The snatch is the world’s most powerful lift. Requiring a combination of great technique and strength, the snatch is a valuable tool in any fitness program. Read further to learn everything you need to know about the snatch:
- What Is the Snatch?
- Snatch Benefits
- Muscle Groups Worked
- How to Prepare for the Snatch
- Equipment Needed for the Snatch
- How to Warm Up for the Snatch
- How to Perform the Snatch
- Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
- Snatch Modifications
- Snatch Lift Variations
- Common Snatch Workouts
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What Is the Snatch?
The snatch is one of the lifts contested at the Olympics and requires the athlete to lift the barbell from the ground to overhead in one continuous motion. To accomplish this, the athlete uses their legs to lift the bar from the ground to just past the knees, then aggressively “jumps” to fully extend their hips and legs to impart speed and upward momentum on the bar. With the bar moving vertically, the athlete immediately pulls themself down under it, while aggressively punching the barbell overhead, receiving the bar at the bottom of an overhead squat. To complete the lift, the athlete stands the weight up to a position with legs and hips extended and arms locked out with the weight overhead.
The snatch develops superior athleticism by training qualities such as power, speed, strength, flexibility, coordination, accuracy, agility, and balance. While the technical demands of the snatch are high, a skilled coach can teach an athlete how to snatch with a light barbell or PVC pipe in one session. The snatch is a versatile tool that can be used in many different workouts, incorporating heavy loads and low reps to light loads and high reps.
Snatch Benefits
The snatch trains many skills necessary for optimal fitness.
Cardiovascular/Respiratory Endurance
Sets of high-rep snatches — 15 reps or more — confer similar cardio benefits to 800-meter runs because of the distance the weight travels at a relatively high speed.
Strength
Snatches develop full-body strength as athletes must apply significant force into the ground and the barbell to “jump” the bar overhead. Given the same great technique, every pound added to the bar increases the strength development potential of the snatch.
Flexibility and Mobility
The bottom position of the snatch requires excellent flexibility and mobility in the ankles, knees, hips, upper back, and shoulders, as well as flexibility in the muscles surrounding these joints.
Power
To calculate power, we look at the load used, the distance traveled, and how long it takes to complete the movement. When a large load is moved long distances and quickly, high power is produced. With its capacity to move relatively heavy loads from the ground to overhead with blinding speed, the snatch is a pure expression of power and produces powerful athletes.
Speed and Agility
Snatches teach the ability to extend and then flex the hips rapidly. This action improves cycle time in repeated sprints, agility movements, jumps, or squats.
Coordination
The snatch involves the coordination of every joint and every major muscle group to move a load from the ground to lockout overhead. The snatch is an efficient, blazingly fast example of precise coordination when done well. Athletes who master the snatch technique learn other complex movement patterns well.
Balance
For the lifter to stay balanced in the snatch, they must resist the pull of the weight forward and away from their body by maintaining their weight in the heels throughout the lift and keeping the bar close to the body as they move around it. Snatches challenge and develop balance like few other lifts can.
Accuracy
The snatch requires great accuracy throughout the movement pattern. The bar must be lifted from the ground the same way, to the same spot, every time. The finish position must be the same on every rep, and the bar must travel consistently along the same path. Athletes must be precise as they pull themselves down and around the bar into the receiving position to ensure the bar settles in the perfect spot, balanced at arm’s length overhead. All of this must be accomplished at high speed and to the inch.
Muscle Groups Worked
The snatch is a full-body power movement that incorporates every major muscle group.
Lower Body
The muscles of the legs, especially the hips, quads, glutes, and hamstrings, are prime movers in the snatch. These muscles are engaged in all phases of the lift: pulling the weight from the floor, exploding vertically to launch the bar overhead, receiving the bar at the bottom of an overhead squat, and standing the weight up.
Upper Body and Core
The shoulder girdle, back, and core muscles are engaged throughout the snatch. These muscles contract isometrically to allow for the efficient transfer of forces from the ground into the bar. As the lifter pulls the weight from the floor, these muscles keep the torso angle consistent. When the athlete jumps the bar overhead, these muscles keep the midline stable so the force produced from the rapid hip and leg extension will pass through the midline into the bar. Once the bar is overhead, these muscle groups keep the midline stable to provide a strong platform for supporting the load overhead in the receiving and finish positions.
How to Prepare for the Snatch
Preparing to snatch requires assembling the proper equipment and performing a general and specific warm-up to get the body ready to move through the ranges of motion required.
Equipment Needed for the Snatch
To train the snatch, an athlete can use a PVC pipe or barbells of various weights, from 10 to 45 lb, as needed. The barbells used should spin freely to accommodate the speed of the turnover in the lift and protect the athlete’s wrists. The weights used should be rubber bumper plates so the athlete can safely drop the bar when needed.
How to Warm Up for the Snatch
To warm up for the snatch, the lifter should perform general movements that work every joint through their full range of motion. Goblet squats, ring rows, lunges, pass-throughs, shoulder circles, and push-ups are good choices for the general warm-up. For the specific warm-up, a great option is the Burgener Warm-Up, followed by skill-transfer exercises like the heaving snatch balance and snatch balance.
How to Do the Snatch
The snatch can be broken down into distinct phases, which all blend smoothly when the lift is done efficiently.
