

If mobility is not an issue, then you’ll simply need to do three things to make sure the bar is moving in the right direction:

1. Vertical leg drive

2. Correctly use of the arms

3. Don’t jump backward

The most common issue relating to your bar path in the snatch is overusing hip drive rather than vertical leg drive to launch the bar. Hip drive is a very common, but absolutely terrible cue given to help lifters make contact with the bar. The problem with this cue is it leads to lifters hitting the bar away from them with their hips, and any time the bar moves too far away from you, the lift gets much harder. 

Instead, you must use vertical leg drive to launch the bar up rather than forward. A good cue for this is “push with the legs” to help cue pushing with your legs into the ground, leading to vertical leg drive. If this does not work for you, then I highly recommend practicing the Dip Snatch.

The Dip Snatch is a great variation for isolating JUST the leg drive portion of the snatch. Pause in the dip and ensure your shoulders are in line with the bar, then drive straight up with your legs to launch the bar. This drill is the foundation of learning the snatch correctly and is where I start when teaching beginners how to snatch. 

If vertical leg drive is not an issue, the next issue is not keeping the bar close with your arms. After your legs extend, the bar is launched and moving much faster. You won’t need to keep pulling the bar up with your arms, but you do need to ensure that the bar doesn’t drift away from you at any point during the rest of the lift. To do this correctly, make sure to rotate your elbows so they point up, not back, in the setup for your snatch. This will make it much easier to keep the bar close to you during the pull. Along with this, you can use the cue “shave your chest with the bar” to help cue just how close the bar should be!

The final issue with your bar path leading to a weak lockout is making sure your body moves around the barbell correctly. You can have a picture-perfect bar path, but if you jump backward, the bar will inherently be left out in front. This can lead to feeling forward in the catch and needing to chase the bar forward to complete the lift. A cue you can use for this is “straight up, straight down” which helps you visualize the correct direction for the bar and the correction for you to move. If you still struggle with this, then you can use one of my favorite variations, the No-Feet Snatch to make sure your feet do not move during the pull! 

Timing

Bar path may not be the only thing leading to a weak lockout, it can also be a timing-related issue! When it comes to timing, the biggest issue is often a lack of connection to the bar in your transition to the catch position, whether it’s in the jerk or the snatch. Both follow the same principle, however it is applied in different ways. This principle is one of the most simple but important aspects of proper weightlifting technique: 

Legs move the bar up, arms move the body down. 

Here’s how you can apply this for each lift.

 

Jerk Timing

Timing for the jerk is a huge issue, and most often leads to a pressout or shaky catch. In the jerk, the legs are responsible for driving the bar to its peak, usually around eye or forehead level. At the moment the bar is peaked, you must then use your arms to punch yourself under the bar, as well as guide the bar back to its final position. 

Where you likely have issues is either using your arms too early or too late. Using the arms too early is common for beginners who tend to use their arms to elevate the bar and lack good leg drive. To fix this, simply relax your arms and grip a little bit and allow your legs to do the majority of the work. 

On the other side of that coin is using your arms too late, or not enough. Once the bar has reached its peak, your arms must do EVERYTHING to create the speed under the bar that elite lifters have. No matter what you do, the punch under must always be equal to or stronger than the drive you put into the bar. This allows you to stay connected to the bar as you move under and prevents the bar from “crashing” or landing on you as you move to the split. This crash can make it much harder to support the bar and often leads to your elbows bending. 

To fix this, you can use the cue “legs, then punch” to help make sure you use enough leg drive FIRST before you punch so that you don't end up using your arms too early. If this cue doesn’t help much, or you need help feeling the punch, you can try using a drill called the Tall Jerk, which isolates the punch portion of the lift and can help you feel how to stay connected to the bar. 

Snatch Timing

Timing for the snatch works very similarly compared to the snatch. You must first use your legs to elevate the bar, then at its peak when the bar is momentarily weightless, rather than “punching” under, you’ll need to pull yourself under. This allows you to be much faster under the bar compared to simply falling under, and it allows you to stay connected to the bar to prevent bar crash!

Pulling under, like the punch in the jerk, usually has two mistakes:

1. Using the arms too early

2. Using the arms too late/not at all

If you are using your arms too early, it usually looks like pulling with your arms before the bar reaches your power position (not always an issue on its own), or shrugging before the bar has reached the power position. Either of these mistakes might make it harder to use the arms aggressively enough to be fast under the bar. To fix these, try using the cue “loose arms until the last second” to help make sure you don’t use your arms early, but also make sure you still use them at the right time. If you struggle with this, try warming up with Tempo Snatches, one of my favorite progressions from my free beginner guide, which forces you to slow down and move correctly. 

If you are not using your arms enough, you will normally get pretty good height on the bar, but rather than moving under the bar lightning-fast, you will be slow under, or will likely have a significant bar crash and press out when you reach the bottom of the squat. To fix this I like to use the cue “big finish with the arms” to help cue people how and when to use your arms at the top of your pull. If this does not help, then you can try performing Dip Power Snatches, especially if they are in the higher (3-5) rep range, as the fatigue caused by the first few reps will force you to use your arms more. 

Hopefully, this clarified some things for you and maybe even gave you a lightbulb moment with your technique. If you ever need a free form check on your videos, you’re always welcome to join my free discord here and drop your video in the #form-checks channel. 

And if you’re looking for a weightlifting program designed to help you set PRs, improve your technique, and get strong af, then check out a FREE WEEK TRIAL of my 3 & 5-Day OlyStrong Team at the link below!