Power Clean failure mode?

[zls]

Hey friends,

I've noticed that as I power clean more weight, getting into the proper rack position is more difficult. I tend to fail and catch some of the weight with my arms.

Is this an expected failure mode for power clean as weight increases, and these should count as missed reps? Or is my technique flawed?

In other words, should I keep cleaning at my current weight, counting failed racks as failed reps? Or should I drop the weight significantly to work on my technique?

[Kyle Schuant]

This is said without seeing a technique video, which is what we really need:

Try dipping as you catch the weight. As the weight gets heavier, it doesn't come as high. This is why at weightlifting competitions you'll see them drop into a full squat or split. So you can dip a few inches and you'll probably catch it.

Again, a technique check is what we need. But this is what it smells like to me.

[hollismb]

Try dipping as you catch the weight. As the weight gets heavier, it doesn't come as high. This is why at weightlifting competitions you'll see them drop into a full squat or split. So you can dip a few inches and you'll probably catch it.

This reads like you're telling him to start turning the power clean into a regular/full/squat clean, by getting better at getting under the bar, as opposed to pulling the bar the same height every time. From the good book of Rippetoe, chapter 6, verse 2:

Likewise, the power clean is the version of the clean without a split and without a front squat. The power clean therefore requires more "pull" in that the bar must travel higher as a result of the explosion, without moving the body to drop under the bar....

...The faster the bar comes up, the higher it will go, because the faster it is moving, the more inertia it possesses. The heavier the weight, the harder this is to do. So, the better the lifter is at accelerating the bar, the more inertia he can impart to the bar and the more weight he can clean.

As a corollary, a lifter can clean more weight if he can get better ad getting under a bar not pulled as high. This is the purpose served by splitting and squatting: they both shorten the distance the bar has to be pulled by allowing the lifter to jump under the bar in a lower position. Since our purpose is sports conditioning - not cleaning heavy weights per se, but rather generating as much upward explosion as possible - we will use the power version of the lift.

So, with that in mind, and assuming you have good technique without seeing a video, the fix will be to concentrate on 'jumping harder', to start focusing on the shrug to help pull the bar higher, and learn to rack the bar faster so that your elbows get forward by the time the bar hits your shoulders. There's a few tips in the book speeding up the rack, which involve some cues like 'hit the bar with your shoulders' or 'think about stomping' to make the rack happen more quickly.

[zls]

I guess my question is even more basic than "how do I fix it". I'm wondering whether it's a known way of missing reps that just happens to people when the weight is heavy and they're tired, or whether I've misunderstood the movement in some fundamental way and this should never happen. If it's the latter I can definitely take a video.

As an analogy, if I posted "my squats sometimes turn into goodmornings, is this expected," the answer is "no, you should never ever curve your back even when you fail".

[hollismb]

Ultimately, how much deviation from 'perfect' you're willing to accept is up to you, but I'd say, if it came off the floor and ended up resting on your shoulders with you standing upright, it counts as a rep, shitty or not.

[Kyle Schuant]

I didn't tell him to squat, i told him to dip. The two are not the same, as people who've done SS are constantly noting in the gyms when they watch others "squat".

[hollismb]

What happens the next time the weight gets heavier and doesn't come as high? Dip a few more inches? Where does it end?

An extra 'dip' of a few inches is really just an additional partial squat component ('additional' because we already land with bent knees), and the difference between a partial squat and a full squat is one of degrees (several in the case of your average gym-bro, as you pointed out). But, in the power clean, they serve the same purpose, which is to shorten the bar path by emphasizing 'getting under' the bar, which reduces the height the bar has to be pulled, and therefore the amount of power required to complete the lift.

Since we're using this version of the lift to train power in an incremental fashion, we should be encouraging that he pull the bar a few inches higher, not drop a few inches lower.