HOW TO SNATCH: Power Training For Athletes

we're going to give you the perfect snatch progression that you should follow along and actually do and we're going to start right now when we're looking at Power training we want to think about movements that require a fast concentric as meal hensman pointed out if we have fast concentrics we're going to be stronger and more explosive now when we're learning a snatch progression we have to think through what is our mindset going to be okay John Cena talked about snatching is like playing golf with weights and that's the cool part of about this movement is

it's something that's going to help us become better athletes while still getting stronger now we want to focus on a good General warm-up okay so the first thing we're going to do is Target that General warm-up so that we get the body ready and I want all of you guys to do this today if we have PVC pipes we're going to do PVC walks forward and backward okay so we can do this let's say three sets of 15 M okay forward backward forward backward we to focus on our foot and our grounding position but we

want to feel our toes grabbing and we want to feel the tracking of the knee we want to try and lengthen the Achilles this is going to help with mobility and when we're warming up on an unstable surface okay what ends up happening is your body becomes more aware and when your body becomes more aware you're going to get more coordinated you're going to potentiate things a little bit more effectively and then you're going to be able to execute your Technique better okay these PVC pipes are available at garage rank.com but this is something that

we do all of the time now the second exercise that I want to do we're going to get into a split position so we got Lincoln who's 13 we got Evan who's 19 okay we're going to get into a split position Lincoln's young right evans's more advanced Evans almost snatched double body weight do the math he's almost hit double body weight you probably can't even clean double body weight so what we want to do is we want to get in a split position you guys grab the band The Lincoln gets the the black band there

you go and we want to get into a split position here okay we want to hold this and we want to rotate to the lead leg okay so Lincoln drop that left knee a little more now rotate hold the left arm here there you go give me seven each side good a little deeper on the right side here Evan so we want to try and feel that thoracic rotation okay that's going to help us get into a good position we want to feel our hips and what we just did on the PVC pipe where we're

really warming everything up through our feet we've got all the functional gurus that are out there doing jumps in their bare feet they're doing all that stuff Barefoot they don't like to snatch they don't like to clean because that requires coordination it's too hard but then they don't even do PVC walks all this stuff baffles me and my head's about to explode now seven each side Lincoln did you do both sides okay next thing okay I want tension set overhead so we can go Seven band pull parts here and I want you to think about

squeezing your scals so we go here seven just go like halfway and then I want Lincoln to grab the box and Lincoln's going to demonstrate with the Box what I want to happen next while Evan does it without the bock okay so we'll go seven overhead this is going to help our upper back even further okay it's something that I should be doing right now cuz I feel tight because I'm sitting at a desk all day if you're someone who is a desk jockey okay just doing this warm-up is freaking phenomenal this is something that

you can do every night you come home from work and you just do this warmup you can take 10 to 15 minutes this is going to be absolutely fantastic for you to feel better now Lincoln's going to stand in front of the box so if you have an athlete or you are this individual get set into an overhead position if you're an individual who's a little bit tighter Lincoln's my son so that's why I might be a little bit more aggressive with and yelling at him to actually execute a little bit better uh if you're

a tight individual okay and you struggle to get full depth I want to do these overhead box squats just in the warmups okay so Lincoln's going to do seven now Evan's going to do this uh seven full range okay go ahead back up but sit back on the B there you go there good try and think push the outside of the foot a little bit more good Lincoln like that outside of the foot a little more seven that was Heaven okay right back to the PVC pipes okay so we're going to go back through this

