[4] Burgener started out her sporting career as a gymnast, until she was encouraged to take up weightlifting by her father Kirk Woolfolk, a strength and conditioning coach at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

At the age of eighteen, Burgener moved from Maryland to Colorado Springs, Colorado, to work and train as a resident athlete at the U.S. Olympic Training Center (USOC), under her head coach Zygmunt Smalcerz, gold medalist for the flyweight division at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, representing Poland.

Following her further successes in weightlifting, Burgener qualified as a member of the U.S. national team for the 2007 Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where she captured the bronze medal in the same division, with a total of 213 kg (98 in snatch and 115 in clean and jerk).

[1] The two became engaged after competing for their respective classes at the 2007 World Weightlifting Championships in Bangkok, Thailand, when Casey proposed to her while on a sightseeing tour from the back of an elephant.

[1] Following her fiance's huge disappointment, Burgener qualified for the women's middleweight category (63 kg) at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, along with her teammate Carissa Gump.