San Jose Strength Coach

Olympic Snatch Workout

As some of you may already know, Mitch and I went to the USA Weightlifting coaching certification this past weekend. We received some expert coaching from Glenn Pendlay, who’s coached numerous national champions, along with some of his athletes who are Olympic hopefuls. These athletes were incredible; they displayed tons of power, incredible mobility and stability. One of the things that the Olympic style lifting teaches is generating hip power (which is the foundation for creating force in any sport). It promotes mobility because it’s just not possible to perform the lifts properly without a sufficient amount of mobility. Your stability is challenged throughout the lifts because you have to catch the weight over head or catch it on your shoulders, without falling down…

After taking Monday off of training to let the body recover, I felt pretty good on Tuesday and was pumped up to start working on improving my technique on some of the lifts. The lift we focused on Tuesday was the Snatch. We will be using a relatively light weight for a month or so until the form becomes efficient and repeatable. Here’s the workout we did and we also uploaded a video clip of a set of snatches we did to show an example of what they look like. You’ll see in the video that to perform this move proficiently, you’ll need a combo of power, mobility, and stability.

The entire workout is listed below:

Foam Roll
• Calves, inner thighs, lats, hips

Mobility
• Shoulder Capsule stretches with stick
• Lat stretch (30 seconds each side)
• Rib cage stretches (10 reps each side)
• Deep Squat stance rocking side to side (45 seconds)
• Wrist Stretch (45 seconds)

Movement Prep (1 round)
• Jump Rope (2 min)
• Overhead Squats w/stick (12 reps)
• Lateral Lunges in place (12 reps each side)
• Wall Slides (12 Reps)

Snatch Technique Training (9 Rounds @ 75 pounds)(rest as much as needed)
1. 5 reps from Hip Position
2. 5 reps from hip position
3. 5 reps from mid thigh position
4. 5 reps from mid thigh position
5. 5 reps from mid thigh position
6. 4 reps from below knee position
7. 4 reps from below knee position
8. 4 reps from below knee position
9. 3 reps from below knee position

Recovery
• 10 minutes of stretching

Didn’t really feel like lifting weights today and had an extra break in the day to do some recovery and regeneration work in the morning.  So I had AM & PM Training Session (Double Day!)

AM Workout (10am)

• 20 Minutes of Foam Rolling
• 20 Minutes of Stretching

PM Workout (5pm)  Body Weight Training

Movement Prep (2 rounds)

• Double Mini Band Marching (forward, back, side-to-side)
• Hand Walks w/pushup (inch worm) (15 yards)
• Crab crawls (15 Yards)
• Worlds Greatest Stretch (15 Yards)
• Wall Slides  (15 Reps)

Body Weight Training (3 Rounds) *as much rest as needed

• Ab wheel standing roll outs, wall assisted  (5 reps)
• Dragonflags on the ground, negatives only (3-5 reps)
• Single Leg Bridges (10 Reps each leg)
• Single Leg Pistol Squats (5 reps each side)

Conditioning

• 15 minutes of jump rope (random)

Recovery

• 10 minutes of stretching

Another quick workout…

Warm Up

• 7 minute warm up on treadmill
• 5 minutes of foam rolling

Tabata Circuit (4 Rounds)

• 30 seconds of work/20 seconds of rest
  • Atomic Pushup with Sliders
  • Kettlebell Get-ups w/26lber (30 seconds each side)
  • TRX Neutral grip rows
  • Power Skaters

I only had 45 minutes to workout.

Warm Up

• 7 minute warm up on treadmill
• 8 minutes of foam rolling
• 1 set of TRX to warm up scapula/thoracic region
  • 5 Y’s, 5 T’s, and 5 A’s

Barbell Circuit (5 Rounds)

• Barbell Complex – Full Burpees to Power Clean & Press
  • 8 Reps @ 65lbs
  • 6 Reps @ 95lbs
  • 6 Reps @ 115lbs
  • 6 Reps @ 115lbs
  • 6 Reps @ 95 lbs

Core Circuit (2 Rounds)

• Barbell suitcase deadlifts & cable anti-rotation chest press
• Suitcase deadlifts @ 45lbs – 8 reps
• Anti-Rotation presses on free motion.  10 reps @ 35lbs

Foam Roll (30-40 seconds each muscle)

• Lats, calves, hips, quads, inner thighs

Shoulder Mobility (1 Round)

• Stick work (shoulder capsule stretches) (5-6 reps each arm)
• Lying reaches with Leg on ball (6 reps each side)
• Quadruped stance chicken wing rotations (8 each side)
• Windshield wipers w/arms in Y position (shoulder blades on the ground at all times) (8 reps each direction)
• Wall Slides in butterfly stretch (12 reps)

Movement Prep (2 rounds)

• Hand Walks (inch worm) (15 yards)
• Crab crawls (15 Yards)
• Spiderman crawls (15 Yards)
• Double KB (53lbers) sumo deadlifts (12 Reps)
• Bodyweight Overhead Squats (10 Reps)
• Lateral Lunges in place (10 each side)

Strength Circuit

Double Kettlebell(2-53lbers) Clean & Press Ladder with Pull-ups (bodyweight)

My goal was 5 sets of 1,2,3 Clean & Presses followed by 1,2,3 Pull-ups.  As much rest as needed between sets.

• (example – 1 c&p, 1 pull-up, 2 c&p, 2 pull-ups, 3 c&p, 3 pull-ups….rest)

• Warm-up set – 8 clean and presses with 2-26lb KB’s

• I Completed 5 sets of 1, 2, 3 C&P and Pull-up Ladder w/2-53lb KB’s in 20:10

• Total Presses, Cleans, and Pull-ups (30, 30, 30)

Metabolic Conditioning Circuit (4 Rounds as fast as possible with good form)

• 1 minute of 1 Arm Swings with 53lb KB (30 seconds/30 seconds each arm)
• 6 Strict Hanging leg lifts (arms and legs straight, shins to bar)
• 1 minute Jump rope (random)

• My time 14:10

Recovery

• Foam Roll and Stretch for 15 minutes

Movement Prep (1 round)

• X-Band Walks (8-10 Steps each direction)
• Spiderman Crawls (20 Yards)
• Prisoner Squats (10 reps)
• Walking Lunges to balance (20 yards)
• Walking Single Leg Deadlifts (SLDL’s) (20 yards)
• Walking Lateral Lunges (20 yards each direction)

Single Leg Work

4 Rounds (as much rest as needed)

• Reverse Lunges with 2 53lb Kettlebells in Rack Position (8 Reps each Leg)
• Single Leg Deadlifts w/135lbs on a Barbell (5 each Leg)

Bilateral Work

4 Rounds (as much rest as needed)

• Front Squats with 2 53lb Kettlebells in Rack Position (8 Reps)

Recovery

• Foam Roll (Calves, Quads, Glutes, Hammies)
• Stretch (Calves, Quads, Hip Flexors, Hammies, Glutes)

Preparing your body to “move” through active stretching is just important to your workout as “working out”. Neal demonstrates a great movement prep you should perform before any training, exercise or physical activity.

If you’re at home, traveling or in the office you can still have a great workout with a portable TRX suspension trainer and a pair of moving sliders ( which you can get at Home Depot for $8). You want to do 8-10 reps of each exercise, pick & choose 4-6 exercises and do 3 sets of each.

Here’s a great exercise for explosive lateral movement. Most all sports require the ability to change directions and make quick cuts. Check this out.