How about the snatch as a general lifting warm up and mobility tool?

Warming up and mobility training are two highly useful and some times underrated tools for the physical preparation of people and athletes.  What if their was a movement pattern that could cover flexibility and mobility in the

- Chest and Shoulders
- thorasic and lumbar spine
- Hips, Knees and Ankles

Whilst also offering the following aspects to your warm ups

- Pulse raising
- Activation of all the major movement patterns involved in lifting stuff
- Allowed the athlete/client to passively learn the skills involved in the olympic lifts.
- Get some speed and ballistic based training into the session with very little effort.

I would say a lot of people would be fairly interested.  The exercise I am talking about is maybe given away in the title somewhat I am of course referring to the Snatch.

The snatch is often included in "sports specific" programmes however anyone who has attempted to learn the lift will appreciate the amount of time and effort that goes into learning even a presentable lift never mind mastering it or getting competent.

To better facilitate the learning of the weightlifting movements so athletes can better utilise them in their speed and power training and to provide a lifting specific warm up that isn't boring as hell here is my proposed warm up stratagem.

Exercise one - Paused overhead squat - 3 sets of 5 (10 second pause at the bottom).

Use a very light weight or empty bar, start with the bar overhead standing fully erect then sit into a full squat position and hold yourself in the bottom for a count of 10.  The idea of the drill is to achieve as close to perfect positions as possible and keep the bar affixed stationary overhead.  Its a great opener for the hips and shoulders.

Exercise Two - Drop Snatch - 3 sets of 3 (paused at the bottom for 3 seconds)

Although you should be working on your speed under to practice the drill properly as with the overhead squat your position in the bottom position in the most important factor of the drill.

Exercise Three - High Hang Snatch - 3 sets of 3 (pause for 3 seconds)

Keep the bar high up your thigh/hip in at the start of the exercise.  The goal of the drill is to hit the end position of the snatch pull and then move quickly under the bar into a full catch position.  If you are coaching lifters doing this drill try keep your points short and concise as it is pretty difficult to get correct without a bit of practice and trial and error.

Exercise Four - Hang Snatch to the knee - 5 to 10 miuites doing sets of 2 (depending on time for session)

Again if you are performing this exercise use a lightish weight and perform sets of two while fresh the drill is about the quality of execution and not about how much weight you are using.  Keep the bar in close and try get into a deep squat position.

This whole routine should last between 10 and 20 minutes and will get you warm through the shoulders, hips, legs and back.  It acts as a great general mobility and flexibility work out as the positions adopted in the full snatch require quite a bit of flexibility.  You also get a chance to learn how to snatch better into the bargain.

You could maybe even use clean and jerk progressions in a similar fashion.  Whilst some people might argue this isn't an "optimal" strategy for increasing ROM and activating weak muscles it sure is a lot more interesting and will definitely get you warm!

Marc