PVC pipes I want to have three sets of 15 M okay then we want to go split squat with the rotation okay seven each side next thing overhead squats and by the time you're on that third set you should be sitting deep in that overhead position you should feel the one thing I really like with the band is the band forces you to have that tension in the upper back okay and to have that lockout position so it's sort of like a cheat code to feel what I want you to feel when we're snatching when

we go to the snatch I'm going to talk about bending the bar on the catch okay so when I talk about that that's the whole purpose of the band in the warm-up okay so when we're actually going through the warm-up you've got to think through how is this going to transfer to the actual session of where we're learning the technique and that's the big thing here is like this technique the progression that you will learn is the one that we use here on site with all of our athletes and it's something that you can learn

and you repeat and then this could even be become part of your warm War up you guys go back through the split squats then the overhead squats and then we're going to start with the actual snatch portion but remember the general warm-up is key to making sure that everything feels freaking good when we start to snatch the greatest lift ever Lincoln control yourself and pause when you're all the way open that's one thing with younger kids is like do the movement with intention don't don't just try to get it done straight back though straight back

rotate straight back don't go like Tomahawk it rotate little more open from that left shoulder linol it's like you're trying to catch a discus and this is also another good a good thing if you have a baseball player you have a football player you got a tennis player they're running right in different scenarios where they have to have rotation that's a really good warm-up exercise it helps them feel those positions with their hips relative to their upper back okay one more of the squats and then we're moving into the then we'll get the shoes on

the other thing I want to point out is once these guys are ready Lincoln you give me one set with a box then one set without the box when these guys are ready we're going to get onto the the platform with the bar and I want to point out you could do this with a dow Rod you could do this with a 5k a 10K a 15K a 20K bar we're going to use a 20K bar in this cas but just use use that RX to you scale to to whatever you're capable of doing still

push the outside of the foot a little more a little deeper Lincoln see how Lincoln's heels are coming in there so there's two there's two issues one when kids are growing and they get really long legs they tend to have really quirky issues in their squats and you'll like alleviate that issue and then the next week that issue comes back up or another issue pops up and just as a coach you just got to continuously cue that those things a lot of the the internet guys out there will be like oh well look at that

Kitt he's doing X Y and Z dude sometimes kids have quirks for two days and they go away and you would know this if you actually coach people so you don't have to get completely like overblown with tons and tons of cues also if you're doing movements like overhead squats split squats snatches over time they will take care of themselves okay get the shoes on then we're going to start now inside of our strength training app Peak strength we use snatches we use snatch variations we use cleans we use clean variations we want to focus

on movements that are going to help you get as explosive as possible we even have technical progressions and videos inside of our strength training app so if you're a football player and you've never snatched and you want to learn you can use Peak strength not only to become a better football player but to also use movements like the snatch okay so head over to Peak shrink. apppp the Google Play Store the Apple iOS store use the specific technical videos that are inside of there you can start that today just click on the link Down Below

in the description you're going to start that to become a champion now let's get to the progression okay we're going to go through the first four steps of the snatch technique the snatch progression okay the first thing that we need to do that I like to do is to actually set the feet okay when we're thinking about setting the feet the easiest thing and again I keep this as easy as possible we'll see people do you know Voodoo pray to the Moon gods and they'll try to set their feet that way just do this go

that's it boom put your foot out there and then where this toe is put your foot outside the toe that's literally all you have to do and then guess what over a long period of time you can start to play around with it you go a little more narrow I have a longer pulling base here I go a little bit wider I can get into this a little bit later with why I like to have athletes go wider just do that you don't have to get fancy okay so we're going to set the foot now

the next thing this is going to get unique as well I've played around with setting grip like 300 different ways okay what we do is we're going to take what the Soviets used to do and we're going to look at the angle of the joint or the the angle of the elbow wait let me take yeah that's a good hey that's a really great idea so we're going to look at the angle of the elbow joint okay and when based off the angle of the elbow joint here 90° or out obtuse I guess this would

be that's where we're going to establish the grip so Evan's going to stand up give me a narrow grip so if we go so Lean Forward on we want like a 45° angle okay and then now we can see it's a little bit tighter than 90° so this is going to be his clean grip okay now go out so that we can see this here with the forearm at 90° okay so we're pull that in we're on 45° angle we're going to pull that in now we've got 90° he could maybe go a tad bit

