Olympic Lifts

Olympic lifters and CrossFitters around the world would gladly do 10 rounds of Fight Gone Bad for an opportunity to work one-on-one with Olympic lifting coach Mike Burgener. At a recent certification, Nadia Shatila and Dave Lipson had such an opportunity.

As an HQ trainer, Shatila regularly teaches new CrossFitters the snatch but doesn’t always get the opportunity to work on her own lift. Lipson (215 lb… Continue Reading

“Just lift heavy weights,” Anders Lindsjö says in this installment of footage from a weightlifting workshop at Eleiko headquarters in Halmstad, Sweden.

After drilling technique, Lindsjö sets his students loose to just lift while their bodies remember the patterns that were set in the previous drills. Lindsjö pairs his students up and asks them to coach each other as they jump up in weight and work on the clean.

7min 8sec

Additional reading: From… Continue Reading

On Episode 132 of CrossFit Radio, host Justin Judkins interviewed Ben Abruzzo, who is raising awareness for spinal muscular atrophy. Dave Lombardo and Pam Robles appeared on the show again to update listeners on the California Firefighters Summer Olympics. Justin also interviewed Rick Adams, the CEO of USA Weightlifting. This episode was webcast live at 6 p.m. PDT on Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2010.

5:45 Ben Abruzzo is the co-owner… Continue Reading

In a training session at Eleiko HQ, 1992 Olympics competitor Anders Lindsjö works on the snatch and the clean with a group of athletes.

Lindsjö drills technique with an empty bar and encourages athletes to get a little angry when they jump the bar overhead, much like how Coach Mike Burgener demands a junkyard-dog attitude when pulling a weight.

From there, Lindsjö tells his athletes to add weight without… Continue Reading

Hall-of-fame Oly coach Bob Takano has nearly four decades of coaching experience. He offers some advice for CrossFitters who will be teaching the quick lifts to their athletes.

Having spent years in the sport of weightlifting, I’ve recently become involved in the Crossfit Oly experience by coaching Olympic lifting at Team CrossFit and by assisting with several Oly Certs with coaches Mike Burgener, Stephane… Continue Reading

We’re back at Eleiko HQ with 1992 Olympics competitor Anders Lindsjö talking about the deadlift and snatch. Lindsjö starts the group off with an interesting concept: everyone practices very light deadlifts with poor positioning of both their feet and their back. Doing so reinforces where these athletes shouldn’t find themselves mid-lift.

“You have to feel it … ,” Lindsjö says.

9min 5sec

Additional reading: Your Form Sucks by Dr. John Zimmer, published May 22, 2010.

Barcelona Olympics contender Anders Lindsjö is in front of a class of novice Olympic lifters at Eleiko HQ to work on some basics.

First up is a great warm-up. Lindsjö knows that a properly heated body is primed for great movement, so he takes his class through some simple, full-body progressions while holding an empty barbell.

7min 50sec

Additional reading: The Burgener Warmup by Mike Burgener and Tony Budding, published Jan. 1, 2007… Continue Reading

Would you trade 2 minutes 38 seconds a day for a few PRs in the snatch or the clean and jerk?

If you would, then you need to start doing the Burgener Warm-Up and the skill-transfer exercises that follow it. The series of movements takes less than three minutes to perform and will help eliminate a host of form errors that can derails your lifts. By drilling the correct movements every… Continue Reading