Stop stepping out your lifts

The more tolerance you have for stepping out your lifts, the worse your long-term progress will be.

Sometimes stepping out a lift is the only way to save it - important when it’s a competition lift or a massive PB attempt. 

However, stepping out is the worst kind of MAKE, and too many is indicative of a larger problem in your technique or standards for yourself. Let’s take a cheeky look at the reasons you might be stepping out, why it’s bad, and what you can do about it in your training.

[disclaimer: these are some causes and some solutions - if you want to figure out your exact, personal problem, you can check out the Stash coaching page for some more 1-1 technical TLC.]

What is stepping out / stepping forwards?

Stepping forward is what happens when you need to take a step forwards to properly locate yourself under the bar. It could be more than one step - which is the same thing but with more severity.

This is one of the most common sights in weightlifting - both at the beginner and elite level. The reasons are different. Among beginners, it’s usually common regardless of weights due to the inexperience of movement and inconsistency of technique that makes you a beginner.

Among elites, it’s mostly just because of the sheer weight - and is often seen primarily in competition or max-testing. These are the relatively-rare occasions where an elite athlete will actually push weight to the point of compromising - or at least challenging - technique and strength.

How does the step out happen?

Unless you’re one of the rare humans that has a technically beautiful and consistent snatch, clean, or jerk (do they exist?), you’re in the former camp. 

Stepping out happens when placement of the bar and/or body (both, kinda) put the bar ahead of the centre of balance. It can be the result of a number of important and different problems:

• Improper pull positions - where the hips push the bar out
• Poor lat involvement and distance through the transition
• Weak turnover - either in closeness or the backwards movement of     the barbell
• Excessive movement of the body relative to the bar - “hopping back” 
• Collapsing the bottom position - either for weakness, poor control, or mobility restrictions (this can be in the hips, upper back, or shoulders themselves)
• Rushing the stand when you’ve already done all the hard work of getting it     overhead (like a dickhead)

I’m sure there are some videos out there of people inventing even more ways to do it wrong - but these are the ones that come to mind most readily.

What’s the fix? 

The idea of the lifts is that your body and bar are in a deliberate and appropriate balance to stabilise the bar - either overhead or in the front rack. When this doesn’t happen, you’ll have to step it out - which is usually a symptom of poor lifting elsewhere - and not just a weak overhead position (though that’s a possible contributor, too).

With regular step-outs, what you’re seeing is either a lack of care (which is needless and unacceptable) or a major technical, strength, or mobility problem. In either case, it’s indicating an underlying issue that you need to work on.

This also typically happens to people who regularly miss because of these problems. Maybe you’re stepping it out at 70kg, but 75kg is a miss out front. The difference between these is just the severity and the weight - while the root cause of the problem is the same.

Addressing the step out - what can you do about it?

So, the important thing is that you notice when this is happening and have the self-awareness to work on it. The development of good technique, strength, and mobility is a broad but obvious solution.

What’s important is that you prioritise the proper backward-motion of the barbell. This means a few things in practice. 

1.    Ease Back From the Floor: Get The First Phase Right

First, easing the bar and knees back together off the floor to prevent looping around the knees. This is weightlifting 101 - your knees should come back to being directly above the heels as the bar is at/around knee level. This varies by body, but it’s a general principle and goal - so drill it relentlessly.

If you get this step wrong, you’ll typically find your bar is unpredictable in many ways. It contributes to overcompensating or - even worse - not compensating. In either case, you push the balance of the whole lift forwards (looping), which means you either need to pull it all the way back (inconsistent) or it’s going to sit out in front of your stable base.

Proper technical learning and drill are the obvious solution to this, but they take time and effort to fix. You can adjust your hip position higher to reduce the amount of knee bend in your lift, practice with snatch or clean deadlifts to the knee, with paused pulls or lift variations, or combining top-down lifts with normal reps to drill position.

Obviously, just not doing that is the goal, and the best method is reps of not doing it wrong. Keep the weight low and practice it - and make sure this is a focus in all your warm-ups.

2.    Bar To Hips: Stop Humping It Out

Second, make sure the bar is coming back towards the hips above the knee. This means you’re not just reaching for it with the hips, which always shoves the bar out front or puts the impetus on the upper body -which is just needless distance from the base of support. Classic rookie error.

It’s easy to think about aggressively opening the hips during the second pull but this shouldn’t pull you forwards early on - the right pull involves keeping your weight back and stable. Then, open the hips to raise the chest and bring the bar back to the pocket or hip crease.

Chasing the bar with the hips (hips forward) is an easy way to throw the balance of the whole lift out in front of your centre of mass. In this position, you always lack effective leverage on the bar. This can cause a whole host of problems -from looping to improper extension to terrible turnover - all of which can leave the bar out in front and in need of a step out to stabilise.

