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I call it the “super man pull”.   In Olympic weightlifting the most famous way of breaking down the pull on the snatch and clean and jerk is “first pull, second pull, and then the third pull” meaning the finish at the top of the lift before you go under the bar to catch the weight.  In the Jon North coaching book I break it down a little different.  I call it the super man pull.  The super man has three steps as well focusing on the positions of the shoulders rather than the bar path.  Here are the three points:
       
          The first point of the super man pull happens right off the floor.  Your shoulders need to be back, not behind the bar but back enough that your chest should be facing the wall.  You should stay that way from the floor to a little bit below your knees. Thats point one.
      
        The second point is right when the bar starts getting closer to your knees you should then push your shoulders over the bar.  This is hard to do, because you have to stay on your heels, but the bar has other plans.  The bar wants to put you on your toes, but you have to fight and stay on your heels the whole time.  If you can stay on your heels and push your shoulders out over the bar at the same time you are putting your body in perfect position for point three, the “finish” the explosion! 
     
        Point three is once the bar is in line with your hips then you pull your shoulders all the way back behind your hips.  When you pull your shoulders back you should push the bar into your hips at the same time, and your hips should come through at the same time as well.  “Bar back hips through!”  This is what I say everyday in the gym. It is what you need for the Mike Tyson finish so you can have time to get under the bar to catch and then stand up, making the winning lift in the Olympics.  That’s the super man pull  Now let me tell you why this way of pulling is the best way to go.
    
        The reason why the super man pull is so effective is because it forces you to stay over the bar!  This is the most important part of the lift.  When an athlete starts pulling back too early, or in some cases pulling their shoulders back throughout the whole pull means they will have no power for the finish.  Don’t beleive me? Then try it yourself.  Try jumping as high as you can in the air with your shoulders behind your hips before you jump…  That’s what I thought. You looked like a fish out of water, no power.  Now try jumping in the air with your shulders over your hips.  Well there you go.  Now you have some good power and jumped higher than Michael Jordan.  Same thing goes with the snatch and clean. You need to push your shoulders back at the same time your hips come through.  As you pull your shoulders back you should be pushing the bar INTO your hips at the same time, and your hips should be coming through at the same time as well for that max explosion, because that’s what you are looking for, explosion to give you time to get under.   It all should happen in the blink of an eye, bam.  You want to push the bar into your hips, and don’t pull up!  That’s what so many lifters do.  Right before the bar is about to make contact with the hips, they start to pull up and this leads to a “brush hit”.  Those are the worst. Don’t pull up, pull back!  Its physics, for example, if two trains are moving full speed at each other and they collide there is going to be way more force then if there was only one train moving and one sitting still.  So the same applies to your hips and the bar, pull back for that force, for that “finish”!  
        
      TRY THIS SUPER MAN PULL, North 2012 
    
ps:  You look like super man when you do the super man pull, and thats bad ass.  
 

You are describing a correct pull.  It has been described as a “jump” on top, because of the similarities to a jump, as you mentioned.  The problem with this is focusing too much on jumping tends to make lifters stay with the pull too long and overextend, and also doesn correctly emphasise the hips coming through.
Weightlifting changed an important rule in 1962, previous to that you were not allowed to touch the bar to your thigh or hip.  As you can imagine, this made a very different pulling motion neccessary compared to what is used today.  Really it has taken 40+ years for the competitors to fully adapt…  as in the late 60’s you had all the competitive lifters having learned to lift with the old style and it was hard to immedietly switch, and of course i am sure at that time no one quite new how he technique would gradually evolve to make the best use of the new rule.
You can watch videos from the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, and see how on average decade by decade lifters are taking more and more advantage of being able to contact the bar with the hips. 
Don McCauley has described modern technique as more of a catapult action than a jump, and I think this is instructive.  make no mistake, if you look at the actual joint angles and force production of a weightlifting second pull and a jump, they are very very similar, and Garhammer did a lot of research to demonstrate this.  However, the hard contact with the hip takes advantage of the elastic properties of the bar, especially in the snatch, and the concept of “jumping” lacks something in describing this.
One important things to remember is that any description tends to emphasise some particular part of the movement, and if taken to an extreme is harmful.  Always focusing on jumping leads to overextension and being slow under, but it can be just the ticket for a lifter who is not extending enough.  Thinking of it as a catapult is great to get a lifter to bring the hips through, but if emphasised too much, can lead  to swinging the bar…  the “superman” position is, I would imagine, a useful way of teaching things to beginners who naturally do not feel comfortable over the bar, BUT if overemphasised, will lead to problems also.  It is the same for each of the various drills that we and others use.  Each has a proper time and place, and each can be incredibly helpful, but, each one can be abused and lead to bad habits if its used with the wrong kid, or at the wrong time, or even just used too much.
The trick is to look at each kid you are coaching, and figure out what THAT KID need to hear at precisely THAT MOMENT.  This is where it pays to have a lot of tools in your toolbox, so that you can pick the right tool at the right time.

“The trick is to look at each kid you are coaching, and figure out what THAT KID need to hear at precisely THAT MOMENT.  This is where it pays to have a lot of tools in your toolbox, so that you can pick the right tool at the right time.”  -Glenn Pendlay
 
 wow this is the best quote I have ever heard, and coach Pendlay couldnt be more right! This is so try and this is scomething that I am working on as a coach that Glenn is actually helping me do in the gym.  My athlete Andrew Jester has a great superman pull but he does swing the bar, so I had to go into Glenns very big tool box to help fix this problem, and coach was nice enough to help me help Andrew out and fine toon his lifting. so thank you coach for all your help.  This just shows me that I have a long long way to go as a coach, I have a lot to learn and there is way more than just one way to teach a lifter how to lift, becuase every kid is a little different.   but for the most part the supper man pull is fanastic and the BIGGEST break thorugh in all of weightlifting!   lol
 
   I did forget to mention that in the clean its ok to hit and pull the bar back into you UPPER no lower thigh.  In the last 20 years it seems that about 60% of the Olympic Gold medal lifters hit the bar into there hips, and the rest hit on there upper thigh, so both can work.  I personaly am a thigh hitter, where my team mates spencer and Donny and Caleb are hip hitters.  But every Olympic Gold medalist in the last 20 years hits the bar into there hips in the snatch, so thats what you need to do.
 
