The Burgener warm-up breaks the snatch into six drills with an empty bar. Learn the pull, elbows and catch without load, with one milestone per step.
The Burgener warm-up is a sequence of six drills with an empty bar or PVC pipe that breaks the snatch into small learning steps. It is named after Mike Burgener, who built it for teaching the snatch. The steps: down and up, elbows high and outside, muscle snatch, snatch land, snatch drop and finally the hang power snatch.
The honest answer to whether this is warming up or learning: both. A review article on weightlifting pulling derivatives suggests using lifts without the catch phase – snatch pull, clean pull, hang high pull – as less complex learning steps in the technique progression [1]. That is exactly what the first steps of the warm-up do: you learn the pull and the extension before you commit to going under the bar.
The six steps themselves are a practice standard from CrossFit coaching and are not backed by studies; cues differ from coach to coach, so I describe the basic idea of each step. How long you need depends on mobility and coordination. Expect several sessions until all steps feel solid (experience).
Hold the bar in a wide snatch grip in front of the hips. Push the hips back, slide the bar down to the hip crease and come back up. This is a hip hinge with a bar. The bar always stays close to the body.
Milestone: 10 clean reps, the bar touches the thighs.
From standing, pull the elbows out and up until the bar is at chest height. The elbows lead, the hands follow. This is the second pull: do not bend the arms, lift the elbows.
Milestone: 10× with the elbows above the bar.
Pull the bar from the hips overhead with straight arms, without going into a squat. The torso stays upright, the extension comes from hips and legs. Here you feel pushing the bar up rather than lifting it.
Milestone: 10× with an upright torso and the bar over the shoulders.
Pull as in the muscle snatch, but this time let yourself drop under the bar: you catch it overhead in a deep squat. An analysis of world championship attempts by 61 elite male lifters found that successful attempts caught the bar with less remaining momentum, the bar was moved back about a centimeter more in the pull and dropped less in the catch; maximum bar height did not differ [2]. Remember: do not pull higher, catch better.
Milestone: 10× catch in a stable deep squat.
The bar is already overhead. From standing, pull yourself quickly under it without jumping. That trains the dive-under, which has little time in the full snatch. Look forward, not down.
Milestone: 10× fast catch with an open chest.
Now the pull comes together: from the hang above the knee, pull the bar explosively and catch it in a half squat. Do this with an empty bar only at first. Then go to the hang power snatch guide when you want more load.
Milestone: 5× caught safely with an empty bar, bar lowered under control.
The snatch is safety-critical: the bar travels over your head. In a cross-sectional study of 456 CrossFit athletes, snatches were among the movements with the most injuries [3]. A systematic review on weightlifting names the knee, lower back, shoulder and hands/fingers as the most common injury sites [4].
Practise steps 4 to 6 only with an empty bar or pipe, with space around you and without obstacles. In an emergency, let the bar go rather than holding on. This guide explains and motivates but does not replace supervised training: have step 6 supervised by a coach.
Use the steps as a warm-up before every snatch session: two rounds of five reps per step take under ten minutes. And watch your thoughts: instead of "bend the elbows", tell yourself "drag the bar up along your trousers" – a picture from the outside. According to a meta-analysis, this external focus helps execution and retention [5].
The Burgener warm-up is a sequence of six drills with an empty bar that breaks the snatch into learning steps. It is named after Mike Burgener and is a practice standard in CrossFit coaching. It does not replace technique work with a coach, but it prepares it.
Two to three times a week as a warm-up before snatching is common (experience). Do it only as often as you can do it cleanly. Increase load only when every step is solid.
No. Flat, stable shoes are enough for the drills with an empty bar. Weightlifting shoes help later if ankle mobility is limited.
It is safety-critical because the bar travels overhead. In a study of 456 CrossFit athletes, snatches were among the movements with the most injuries [3]. Learning the steps cleanly and starting with an empty bar reduces the risk.
Sumo Deadlift High Pull: Hips First, Then the Pull