Snatch

How to do it

1. Set a loaded barbell on the floor over the middle of your feet.
2. Take a wide overhand grip, hips low, back flat, arms straight.
3. Lift the bar keeping it close, with the torso angle steady through the knees.
4. Drive the hips forward and extend explosively as the bar reaches the hips.
5. Pull yourself under, turning the hands over, and catch it overhead with straight arms in a deep squat.
6. Stand up out of the squat with the bar locked overhead.

Common mistakes

• Pressing the bar out at the top. A snatch is received with the arms already straight; if the elbows bend and then push, the pull did not finish.
• Catching with the bar in front of the head. It finishes over or slightly behind the ears, stacked over the middle of the foot.
• Attempting it before the overhead squat position holds. Receiving a bar overhead in a deep squat is a position in its own right, and the snatch only delivers you to it.
• Gripping at clean width. The wide grip is what lets the bar reach an overhead lockout with straight arms; a narrow one makes the geometry impossible.

Muscles worked

Primary

• Quads

Secondary

• Biceps
• Glutes
• Hamstrings
• Spinal Erectors
• Shoulders
• Traps
• Triceps