Results for “Mike Burgener”

Listen up and be ready to answer: Coach B is talking. During the CrossFit Experience at the 2012 Reebok CrossFit Games, Olympic-weightlifting coach Mike Burgener begins by naming the three fundamentals of teaching: the stance, the pulling position and the landing position.

The pulling position, which he also calls the jumping position, is not only good for jumping, but also pulling, pressing and jerking. The landing position is for… Continue Reading

CrossFit Games Masters athlete Jacinto Bonilla has shoulder pain, especially when he performs squat snatches. So Olympic-weightlifting coach Mike Burgener recommends he split snatch. The split snatch is often used by athletes who have flexibility issues and is more forgiving of technical errors.

“The pull’s exactly the same. You don’t pull a barbell up. You pull your body down into the split,” Burgener says while hosting… Continue Reading

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

When it comes to rowing in CrossFit, there are three common errors: early back opening, early arm break and extreme layback.

When the back opens early in the stroke, much of the hip drive is missing, says Shane Farmer of CrossFit Rowing. The legs and hips should work in harmony, he explains.

“As the legs get close to finishing, then we’re going to kick our hips in to continue momentum and help us finish… Continue Reading

Externally rotating the ankles not only creates the right tension, but it also stabilizes the back and forces the torso upright. Mobility guru Kelly Starrett says the movement is important for the set-up of the deadlift as well as the Olympic lifts.

“I contend that if you turn that foot out as an unconscious compromise, you’re immediately going to collapse through the ankle,” he says. “And that sets me up … so my only plane… 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

Coach Mike Burgener has a special gift for simplifying the Olympic lifts—especially for beginners.

“Ninety percent of all missed lifts are attributed to the feet,” Burgener says to a group of athletes at a CrossFit Oly seminar.

To be successful on the platform, Burgener says you need to find the jumping position and the landing position. The first position has the feet right under the hips, while the latter position is the… Continue Reading

The squat snatch is more efficient—there’s no doubt about that. But for some people, particularly those with flexibility, agility and balance issues, the split snatch might be a better option.

If someone has trouble with an overhead squat, the split snatch might be a great option when it’s time to pull a bar overhead. Similarly, if an athlete can’t produce a vertical torso in a squat… Continue Reading

Ben and Owen Franks are professional rugby players for the New Zealand All Blacks, winners of the 2011 Rugby World Cup.

In Part 2, the brothers are training on the beach, and it looks a little like the harsh tests of SEALFIT’s Kokoro Camp. With two competitive, powerful beasts going head-to-head at the highest level of their nation’s sport, you can expect the occasional punch-up, but father Ken Franks says his sons… Continue Reading

Ben and Owen Franks are professional rugby players for the New Zealand All Blacks, winners of the 2011 Rugby World Cup. Take a peek into their lives and see how they balance training, family and nutrition.

In addition to their sports-specific training, both brothers are dedicated CrossFitters and run their own affiliate: Reebok CrossFit Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. For them, both rugby and CrossFitting are a… Continue Reading

Hall-of-fame Oly coach Bob Takano addresses Oly form errors common to the CrossFit community.

For the last two years, I’ve been an instructor/coach in the Crossfit Olympic Lifting Seminar program under the management of Coach Mike Burgener. Those experiences plus the several USA Weightlifting Sports Performance Coach certifications I’ve conducted at several different CrossFit boxes have provided me with the chance to observe CrossFitters and their approach to the Olympic… Continue Reading

How do you fine-tune an elite athlete to reach even more potential? Olympic-lifting coach Mike Burgener trains Danny Nichols of TJ’s Gym in San Rafael on the finer points of snatch footwork.

Nichols competed at the 2011 Reebok CrossFit Games with his team after he put on a lifting show in the thruster event at the NorCal Regional. In this video, he works on his snatch in order to improve a wide landing position.

“Throwing those… Continue Reading

At the 2011 Summer Affiliate Gathering in Big Sky, Mont., Olympic-lifting expert Mike Burgener shares his coaching insight into the set-up and take-off positions.

Proper set-up is crucial.

“The problem is most people with the high hips are pulled forward off the ground,” he says.

The proper set-up is hips above knees, shoulders ahead of the bar, weight distributed on the balls of the feet with feet flat on the ground and knees… Continue Reading

Two-time Olympian and coach Chad Vaughn and fellow Olympian and American record holder Kendrick Farris recently held an invitational training session. Vaughn explains that he handpicked the athletes from ones he had worked with in the past.

“We want them to be inside of a high-level training environment, weightlifting training environment, that otherwise they may not be exposed to,” he says.

The purpose is not only to teach the athletes… Continue Reading

In this interview with Sevan Matossian, Olympic-lifting coach Mike Burgener comments on the programming of the 2011 Reebok CrossFit Games.

“I thought it was right on,” Burgener says of the skills tests. In particular, he liked the one-rep-max snatch following the one-rep-max weighted chest-to-bar pull-up in the Skills 2 event.

“That combination was truly a stroke of genius,” he says. “Truly, the person that does the snatch the wrong way—they pull the… Continue Reading

Coach Mike Burgener analyzes James Hobart and Lindsey Valenzuela in the clean and jerk.

James Hobart has always had a reputation as a good Olympic lifter, and he didn’t disappoint at the CrossFit-USAW Open in Colorado Springs, Colo., combining a great performance on the platform with a solid outing in the triplet to finish fourth overall in the 85-kilogram class.

Lindsey Valenzuela absolutely dominated the platform by posting… Continue Reading

Looking to emphasize O-Lifts in your CrossFit training? Bob Takano explains how to do it and what you can expect.

For the last two years, I’ve been coaching weightlifters and conducting a strength-and-conditioning program within CrossFit boxes. I’ve also been instructing in Coach Mike Burgener’s CrossFit Oly seminars for about the same length of time. Consequently, I’ve run into a number of individuals who are interested in… Continue Reading