Knee Retraction

Overview

It is common in training halls and competition platforms to see lifters applying bandages or sticky plasters to their shins to prevent the constant abrasion from the bar, which can cause annoying bleeding and multiple scars. This issue likely occurs because the lifter has not learned to sufficiently retract the knees as the barbell is pulled from the floor.

**Figure 1:** Learning to shift the knees slightly backwards as the bar is lifter from the floor is necessary from a biomechanical perspective and to reduce shin scraping.

Knee retraction is often overlooked during the learning process. It is fundamentally necessary to pull slowly to learn this technical aspect as the video below on the exercise Snatch Pull Slowly Lowered shows.

Learning Knee Shift

Raising and lowering the bar slowly is fundamentally necessary in the initial stages of learning to pull from the floor.
Keep weights light to facilitate the purposefully slowed movement of the bar.
The shoulders should be slightly in front of the bar as it is raised and lowered between the floor and the knees. It is necessary to activate the latissimus dorsi muscles to keep the bar close to the body.
Rotating the elbows outwards helps to keep the arms straight and the shoulders in the best position.
Keep pressure on the heels as the bar is raised and lowered between the floor and the knees. This significantly helps to retract the knees.
A key criterion of success is that the shins are close to vertical as the bar passes the knees, as shown in the video thumbnail above.