Unracking the clean

[std01108]

Hello Mr Rippetoe,

you mention many times the dangers of the non-straight elbows thing in the pull. Is unracking the clean without dropping the bar, as in your instructive video, equally dangerous for an elbow injury? Probably you wouldn't teach it if it was, but for example, should a person with bicep tendinitis try putting the bar down like this? Also, when you drop the bar, do you still use a hook grip?

Many thanks for reading.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Do you mean unracking the bar and catching it at the hang?

[std01108]

Yes.

[Wyjowe]

Doing exactly this has hurt my bicep tendon before, maybe I was doing it wrong but it has prevented me from doing heavy PC´s.. I´ve really got to move to a city with a real gym.

[Mark Rippetoe]

It's not dangerous if you do it correctly, obviously. Once again, what do you think we did before bumper plates? You have to learn to catch it on straight elbows without any eccentric row-action. Or just use bumper plates and drop the bar correctly.

[z3nrunn3r]

I have trained the p-clean with no bumpers up to 225lbs with no I'll effect on the arms. I have watched videos and personally seen in excess of 350 get cleaned and unracked before being gently set down. Kinda resets your perspective of strong pretty quick.

I prefer to unrack to a hang with everthing but a limit full clean because it seems to really hit the traps hard (my traps have been SORE from this in the before.)