wider okay just a hair wider and you would end up seeing yeah this is a great warm-up by the way you would end up seeing that this is going to be about his mid grip so if we're using a mid grip snatch that's typically where we'll see that that that snatch grip that mid- grip be also I want to point out some athletes that are a little bit wider when they have that 90° set sometimes they actually feel better if they pull from that mid grip than if they pull from that clean grip uh just

because they're broader I like to have a little bit more narrow position on the clean just because the pull ends up being a little bit longer but that again that just depends on the individual now we're going to go for forward to 45° again and if we see here he's a little bit further outside of 90 now he's pulling that to his chest I actually think he could go a hair wider yeah do that again 45 and that's actually where I want to see now he's outside the 90 okay so we go inside 90 90

just outside the 90 okay and the big thing here is he should be feeling that in his back okay and we're going to get into part of the progression that triggers that we use a part of a progression that no one else freaking uses also we teach top down okay top down there's a lot of the Soviet research showed that uh individuals that learned the movement backwards they had like a 65% greater likelihood of retaining that position work than if they didn't do that okay so it was way more successful that way so we're going

to go top down now the other thing I want to point out there we don't need to spend years trying to figure out the grip okay meaning if you are starting just set your grip and go okay just lean forward get set I'm just outside 90 I'm going to try this and then guess what you do a couple sets there at 40 kilos watch the John Cena video where John Cena does sets at 40 kilos for like six sets set it okay you can try it wide you can go a little more narrow and you

can play around with that and see how it feels and wherever is more comfortable that's where you want to go okay so just don't over complicate this now uh let's get Lincoln in here cuz I want to set Lincoln's uh feet and Lincoln's grip we'll go through this again right there that's good okay 45° on the lean a little more forward and and you can even use this as yeah there you go you can even use this as a coaching queue for younger kids to bend the knee a little bit you see this is just

inside 90 okay good Lincoln could pull that a little bit more in towards your sternum okay now go out a little bit yep right there now forward hold the knee get that to the chest and that that would be his clean grip I actually you can see right here great job Lincoln now one more I want you to move that out give me like middle yeah right there forward 45° and you get more of an angle here okay and Lincoln can feel that now he's got his foot his foot position established he's got the grip

established now put this up on your back this is where you can use a dow Rod okay Dow Rod you can just put it right on your back okay now first thing I want him to do you pretend you have a dow Rod you have a 5k you have a 10K bar whatever the weight is for you is fine you don't need to use a 20K get the down run press five one okay and what we want to think about we want to think press and when we get to the top we're freaking bending that

bar in half okay press and bend it press boom boom boom give me one more good okay now Evans going to come in Evan's going to give us the press and then Evan's going to show press into the next aspect okay get that grip set Evan okay so we go press boom press again five 3 one great job okay now back to the shoulders the next aspect and this is where everyone's GNA struggle okay especially if you haven't done weightlifting movements and this is where weightlifting carries over phenomenally with young kids and with beginners and

getting athletes to be a little bit more coordinated we want change of Direction okay a lot of the powerlifters you're going to do this a lot of the athletes that haven't weight lifted are going to do this okay boom change your hip level change your levels just like you would in wrestling just like you would as a linebacker just like you do as a thrower this is why these movements are so freaking awesome so all I want to see we did the press okay so after the Press snatch balance to the power okay where you

catching the power good now four of those don't throw it back as much we want to think about the bar is going to be directly above like the back of the head shoulders okay good one more good now give me one more where you do snatch balance catch there and then do overhead squat okay another one snatch balance catch a pause overhead squat good like that we pause squat pause squat one more and then we're going to get Lincoln on here good okay lincol Power SN try not to jump as much with the feet good

give me one more and then we'll do the over overheads overhead two give me one more stay one more sit on the heel more good okay take a little break you guys are probably a little sweaty and then we're going to get to the next Point okay so we're going to go back I want to do the last thing that we just did where we're going to go snatch balance pause and then I want you go down in the hole and then we're going to I'm going to point something out and then we're going to

work into the next two aspects from there so Lincoln's going to set that grip he already knows where it is remember if you can't use a 20K bar use a dow Rod use a band pretend there's a bar there use a freaking broomstick you don't have to use a weight now go ahead but pause pause at the top on the catch yeah one more pause now go there you go so it's like a snatch balance where you pause then you get into overhead now the one give me one more sorry sorry little guy one thing

