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Thread: Some questions about power cleans

  1. #1
    Join Date
    May 2010
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    Default Some questions about power cleans

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    Yesterday I attempted to power clean for the first time in my life. Fun but I know I did not do them right, I think I was doing more of a combination muscle clean / reverse cheat curl.

    I started out doing some hang cleans with the bar, horrible, horrible. Then worked up to about 85 lbs and things started making more sense, - I cannot curl 85 lbs so it forced me to at least use some momentum / jumping. After that went back to 45 and it seemed to go better. Still:

    I know Rip says you can do this without a coach and without bumper plates, and I'm committed to getting it right. I own and have read the book, but there are some things I'm not clear about.

    #1) I know you do not lift the weight with the arms. But do the arms assist in pushing your body under the bar? If so, how do you know when you are doing one and not the other.

    #2) Is the shrug used to help accelerate the bar up, or to pull the body down under it?

    #3) Rip talks about hitting the spot on your thighs. Does this mean brush past, or actively use your thighs against the bar to bounce it upwards? This is what comes naturally but I don't think it's right.

    #4) Does anybody else feel like they should be wearing an athletic cup when they power clean?

    Won't bore you with it here but if you need to know, my training log has background information on me and my program so far.

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    Last edited by mikeylikey; 10-04-2012 at 09:19 AM.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
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    10,378

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by mikeylikey View Post
    #1) I know you do not lift the weight with the arms. But do the arms assist in pushing your body under the bar? If so, how do you know when you are doing one and not the other.
    There's generally not a lot of pushing going on in a power clean. During a clean received in the full squat, you aggressively pull yourself under the bar immediately after you jump. In a power clean, this third pull is much less pronounced, if it happens at all.

    #3) Rip talks about hitting the spot on your thighs. Does this mean brush past, or actively use your thighs against the bar to bounce it upwards? This is what comes naturally but I don't think it's right.
    The first one. There are some Oly lifters that do the latter, but it would seem to present some serious bar path problems.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
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    732

    Default

    As TomC said, the bar should brush past the thighs. I think Rip said it was an artefact of the jump/pull rather than actively banging your thighs against the bar to help it up.

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