Hang cleans or hang snatches are great way to work on positioning for the full lifts and a little variety for the guys. The question I often here is which hang position to do, above or below the knee?
Above or Below Hangs
Above: Generally speaking, I like the below the knee hang movements because it closely resembles the issue lifters have in the full lifts–transitioning around the knee. Below the knee hangs also forces the lifter to be efficient with their pull, as you won’t have as much strength to lift the bar up as high, so you get two reinforcements with one movement- transitioning and pull under.
Below: For my lifters, I generally do not program too much above the knee positioning movements. Although, I can see where it’ll be effective for some lifters. The above the knee hangs can be beneficial for lifters to focus on the thigh brush and straight extension. But for our guys, we’ve found the deadlift and high hangs to be really effective for these fixes.
Conclusion
With all that said, this is our approach and what has worked for our guys. This does not mean it’ll be effective for your own training. The foundation of any program philosophy is to find the most effective way for each individual lifter. This is what I believe many lifters miss the mark on, meatballs see something on YouTube but don’t take into consideration past history and the needs of that individual lifter. I’m going to end here before I go into a rant 🙂 we’ll talk more about this on the next post.
Stay strong,