I like to see here okay notice so Lincoln if he brings that bar forward a little bit for me he's a little maybe a hair wide for my for my fist cuz I like to look at that as like that's like a real easy determinant of is it too wide or not for Lincoln his his wrist or his fists are a little bit smaller than mine so it's probably actually pretty freaking good okay so that's like an easy cheat code to just make sure that he's in a decent spot uh and those are things that

you can use to just make sure okay well you know we're we're barely having any space above his head well let's go a little bit more narrow or you know there's five fists between the head and the and the bar and we're not doing mid grip snatch okay let's widen it a little bit we don't need to get super complex with it now next thing going forward okay I want Lincoln to hold the bar here and all I want him to do is is what we'll refer to as the week's snatch catch okay so we're

going to go here and a lot of weightlifting coaches will not use this because they'll say well just pretend that your arms are ropes your arms are just ropes and then you teach a football player or a wrestler or a swimmer to catch a snatch and they're all super wobbly because they were taught that their arms are just ropes I want to see connection from the hip so I want to see here press here from the front Okay and this is going to help us now go from the top down and we're going to get

to that next position after this so we're going to go shrug rotate up good four of those Lincoln's going to feel that in his shoulders yeah and this is where I would say this is a great external rotation movement uh this is something that you guys can do as a warm-up and this is basically like a muscle snatch now so we're starting to really get into the movements give me one more [Laughter] okay so that's the week's snatch catch we do something like this in our cleans as well okay and I think this is a

great way to then take the movement from the floor to the hip into the catch and and it's going to help you feel what the shoulder should feel here rotating and then on the catch position okay so I want to point that out now next thing I want is now we went over the weeks snatch catch right here okay the next thing remember we did snatch balance into a power so the next thing I want to do is I want to take that weak snatch catch into the snatch Balance power position so we're going to

do that by starting here we want knee flexion hip flexion bar sitting here and then all I want is straight up pause there though go back and try try so Lincoln did like a little bit go a little slower off the hips so Squat and the knees forward a little sorry a little higher yep now go good two more knees forward a little more no forward and chest forward yep now go good one more and then after you catch I want a overhead squat overhead squat yes good okay put it down now evans's up so

the progression here is and this is what we'll do on the first day with kids okay I want kids to learn how to snatch day one there is no reason if we've got 9-year-old kids in here that can snatch there's no reason you guys out there who want to post all your David goggin stuff you want to post all your Joo willing stuff you want to talk about doing hard and then what do you do oh I can't coach the weightlifting movement because there's too many kids it's really hard well yesterday you posted about how

David Goggins was tough but today you can't even coach freaking a group of 20 kids how to do snatches use okay let's go hang on he didn't do the weeks oh yeah and Lan's back there being tired I am 13 years old my life is hard Evan was probably telling him how hard his life was right [Laughter] beforehand good good good good give me one more good okay now now go from the hip okay so we want to squat with knees go forward chest forward yeah right there now go power and the catch then go

one more now go in the hole good okay now Evan's going to do the next progression here there's a couple things that I want to focus on I don't want to say anything about feet yet all right and I'm going to go into what I like to coach with feet uh with how the feet move and then I'm going to give you a hack a really really sick cheat code that you should use for all of your athletes okay especially athletes that aren't weightlifting athletes if you have non weightlifting athletes there's something that you can

do to make your life so easy when teaching techniques so the next thing I want Evan to do is he's going to go from the position he was just in that he's familiar with and I want to see if he can go right into the hole okay so that high hang yep right there well let's go in the hip actually yep there now go right into the hole good okay so Evan is experienced now one thing I'll say is that if you have a younger kid that they're just learning it's okay to do like 15