 

maybe that’s what im doing wrong… i think about jumping when i snatch, really trying to thrust my hips and hit the bar up, and maybe i need to be thinking more about the pull…

i’ve had all of you guys tell me that you don’t know what is wrong with my technique, that it’s just ugly, but i’ve never actually really gone through the progression teaching method.

The superman pull is something you can only do once you have learned the possitions of the lifts, its an advanced pull.  so if you go into the gym for the first time and try this pull you will probably be all over the place and doing it wrong.
     
   The first step to learning the lifts is first learning the possitions of the lifts.  Getting your body in the right possitions and pausing intel you do it correct is very key.  Once you then have this down you can then speed up the possitions takeing away the pasue liitle by little intel you can go full speed, then you can work on the superman pull.
 
   Coach Pendlays three step possition program is perfect for learning the lifts, this is what we use when we coach and do seminars, its how he taught me how to lift.   I would love to take you through this course next time we can train together.  the best part about Coaches possition learning phase is how simple it is, its not complicated to learn, keping the athlete focused on the most important three steps, then once the athlete has mastered that, then we can go over all of the more comlicated, hard little things that come with the lifts, then you can do the superman pull all day and be….well… a bad ass!  

Hey coach, or anybody who knows how to answer this, is the super man pull used in power lifting, like the dead lift?  Is it the correct was to pull in that sport like weightlifitng?

 
No, in deadlifting it’s totally different, you are trying to get your shoulders behind the bar right from the start.  Totally different.

Wow Jon, that is some amazing in-depth analysis of the SUPERMAN pull. What would you guys recommend someone do if they have a VERY hard time staying over the bar when the bar is at the knees? Do you tihnk it is because of weak hamstrings? Or just a weak soul? I find it extremely hard to stay over the bar with heavy weights because my hamstrings just can’t hold that position very well. Would you recommend direct hamstring work? Glute ham raise, RDL’s, death marches , etc? Or would you recommend to SNATCH more???

 
I think pauses at the knee, or lifting off of blocks from right below the knee will help you…  but adding in extra GHD is great IF you can recover from them…

wait jon, you have a book?

HAHAHAHA, jon might have written a children’s book… THAT’s one of the funniest things i’ve ever read on this site. maybe some day Jon will write a book about his weightlifting journey, hopefully complete with a happy ending (Olympic Gold medal!), but there’s no way Jon could write a book right now. what gave you that impression Blake?

“In the Jon North coaching book I break it down a little different.” I read the beggining and stopped there out of shock hahaha. I thought he wrote like a guide to form or something lol

“In the Jon North coaching book I break it down a little different.” I read the beggining and stopped there out of shock hahaha. I thought he wrote like a guide to form or something lol

why couldnt I write a book?   why would that be so crazy?

yeah pete, why?

haha

Ok well back to the actuall article that we were talking about before I was thrown under the buss by some haters. 
     JARED, I agree with coach Pendlay on what he said about the pause and box excercises.  I do think if you started with your shoulders back more off the floor and worked on the actual three point shoulder possition like I talk about then I think it will help. 
Thats the best part of the super man pull, is that it FORCES you to get over the bar, so just work on it buddy and tell me how it feels!!!!

 
I think pauses at the knee, or lifting off of blocks from right below the knee will help you…  but adding in extra GHD is great IF you can recover from them…[/QUOTE]
So do you think perhaps some glute ham raises would be good on like wed/sat? Maybe 3 sets of 12 or something like that? Since thurs is lighter and sunday is off?

Come on, why all the hating on Jon? The dude has a unique writing style that attracts a ton of people. Sometimes he spells a thing or two wrong but damn, what writer doesn’t have editors? I mean come on.
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Quit hating ya’ll- he’s forgot more about weightlifting than either of you two will ever know.
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Now back to the original topic haha… We already did some hang work from the knee yesterday and block work today. It already feels a lot better.

I hit some good reps out of the hang/blocks the last few days and I feel I am on the right track to the superman pull..I’m not there yet, but, I am progressing! Woohoo!

Jon snatches about 80% of his front squat, and cleans about 100% of his front squat.  He is one of the most effecient and technically correct Olympic lifters in the world.  You could spend a lot of time in Bulgaria or Russia without running across a lifter who snatches 80% of their front squat. If he decides to write a book about technique I would suggest that you all buy it.

 
 
I think pauses at the knee, or lifting off of blocks from right below the knee will help you…  but adding in extra GHD is great IF you can recover from them…[/QUOTE]
So do you think perhaps some glute ham raises would be good on like wed/sat? Maybe 3 sets of 12 or something like that? Since thurs is lighter and sunday is off?[/QUOTE]
t
Jared, you will have to figure out how much you can do on your own.  I suggest starting with one or two sets and slowly working up, if you get to doing enough to interfere with the rest of your workout back off.

 
Whoa…Somebody got a little angry. I understand your backing of Jon, though.

Its all good, thats life, there is always going to be people out there who try to put you down to make themselves feel better.  what can you do?  I like how that little football player tried to throw a few jabs at me, lol, come on bro, you are not even on the same level as me.  so just stop.