A snatch session for when your technique is ahead of your legs
Your technique is ahead of your legs. Go and squat.
Your technique is ahead of your legs, so the accessory is the point of the session, not the tax at the end of it.
The session, in percent of your snatch
| Block | Drill | Reps | % of snatch | Why it is there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Warm-up | Warm-up to squat snatch | a ladder | up to 88% | Empty bar upwards. Not optional, and not the place to save four minutes. The empty bar first, then the rungs coaches commonly call out, stopping below the main lift's working percentage. |
| Primer | Hang snatch, above the knee | sets of 3 | 53.1% | Lower to the top of the knee and go from there. No floor to build speed with, so the hips have to actually do something. |
| Main lift | Squat snatch | singles | 88% | The whole lift, floor to overhead, caught in the bottom. Everything else on this list exists to make this one heavier. |
| Accessory | Snatch deadlift | sets of 3 | 90% | Slow, snatch grip, holding position the whole way. Builds the back that holds everything else together. |
The percentage is of your squat snatch, not of the drill: each drill's working weight is a share of its own usual band against your snatch. These intensities are conventional coaching margins, reasoned from practice and not fitted to anybody's data — a starting point, and the bar in front of you is the authority. How many sets each block gets depends on the minutes you have, which is what the calculator below is for.
Load it for your max and your minutes
Type your snatch and the session is loaded in plates. It runs in this tab — nothing is sent anywhere.
When you are short on time
The session is cut to the minutes you have, never stretched past them. When it does not fit, the accessory (Snatch deadlift) goes first, then the primer (Hang snatch, above the knee). A block that cannot get two working sets is dropped rather than done once, because one set of anything is a gesture. The warm-up and the main lift, Squat snatch, are never dropped: a session with no warm-up is how people get hurt, and a session with no heavy lift is not why anybody came. Whatever is cut, the session says so.
Is this yours?
Two numbers will tell you. The ratios that point here when they are out of their band:
- Snatch to back squat ratio · 0.58–0.68
What usually sits behind it, from the inside:
- Cutting the finish
You are diving under before the pull is done. Misses are forward and the bar never gets high enough to be easy.
- Ripping it off the floor
It is fast to the knee and then nothing is left. The chest comes up first and the bar chases it.
Or tell the planner your snatch and the lifts you already know, and it names the one actually capping your squat snatch and writes its session. A lift you have not tested is left out rather than guessed. There is nothing to sign into.
Read all my numbers in the planner →
Film the main lift
Film one squat snatch and the camera reads it for the faults on this page, in this browser tab — the video never leaves your device. Anything it says about the bar is the path of your wrists: the detector sees hands, not a barbell.
Film the main lift and the camera reads it →