sets it's okay to do like five reps each time just get them to learn this pattern over over over the quicker we can get them full snatch reps the sooner they start to hit PRS okay and the sooner they get more coordinated and the sooner they have more confidence and the other big factor when we think about the Soviets they would actually talk about kids love solving problems there's a reason why Tetris was such a famous freaking game when I was growing up there's a reason why now there's really cool games the new Zelda games

are so freaking awesome because you have to solve problems kids like to solve problems snatching is a problem that they want to learn that they want to get better at they're stuck they just want to keep doing it over and over again because that creates this willpower that now turns them into freaks okay so this is part of developing culture is that when you learn hard things and you get good at hard things guess what you become a better athlete so Evan's going to Now show us from above the knee okay so now this is

a point where I want him to lower his chest and keep the knees forward a little more right there and then I want him to go slow by just raising his chest up so yeah that's it okay again okay okay one more and then go into the snatch good okay so in this Next Movement so we went the hip so after the weeks snatch catch then we went hip power overhead okay that was the next one now we just want this this position here where we go from above the knee we bring it up with

the chest coming up back down chest up and all we're thinking about is from the chest because what happens is then when we're thinking about just from the chest the knees stay flexed longer and if the knees stay flexed longer we're going to load the quads longer and that's going to help keep the bar tighter we want to push through a full foot like midfoot just like a triple jumper jumping we want to jump through midfoot just like a sprinter grounding a sprinter is not grounding here when they're at Max Speed they're grounding here right

at midfoot that's where we want to apply Force okay so we're going to go back so we do the the the chest raises then he goes back to the high hang and goes into the hole good okay now next Point let's bring Lincoln in Lincoln's going to execute this and then we're going to go to the the final two portions to tie everything together and then I'm going to give you that little hack with the uh when you're training a whole bunch of athletes so Lincoln will do lower to the above the knee and then

just raise the chest keep the knees still though there right there don't lean too far back though keep keep your chest more vertical right there a little more FX in the knee meaning knees forward a little that's another cue a lot of Soviets would actually say the knees go forward for some reason in the US we're scared of that thought process but when we have more knee flexion it's a little bit better honestly too I'm going to make Lincoln hold this a little I don't think I've ever actually formally taught Lincoln how to snatch I

think he's just been snatching since he was like 3 years old and then I just yell at him to put more weight on and if he doesn't get the weight that's on the bar I get really mad at him and think he's a a bad son and then he breaks breaks down and gets upset and then we just repeat that cycle over and over again okay now go above the knee high hang okay so Lincoln did a little bit of a hitch with the arms tighter upper back above the knee good one more that could

have been a little higher okay now put the bar down the next aspect okay we like to use one box uh we like to go from the floor we also like to do a lot of hangs I think a low hang is the hardest variation of the snatch uh but it's the best teaching tool so we're going to show that and what I want Lincoln to think about so we've learned everything in the catch okay we've learned everything above the knee from above the knee up it's the easiest part of the lift this is where

things will get a little bit more challenging so now I want Lincoln to hold the bar here and I want him to push his knees forward and then bring them back because what ends up happening is when we start from below the knee we want to think knees come back knees come forward and now we're back to that position okay so we teach everything in reverse and when we teach everything in reverse then we just have to reestablish that as we go from the start position so knees are forward now the knees go back okay

a little bit more forward after the bar so yeah now forward more with a KN yes yeah there you go good now back yes great job now one more lann's probably so freaking pumped in his back and his quads and yes exactly now back now up but don't lean back as much okay one more one more if Lincoln doesn't snatch 75 I'm going to make him sleep outside in the chicken house now snatch from below the knee that's really good actually great job Lincoln I'm so proud of you little guy first piece of positive reinforcement

