Dynamic vs static starts - is there a best option?

Your start position is arguably the most important part of every lift. How you set up, even approach the bar, will have an influence on what happens next. Everything from grip symmetry to where you are looking should ideally become second nature and consistent in training. In your start position you have control of everything; foot position, weight distribution, hand position and torso angle. Once you break the bar from the floor things are less set in stone - simply because we are human.

At the top level in weightlifting you can watch a 15-20year pro walk up to a bar and rip it off the ground without a moments hesitation. Some of Ilya Ilyin’s best training clean and jerks came from the shortest of set ups.

In direct contrast, when taking things more seriously, you’ll watch the warm up videos of the elite lifters and see the same focus and meticulous routines done with an empty bar as you do with their competition lifts.

My point being, if you’ve been weightlifting 15+ years and could do a snatch with our eyes closed on a balance beam then not taking care to set up is less significant. Your technique is so practiced that even what looks like no care being taken is actually identical to the last 30 odd lifts they’ve done that day.

Dynamic starts

A start position that is held statically for even a split second is characteristically different to a dynamic start. In a start where the hips are moving into position or the bar is rolling towards you there is far greater chance of variation from lift to lift.

Stationary/Static starts

Pulling into position around a stationary bar and getting tight or ‘setting’ your back for example is much more likely to look and feel the same every time. That doesn’t mean that you don’t need just as much rehearsal of it, or that it will necessarily be the best option for everyone.

Technical bias

My preference is to teach a static start where I feel the lifter has greater control of all the variables. It’s easier to make changes to hip height and weight distribution if there are fewer or no moving parts. As the start of a lift is so crucial to every lifts success I see it as wasteful to not take proper time and care over it.

If you watch some lifters, especially from the Asian countries, you’ll see a bent towards sitting in a deep squat before starting the lift. This is a little misleading as when viewed from the side you’ll see the bar doesn’t actually come off the floor until the hips are in a more traditional pulling position anyway. It may serve to help the lifter use their legs more in the pull as the focus may be on pushing down like a squat but care must still be taken not to move the bar until the hips are where they should be - a fraction higher than the knees.

The opposite motion is also common, and the one I favour. The lifter sets their hands whilst leaning over the bar and then pulls themselves down into position. In doing so you can utilise a small stretch in the hamstrings and it serves to activate the lats and mid-back well.

The dangers of moving the hips downward are that you can end up overshooting and not remaining over the bar enough in the first pull. The opposite is true of coming up out of a squat and having the hips rise too fast in relation to everything else, putting you too far over and the weight being in the forefoot.

If you are just starting out…

I would recommend everyone tries a little of both, but that no-one begins lifting using a dynamic / rolling start. It’s often crossfit lifters who are used to rushing the start of a lift for the sake of getting more reps done. It’s almost never how they’ll lift their best weights.

Don't just copy the pro's

It should go without saying that unless you’ve done thousands and thousands of reps of something, you need to keep things consistent for a time to learn what does and doesn’t work for you. Grip and rip is not always a lifters best option!