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How to do a Squat Snatch to increase your strength and improve your performance in CrossFit WODs.

Set-Up for the Squat Snatch

  • Begin with your heels hip width apart
  • Bar is on the ground, arms are wide and hands are in a hook grip
  • Shoulders are at or just over the bar
  • Back is flat and tight
  • Chest is up
  • Core is tight
  • Weight is in balls of feet

Points of Performance for the Squat Snatch

  • Push your knees back as you stand the bar up from the ground, keeping the hips and shoulders rising at the same rate
  • From the mid thigh pull the bar into the body and aggressively jump, extending the hips, knees, and ankles (triple extension)
  • With a big shrug of the shoulders, elbows come high and outside the bar then back around while pulling yourself under to receive the weight
  • Receive the bar in a full overhead squat with the arms locked out over the middle of the body
  • The bottom of the squat is with the crease of the hip below the knee
  • Drive through the heels back to a standing position
  • The snatch is completed when the knees and hips are fully locked out and open at the top

Tips and Tricks for the Squat Snatch

  • The snatch consists of 3 “PULLS”:
    1. From the floor to the top of your knees
    2. From the top of your knees to your hips
    3. Is pulling yourself under the bar
  • Breaking this movement down into each pull will help remove confusion of the complexity of this movement
    • Ex: remove the first pull and work on explosiveness and, more importantly, speed under the bar in a “hang power snatch”
  • When the bar reaches the top of the knee your shins should be vertical and the hamstrings will be tight like rubber bands
  • Work on actively externally rotating your shoulders when locked out overhead
    • Your elbow pits will be facing up towards the sky
  • Speed under the bar is the key
  • The power from this lift is initiated in the hips
    • Think about 2 speeds: slow and controlled off the ground and explosive from the top of the knees to the hips
  • One continuous pull from the ground to overhead
    • Stopping or hesitating at any point in the lift is only going to stunt the momentum created from the floor.
  • Pull with long arms
    • An early arm bend will only dampen momentum created from the floor