MOVEMENT TIP: The Burgener Warm Up

The Snatch and the Clean and Jerk are the two movements contested in the sport of weightlifting (also known as Olympic weightlifting or even Oly by CrossFitters). A while back we looked at the Clean and Jerk and all the associated variations and over the next few weeks, we are going to look at the other movement, the Snatch.

Before we start, we’ll look this week at a demonstration of the Burgener warm-up, by CrossFit Seminar Staff member James Hobart. The Burgener warm-up is an Olympic Lifting warmup from the legendary Mike Burgener that has become a bit of a gold standard for weightlifting warmups in CrossFit.

Points Of Performance

• Stand on feet with hip-width apart
• Arms wide and hook grip on the bar
• Bar at the high-hang
• Dip, dive
• Dip, dive, and shrug keeping torso vertical and arms straight
• Dip, dive, shrug, and elbows pull high
• Dip, dive, shrug and then pull the bar overhead
• Feet move to shoulder-width stance
• Overhead squat
• Move feet to hip-width stance ; bar at the high-hang
• Dip, dive and pull into the bottom of the overhead squat; stand
• Snatch