Olympic Lifts

If you want to improve your snatch, Mike Burgener has the three-part answer.

“We’ll break you down into drills, parts, and we’re going to train those parts so that you don’t have to think about it,” he explains. “Then we’re going to put it all together. By the end of the day, you’re going to be doing three-position snatches.”

First, it’s his Junkyard Dog Warm-Up, then the Burgener Warm-Up, followed by skill-transfer exercises. To put it all… Continue Reading

Active shoulders, weight over the base of the feet and, yes, the hook grip.

In this snippet from an Olympic Weightlifting Trainer Course, Mike Burgener first talks about keeping the shoulders externally rotated to keep the bar in a strong position overhead.

“If that bar’s up here over your head and you’re shrugging your shoulders … where does the bar go? It goes forward automatically because it becomes an internal rotation,” he says.

The next point… Continue Reading

Aja Barto snatched every bar in Workout 5 of the South Central Regional. Olympian Chad Vaugh explains how he did it.

There are quite a few things Aja Barto did really, really right that significantly helped him not only complete the snatch ladder but also make 295 lb. look light!

The base of his success, of course, is technique. Barto was maintaining and creating all the right angles and… Continue Reading

Olympian Chad Vaughn offers tips for attacking the heavy dumbbell snatches and hang cleans at the Reebok CrossFit Games Regionals.

I remember being very surprised when the Regional events included heavy dumbbell snatches.

My trade is, of course, getting a barbell over my head with two hands, not raising a dumbbell with one, so I was actually unsure that I could even handle the 70-pounder. Obviously, I had no… Continue Reading

What’s the right way to approach the bar in the Olympic lifts?

There isn’t one, Coach Mike Burgener says during this CrossFit Olympic Weightlifting Trainer Course.

To illustrate, he has six of his athletes demonstrate how they approach the bar and how they set up at the start of the lift. Some like to squat down and roll the bar away from them, others prefer a quick set-up and take-off to avoid excessive thought, and… Continue Reading

The back angle stays the same from when the bar leaves the ground until the lifter gets to the take-off position, Coach Mike Burgener says during this CrossFit Olympic Weightlifting Trainer Course.

To prevent the hips or chest from rising too soon, a great cue Burgener uses is “stand with your legs.”

“The minute that I stand with my legs, the bar comes up, too. They gotta come up together,” he says.

As you stand and the knees… Continue Reading

Positioning and speed are key to successful Olympic lifts, Coach Mike Burgener says during this CrossFit Olympic Weightlifting Trainer Course.

Off the floor, sweep the bar back, but without touching the shins.

“I have got to get the bar in the right position so that I can gather my speed,” Burgener explains. “It’s critical. If you try to pull a barbell up, you will fail when the weight gets heavy. If you get the… Continue Reading

Bob Takano reviews foot placement when receiving the power snatch or power clean.

One very common problem that occurs in so many weight rooms is the excessively wide placement of the feet in the receiving position for the power snatch or power clean.

This is clearly improper for a number of reasons, and yet it is a common mistake many coaches apparently don’t know how to prevent.

This article is… Continue Reading