 Our next caller is Maria from California. Hey, Maria. How can we help you? Hey, guys. I want to start off saying thank you for taking my question. And for this podcast, you guys put out so much good information. Thank you. So my question is, what program can I follow to complement my Olympic lifting training? For context, I have been Olympic lifting inconsistently for two years now and have decided to perfect my technique and build strength, strength in my snatch and clean and jerk this year. My clean and jerk have been progressing nicely, but I have a hard time going up and weight with my snatch and because of my weak core and my upper body and more specifically in the receiving position of the snatch. When I start the movement, my core is engaged. I'm doing good, but as soon as I do the second pull into the receiving position, my core is not engaged. My arms get wobbly and I miss the lift. So what program can I follow to help build up my core and upper body for a fast movement like the snatch? Oh, okay. So, yeah, great detail. That really helps a lot. So, okay. So there's a couple of things going on here in my opinion. Now you're talking about any specific position with a specific movement you feel like your core turns off. Now real, this may be a simple answer in the case, in the sense where I would put you in that position with weight, not the weight that you work out with, but lighter weight. So get in that receiving position. Work on that overhead squat specifically. There you go. Get in that receiving position, hold some weight and practice bracing your core. The goal is to activate the core and hold it for 10, 15 seconds because what it sounds like is it doesn't necessarily, it sounds like you're having trouble connecting at specific portions of the movement. So what you want to do is focus specifically on those portions of the movement while connecting with an isometric hold to start with and then maybe some overhead squats like Justin was talking about. Now as far as program is concerned, Maps Prime is going to help you the most with some of this kind of stuff. But specifically speaking, get in that position where you feel like your core is turned off, go lighter, hold that position and then your goal is to turn those muscles on and see if you can hold and brace while in that position that you normally feel things turn off. Well, this reminds me a lot of like the, we get probably every week I think at least one question is like a sport specific type of question, right? This is very similar. Olympic lifting is a sport. And so nothing is going to get you better at performing the movements in the sport than actually doing the sport itself, right? So practicing those movements, there's things that can complement like I think you guys both just alluded to, but as much as I would like to tell you to go run out and get maps, anabolic and performance and aesthetic and oh, use that with these programs and not that they wouldn't complement or help what you're doing. But I also would not want it to take away from your time of practicing these moves. Those, that's the thing that's going to get you better than anything else. Yeah, I love, yeah, all that, especially isometrics. I think that it's so underutilized by athletes too. And that's why I'm always trying to bring it up. You know, we mentioned Prime Pro, it does have isometric movements in there, but it's one of those like real safe ways to really ramp up max intensity and be able to, you know, really get that central nervous system response without a lot of damage. And so I think that, you know, there's a big opportunity there, especially if there's a disconnect anywhere in, you know, in that chain while you're performing these really high skilled movements to slow down, stop and wherever that discrepancy lies, let's really dig into that. Let's, let's find where that is and start to ramp that process up. So Justin says it's in the catch position for her. Are you, are you alluding to like her getting in that catch position and then creating like an isometric tension? Yeah, even if, what would that look like? So even if you have like a dowel bar and you're emulating it as a barbell and I'm getting into that position, I'm going down in that position. Now I'm, I'm pulling outward. I'm getting more tension in the grip. I'm getting that through all the way through my arms in the full lockout position. I'm squeezing. I'm trying to connect to my core. I'm getting my hips involved, my glutes, everything else and just really, you know, focusing on a five to even 15 second just max squeeze effort and that's one rep. Yeah. When any, I mean, just to put it very plainly, if there's a, any portion of a lift, if you feel a disconnect at the bottom of the lift in the middle at the top, what you, what you can do is just practice that portion of the lift with an isometric connection. So get in that bottom position and see if you can turn your core on. And then when you can see if you can turn it on even more and get it tighter and tighter, once you feel like you could turn it on at will, then you can start to load it slowly over time. And then when that feels like you've got your, the hang of it, then you go back into your full movement. I could also see some value in doing like, cause it's in the front rack position. If I heard that correctly, right? It's a front rack position. When she gets down is, is it, is it a snatch overhead? Oh, is that right? Is it, make sure I'm clear on this before. She should go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. It's, yeah. It's in the full snatch. So you're the bars above your head and you're in a full squat. Oh, so when you catch up, okay. So yeah, I think actually doing that with lightweight and doing that full range, like really slow and controlled like temporary. Yeah. Doing like tempo squats. I know Olympic lifting is more explosive. And so you're, you're normally doing everything fast, but to train the core and better connection, I would actually do like tempo squats with it overhead. Yeah. And you know what's happening here is to get into position which I mean, let's be honest. If you're doing a snatch and you're up in that position, there's a lot of technique skill and mobility that's involved. And what's probably happening is you might be lacking connection or mobility in one part of your body and you're turning your core off to force your body to get into position. So it's, it's hard to guess specifically what the issue is, but if you do an isometric at the bottom and turn your core on, that's 100% where I'd start. It may be unexpected too. It may be just, you know, you don't have the right amount of mobility and stability in your ankle. And so the now it's affecting you up the chain and you know, and you're losing that sort of connection just right in that spot. So yeah, I would totally go through each checkpoint in terms of your joints and see how they're functioning. One last thing I'd add. Maria, do you follow Sunny Webster? Yes, I saw all those videos and I've been working on those mobility for like during COVID and I actually have really good mobility. My coach at the gym tells me I have the best mobility from anyone he's ever seen. So I don't know if it's a mobility issue, but he tells me like, oh, it's your weak core and I asked him what to do and he's like, oh, do planks and I'm like, okay, like, like plank all day. Like, I don't know, it's a connection issue, meaning in a particular position. That's right. You feel your core turn off. You could have the strongest plank in the world and still have the same problem. Correct. So you got to practice this position and turning your core on in this position. That's the only thing that's going to give you the biggest bang for your buck. Okay. All right. Thank you for calling. Thank you so much. Bye guys. No problem. All right. Yeah, I love the detail on that. Oh, yeah, that's a great question. That's a good question right there. I mean, somebody giving you that much detail really helps like kind of get to the bottom. Yeah, I would say of the three of us Justin probably has the best snatch. What would you say? Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah, yeah. I saw his snatch once. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's talk about it. Yeah, yeah. Holds it well. There was one more thing I wanted to add though, like talking about plank, like I do see some value in a hollow body position. Yes. And so that's something that like a lot of gymnasts do to be able to get that kind of connection throughout through your limbs, through your entire body all at once. Well, and the reason for that is because you're like in that fully spread out. Yeah, you're fully extended. Yes. So if I was a coach, I'd probably have our arms in that wide position too. Yeah. And then try to transfer all of that force through your entire body. And that's really what it is. You want to emulate that movement. Yeah. I mean, it goes back to what I was talking about with we get athletes all the time, right? I'm a basketball player. I want to get my vert, but then I want to also do all these other things. It's like anything that takes away from you playing basketball is going to make you not as good at playing basketball. Same thing goes for an Olympic move. The giveaway for me was when she said it feels strong at other times. It just turns off at the bottom position. It just stops. Because that happens. That's right. So it's like, okay, focus on that position. Mm-hmm.