Snatch Throws : Old Time Egyptian Weightlifting GPP

I read this years ago. I can’t find it for the life of me, so I’m summarizing and throwing it up :

Egypt a long time ago was a premier weightlifting nation.

Someone, American or European visited the Cairo training facilities and was invited along on an “off day” to see the non gym work.

The team packed up plates and bent barbells, traveled to a field of sand with dimensions the size of a soccer field…

Here a timer was set and during it you snatched the bar, throwing it backwards, literally throwing/releasing the bar, walked up to it, and kept doing it. Down and back. Simple…but for an hour plus.

The author realized two keys to the at the time Egyptian world records :

1. They trained to throw the bar fully.

2. They did a hell of a lot of work on the “off” days, making the gym training easy.

The first throws were max power as they were fresh and not braking it’s speed at all via snatch throws.

By continuing a reserve of power endurance was built along with a hell of a lot of work capacity.

I can see great value to this method.

While you may not be able to use a barbell, you could emulate the highland games weight for height, you could go to the beach or find a sandlot or abandoned grass field, a med ball could work, as could some form of sandbag. Rocks will do, a kettlebell, shot, even an old tire.

There’s a lot of ways this can be used.