Blog

What do we mean when we talk about catching the bounce. Catching the bounce is the act of utilising your stretch shortening reflex in your legs and hips to help you “bounce” out of the bottom of your squat, primarily during the clean. 

This motion is performed when the muscles are lengthened under load, and then immediately shortened to perform a catapult style movement. Imagine pulling an elastic band back as hard as you can, and then releasing it. This is also a perfectly natural and safe movement if performed correctly. If it wasn’t there would be patellas flying around every Weightlifting gym and Crossfit box like shrapnel from a grenade. 

This skill is particularly important when it comes to Weightlifting. In the sport, whoever lifts the most weight wins, and catching the bounce will help you do so. Let’s look at two squat variations for example, the Front Squat and the Pause Front Squat. For the vast majority of people, their front squat 1rm should be higher than their pause front 1rm. When we perform a pause, we lose a massive amount of potential energy that we had generated from the eccentric phase of the movement. Imagine you need to perform a max height vertical jump, but you’re asked to pause in the bottom of your load phase. You simply will not be able to jump as high with that pause. 

The stretch shortening reflex itself is going to help the lifter overcome the toughest part of the squat, from below parallel to just above. If the lifter can overcome this part of the squat utilising the bounce, the chances of them completing the lift will be much greater. Not only that, but during the clean & jerk a smooth clean will give the lifter a greater chance of nailing the jerk as they haven’t had to end themselves to stand out of the first part of the lift.

As well as during the clean and squat variations, some lifters do choose to take advantage of the stretch shortening reflex during the snatch. This is not something that I personally teach my lifters, especially to new lifters, as it can increase the chance of them becoming unbalanced during the standing phase of the lift. In theory, most lifters should have the leg strength to pause in the bottom of their snatch momentarily before the rise up. 

If you have never done this before or struggle with the movement, my advice would be to perfect it with no weight first. Use an air squat or even an empty barbell. It can be trickier than it looks as timing plays a massive part, but with enough practice it becomes second nature. Make sure that when you are practicing, you are not being a super floppy noodle. You need to maintain tension throughout the midline, hips and legs in order to ensure that you don’t lose position as you bounce out of the bottom. 

If you enjoyed this post, check out my next post “Can You Follow A Weightlifting Programme Whilst Still Doing CrossFit?”