in over a year respond appropriately now that was where you could be a little more patient through the left the left foot damn it what did you say Evan just now when you pass here you're sort of going like this try and think extend up more one more now the intent remember the intent move fast okay move fast on the concentric move fast on the concentric tell all your boys why are we doing this one technical aggression that was better two learn how to move fast on the concentric okay technical aggression John Cena talks about

a lot playing golf with weights now if we learn technique through logic here guess what we're going to be able to apply that in every other sport that we're playing okay two concentric movements at high speeds highspeed concentric movements transfer really really freaking well three create a freaking demand for willpower in the gym okay those three aspects are why we do weightlifting movements so when you're watching all the clowns that don't like weightlifting movements and they're talking about triple extension don't mention triple extension it doesn't matter that doesn't we can do that one when we're

doing Plyometrics we can talk about that when we're sprinting it doesn't matter all that matters is the speed on the concentric the freaking technique aspect and developing culture okay developing willpower in the athlete now same thing here Lincoln where do you feel at the most my hands my hands of course my hands hurt my hands are a little sore that's good though good knees back knees under okay good now give me a lift forward yeah so it's like as you hang it down everything goes in reverse and then as you come up knees go back

knees come under through so go okay so now I want you to go real slow and I'm going to walk through this so we go knees back to right here pause now he's in no man's land okay now get to here this is the re reciprocation point right here now the knees are coming forward under raise your your chest up pause right there good now finish and catch and go right there okay this is the snatch progression and you just keep troubleshooting the whole time through now one thing that I want to point out I

haven't talked about the foot the foot movement okay I want Evan to just go if you have athletes think about football players and stuff and a lot of a lot of coaches I actually had a weightlifting coach who's one of the most prominent weightlifting coaches argue with me about this okay I'm going to go on a little tangent and talking about jumping and he goes well the impulse the impulse in the ground impulse well impulse means force in time and if I'm grounded I have more time on the ground to apply Force here I have

longer impulse so we think about impulse as this but impulse is putting Force into the ground and then if I think about sliding my feet my feet ground sooner and the whole time I'm going to put I'm putting more Force into the bar and then I'm putting more Force back into the bar so my impulse expression is actually higher when we think about sliding the feet now what this has to do with athletes is that we often will take kids and we'll say okay just go a little wider don't move your feet okay so now

you do a no feet snatch and it it literally is a cheat code because kids will do a no feet snatch and they're so connected with the bar and the floor they don't even think about the technique you go no feet now all of a sudden they're just doing it because the has to stay tight cuz if they miss it forward or backward they have to step so it's a cheat code for them to learn the technique without you having to give them a que okay so now you're learning how to communicate with the kid

and establish that so I wanted Evan to Pro to to demonstrate this the no feet aspect yeah no feet maybe a little wider okay now he could extend a little bit on that that was more like yeah yeah there good one more good okay good so this is the snatch progression Lincoln's got to give me two of those we're going to go back through this okay we start off you set the grip you set the foot stance position you learn how to press you do the snatch balance to the power you do the snatch balance

to the power and the overhead squat you do the weaks snatch catch you go from the power into the power position into that power catch stay on the heel more longer on the heel we think through the high hang position to a power to a full you go from below the knee okay with the knees coming back knees coming under staying flat footed just a little taller finish that's close that's close and then we finish with if you have issues further just tell them to do no feet okay and this is something that you just

do over over over over over and again okay you get really really freaking good at this with the bar they slowly add weight and then you start to smack PRS you're slamming freaking bars and you feel like an absolute monster and then guess what then you turn 17 18 19 20 years old and you're in the gym and your Technique is so dialed in that you just have to try you just have to sniff a little ammonia rip some caffeine and start screaming okay so that's the big factor here use this snatch progression to help

you achieve that greatness inside your sport on the platform wherever it is and this is something that you can do on a daily basis to improve your Mobility ility and to improve that technical mindset if you need help with your programming click on the link Down Below in the description head over to Peak strength. apppp download Peak strength get inside there today if you want something similar to this piece of content click on this card right here because remember freaks if you want to become a champion you've always got to cultivate your power peace