Athletes who want to get faster and stronger, it’s time to learn how to do the power clean! It pumps me up to see a group of athletes at BFP power cleaning barbells and hearing the noise of the barbell crashing to the ground with chalky high fives everywhere. Sorry, I went off on a tangent. Anyways, this is personally one of my favorite lifts and I especially love to coach it to beginner athletes. When teaching the lift to a beginner, there are checkpoints that person needs to hit before I give them a bar, so upfront I always let them know it requires patience and practice on their part. Everyone usually understands, but once they get past the learning curve and put in the time, it’s a great lift to make them a better athlete.

I HAVE 4 BENEFITS AS TO WHY YOU SHOULD LEARN HOW TO DO THE POWER CLEAN!

1. One important aspect the power clean develops is triple extension. I tell athletes this and I usually get a confused look on their face, so I then follow up with, “It’ll make you jump higher.” Which is usually is a training goal for most athletes. Triple extension refers to the joints of the ankle, knee, and hip all extending simultaneously. This action needs to be FAST and EXPLOSIVE!

2. The power clean will help build power! Well, isn’t power the same as strength? Well, technically no. It actually is a combination of strength and speed together. That’s why this lift is perfect for developing power because you need to move the weight quickly in order to hit the lift. You cannot do a power clean slow, it’s impossible, therefore you have to be fast.

3. The power clean will build strength you never thought you had. Seriously though, the power clean will strengthen the entire body. It especially targets the posterior chain, which includes the back muscles, glutes, hamstrings, and calves.

4. The power clean will help build coordination. For those of you that know how to perform the lift, I bet when most of y’all started to learn the power clean, it probably felt awkward, am I right? Well, your body had to learn a new movement and over time you probably noticed it started to feel smoother and you were able to lift more weight. Well, that is because the coordination of the movement cleaned up (no pun intended). Since this lift requires a lot of skill to accomplish, your body will learn to sync muscle and movement even better hence making you a more rounded athlete.

I don’t care what sport you play, power cleans can help improve your overall performance. If you have restrictions and such, there is still a way to do achieve success doing a variation of the power clean. Just make sure you have a coach who knows how to coach this lift because it requires a lot of technique and a qualified coach knows what to look for so you don’t get hurt.

By the way, if you are interested in learning this lift, we are hosting a workshop at BFP this winter teaching the basics of the clean. This is a great opportunity for athletes to have a qualified coach go over technique and drills to improve in this lift. Find out more by getting in contact with us!

Thanks,

Coach Silas