Vasily Polovnikov does all sorts of crazy strong things in training. And in honor of the beautiful weather in Norwood, Massachusetts, he’s getting summer training off to a great start by lifting appropriately: barefoot.
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Polovnikov posted some snappy looking 160kg, shoeless snatches to Instagram over the weekend. We’ve embedded them below, but even more impressive are the OTHER barefoot snatches highlighted below (all over 160kg).
Back in 2011, a young(er) Spencer Moorman decided to try out his barefoot lifting skills at California Strength — this back in the days when Donny Shankle and Jon North were also lifting at Cal Strength under the tutelage of coach Glenn Pendlay. When Moorman hits this 161kg barefoot snatch, Shankle runs right out of the gym — apparently because he didn’t think the young gun would make the lift.
Spencer showed him, and it’s one of the best spectator reactions to a made lift we’ve ever seen. When’s the last time you made someone run out of the gym because you were lifting so well?
But no iteration of snatch wars would be complete without Dmitry Klokov, he of the 200kg pause snatch (which, as far as we know, is far and away the unofficial world record for that lift).
At the 2016 Arnold Sports Festival, Klokov put on a display spectators won’t soon forget with his now-trademark pause snatching. But to make it a little more exciting, he decided to do it without shoes, up to 175kg. It’s a beautiful lift, and as with a lot of Klokov’s pause snatches, there’s definitely a moment in the pause where the viewer thinks, “There’s absolutely, positively no way he makes this lift.”
Chalk it up to his elite speed, tight bar path, ridiculous mobility, and precision timing, but Klokov pulls it out for a made lift. Thus far, it’s the heaviest barefoot snatch we’ve seen on film.
Any heavy barefoot snatches we’re missing? Let us know in the comments below!