• Dmitry Klokov - The Difference between sex and snatch

3.    Aggressive and Deliberate Turnover: Stay In Charge

Third, work on turning over actively once you’ve finished the pull from loose arms. This means keeping your upper back tight(as you bring the bar to the hips and start getting upright), finishing up through the bar, and then using the turnover to actively, deliberately change direction.

Focus on putting upward pressure on the bar and keeping it above the base of the neck, pushing upwards with the arms and focusing on bringing the bar back from the upper back. Elbows come up and keep the bar close, then rotate it up and over the head.

Don’t exaggerate the movement, but make sure that you’re putting the bar behind your head. The arms are loose in the pull while the upper back keeps the bar close, then they work hard after extension to make sure you’re not just falling under the bar - the kind of laxity that causes poor balance, press outs, and missed lifts forwards.

• Pliesnoi Snatch - One Of the Best Turnovers In The Game

4.    It’s Done When It’s Done: Maintain Proper Effort In the Catch

Fourth, and finally, you need to actually put effort into your bottom position. It should be a continuation of that effort from the turnover, with discipline to get into the right position and actively hold it or move through it. 

Your effort needs to continue until the down signal - or whatever in-training equivalent you’re using. Acting like you’ve made the lift because the arms are locked and the bar is overhead is one of the most embarrassing ways to run a lift out or drop it in front.

Being lazy at this point only limits your technical development and it can easily lead to sloppy lifting when it matters most. Not to mention the way it handicaps your development in the snatch and jerk - you need to be asserting the position of that bar from the movement it leaves the floor until you get the down command.

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The problem with weightlifting is that you have to get it all right - and no one issue has one solution every time. You’ve got to put time into figuring out what is wrong with your particular it that’s causing these issues consistently.

Technique is there to give you a reliable, consistent, and efficient way to use your strength to put the bar over your head. The goal is to do that without persistent issues, and improving various technical points will help prevent stepping out.

If you caught it and stepped it out, something went wrong. Something that will cause amiss when you need to make a lift - either with more weight or under pressure. Reducing step-outs (on the same weight/reps) is a great metric for technique progress.

Caveat: A bit of context

Let’s not get too hard-assed: it doesn’t matter if it happens every now and then -especially under fatigue. We all step out and once you’re under the bar you want to save it, as long as you can do so safely. Step-outs are there to save lifts, which is a necessary evil once it’s overhead.

But step-outs should be something you put serious effort into avoiding. It’s a metric for low-quality training habits and/or hints at a major technical issue to work out. What matters is not having a blasé attitude and working on it.

The ways you move and the standards you have for your training dictate the quality of the product/outcome when you step on a platform or get to testing.  The goal is to produce a training process that doesn’t need to re-adjust under the bar - because that indicates the bar and body aren’t already where they need to be.

When Is Stepping Out a Miss?

There are- more importantly - some areas where it really shouldn’t happen and I’d call these a missed lift in training:

• Strict press
• Push press
• Muscle snatch 
• Muscle clean
• Overhead squats
• Snatch balance
• Any no-foot variation (e.g. no foot snatch or no foot power clean)
• Snatch or clean deadlifts or any pull variation
• (Obviously) Front and Back squats
• (Also obviously) Good mornings

These are movements where the whole point is to simplify the exercise and focus on building stability and balance. If you’re stepping out here, there’s something majorly wrong with how you’re performing them or the standards for a ‘make’ you’ve set for yourself.

If you’re going to practice these exercises, the whole point is to build strength and stability in position. Especially in positions and movements where stepping is most common and actively discouraged.

Our Final Thoughts: A Bit of Perspective and “The Solution”

You’re going to consistently do what you train to do - and that includes the bad habits as well as the things you’re practicing. It means that stepped-out snatches can become the norm if you let them, or jerks where you’re running off the platform.

Practice makes permanent - but that’s true in both directions. Good practice makes persistent good habits - but poor practice leads to recurring, unreliable bad lifting technique. Set a standard and be real with yourself, even if it means repeating a set or having a chat with yourself between sets.

How Do I Stop Stepping Out?

There are accessory exercises and technical practice you can do to fix these kinds of problems - but you need to execute them with the standards and strictness you’d like to see in the full lifts. You’re not just going to magically fix things on comp day or during testing - you need to practice moving better to move better.

It’s often as simple as practicing proper discipline on the things you know you need to do, emphasising areas you’re typically lazy with (we all have them), and building technique to prevent these issues. If you’re trying to improve technique anyway, this is a great metric for getting better.

Stepping out less means more consistency, better technical development on the causes, and a technically consistent lift that will respond better to practice and strength gains. A consistent and technically efficient movement can be loaded infinitely with strength gains.

Start with standards, and you’ll find that it will usually point you in the direction of the thing you need to work on most, which is the thing that has the best return on effort and attention.

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