"YOU SUCK AT HANDOFFS" - Him, probably
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A few weeks ago, I was able to jump in a few sessions and spot and load for Junior Worlds. I was delegated the hand off guy for the one session and I learned a few things.
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I get why hands offs are so tough at Worlds. Most of these athletes didn't speak English and tried their best to give me directions and I probably screwed up a few. Some just said "up, up", others pointed to where they want the bar, others just went straight into setting up and hoped for the best.
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This got me thinking about how finicky the bench hand off is. In my own experience, I had about 30% of the hand offs suck, but that is the nature of competition.
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To improve your ability to overcome this, you should ask a stranger for a lift off a few times in your training. You will most likely get a crappy lift-off (sorry, random gym bro), but this will inevitably help you in your next comp as your hand offs will not be perfect, so gaining experience in how to adjust under the load is important. Or, even, re-rack and explain again to the hand off guy how you like it. Even gaining experience explaining how you like it matters.
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This applies from local to worlds, we won't always get the ideal hand off, but we need to know how to adjust the course to still get in position and produce the best rep.
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For me, I take an extra few seconds after the bar is in my hands to readjust my shoulders by pushing hard through the ground with my feet while I try to retract my shoulders more under the load. Everyone will have some little tweak they can do after the bar is in your hands and doing this in training will help you in your platform experience.
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Who is your favorite hand off guy/gal?
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