Yesterday I wrote about overhead squat mobility. An awesome exercise to assess how good your overhead mobility is is the “sots press”.

The Sots press was an exercise of Viktor Sots, the 1981 world champion who used a power jerk rather than the split jerk. He credited his proficiency in the power jerk to this unique exercise.

To perform this snatch-grip squat press, you must have sufficient range of motion in the ankles, hamstrings and shoulders. You also need sufficient strength in the lower and mid back to maintain an erect posture of the torso.

Begin the movement by supporting the bar on the shoulders behind the neck, taking a snatch-width grip, then descending into a full squat with a flat-footed stance. The movement is to press the bar to arms’ length overhead before lowering to the shoulders and repeating. This should reinforce the bottom position of a snatch. It also helps tremendously with balance.

And here is Dmitry Klokov performing an impressive load of 242-lbs.

For more mobility work related to the olympic lifts, read here.

Tyler