The Start Position
In the start position, the lifter finds a position where they can lift with their legs to pull the bar off the floor. This looks like a “squattier” deadlift position with the hips higher than the knees and the shoulders higher than the hips. The weight should be distributed through the midfoot, feet set at hip width, the lower back arched, and shoulders slightly in front of the barbell. The hands are set wide in a snatch grip, with a hook grip, and the head is up with eyes focused forward.
The First Pull
In the first pull, the lifter pulls the weight from the ground, shifting the knees back as their legs straighten. As the bar moves vertically and approaches the knees, the athlete’s hips and shoulders rise simultaneously, keeping the athlete’s torso angle with the floor unchanged from the start position. Also, as the bar begins to move, the athlete must shift their weight back toward their heels and guide the bar back into their body.
Second Pull
The second pull starts as the barbell passes the knees. As the bar reaches mid-thigh, the athlete “jumps” through the heels aggressively, rapidly extending the legs and hips to accelerate the bar vertically. The bar must stay close to the body during its upward travel.
Third Pull
Once the athlete has completed the “jump” (i.e., the full extension of the legs and hips), the third pull begins with a violent shrug and the athlete’s arms bending — elbows high and outside — to pull the athlete around, down, and under the bar to receive the bar in the bottom of an overhead squat. Again, the bar stays close to the lifter as the arms bend to pull the athlete down, the feet slide quickly from hip width to shoulder width, and the athlete aggressively turns the wrists over and punches under the bar to receive the bar in a stable and strong overhead position. Once the bar is secured overhead, the athlete stands to complete the lift.
Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
There are several common snatch mistakes lifters should be aware of and avoid.
Lifting Around the Knees in the First Pull
If the athlete fails to shift the knees back as they pull the barbell from the floor, they will be forced to go around the knees to get the bar to mid-thigh. This is an inefficient bar path; the bent leg position prevents the athlete from loading the hamstrings for a powerful second pull. This error may result from rushing the first pull or lifting with the back instead of the legs off the ground. The athlete should slow the first pull-down to concentrate on shifting the knees back as the bar rises. They can also focus on pushing their feet into the ground to lift the bar.
Not Fully Extending the Hips in the Finish Position
At the end of the second pull, the athlete’s legs and hips should be fully extended. However, it is a common fault for athletes to cut the second pull short by not fully extending the hips and trying to “sneak” under the bar to receive it overhead. This limits the power transferred into the bar and diminishes the bar’s upward travel and speed. Athletes should focus on jumping hard before they pull themselves under the bar. Tall snatches are a good drill to ingrain the finish position.
Swinging Bar Path
The bar should stay close to the athlete’s body throughout the lift. However, when the athlete jumps, if they displace the hips horizontally too much or bump the bar with the hips too hard, they may send the bar away from the body into an arching bar path on the way overhead. This is inefficient. To keep the bar close, athletes should focus on a vertical jump and a light brush of the bar at the hips. During the third pull, the elbows move high and outside to guide the bar close to the body.
Soft Receiving Position
A proper receiving position sees the athlete in the bottom of an overhead squat, chest up, back engaged, pushing up on the bar with arms locked out. Often, athletes fail to receive the bar in this strong position. Instead, they let the shoulders and chest roll forward and the back round, making it almost impossible to support the weight overhead. To properly receive the bar, athletes should aggressively turn the bar over and punch under. Ingraining the proper position at the bottom of the overhead squat, sitting tall with the chest up, and having armpits facing forward are also critical.
Snatch Lift Modifications
The snatch requires not only strength, but also great flexibility and mobility. In training, any lifter can be accommodated by modifying the load and positions.
PVC Snatch
When learning the snatch technique, a PVC pipe is a great tool to allow the athlete to move properly without concern for the bar’s weight. Using a PVC pipe also allows the athlete to perform a high volume of reps without breaking down due to fatigue.
Power Snatch
For many, receiving the bar in the bottom of an overhead squat challenges their flexibility and mobility. To alleviate this issue, the power version of the lift, where the athlete receives the bar in a quarter or half squat, can be used.
Snatch Lift Variations
There are many snatch variations athletes can use to train each phase of the snatch while simultaneously developing speed, power, flexibility, and many other skills. Except for the split squat version, any variation can be done as a full snatch, where the bar is received in the bottom of an overhead squat, or a power snatch, where the bar is received in a quarter-to-half squat with the top of the thighs remaining above parallel with the ground.
High Hang Snatch
The high hang snatch has the athlete start by standing tall with the bar at the hips. The athlete simply bends the knees into a shallow dip and rapidly drives back up —a motion called the “dip and drive” — to jump the bar overhead. This is a great movement for teaching the finish position, including full hip extension.
Hang Snatch
The hang snatch starts with the bar at mid-thigh, which is in the perfect position to jump and launch the bar overhead. The hang snatch isolates the critical second pull and teaches the athlete the perfect spot to start the jump, how to jump aggressively to impart speed on the bar, and how to finish from the hang position.
Split Snatch
In the split snatch, the athlete jumps the bar overhead, but instead of receiving the weight in an overhead squat, they receive it at the bottom of a lunge. This version of the snatch is great for athletes who experience mobility restrictions at the shoulders that make the overhead squat challenging. It’s also a great version of the snatch to use with sports athletes as it builds excellent athleticism that transfers to the field.
Common Snatch Workouts
Isabel: 30 snatches for time (95/135 lb)
Randy: 75 power snatches for time (55/75 lb)
Max Snatch: 1-rep-max snatch
The Snatch