Advise on Improving My Hang Clean

Training Powerlifting
41

[quote]RobmoriRB wrote:
I currently play university level football(CJFL). So your problem is that you want a bigger clean right? First off find a work out program because you need total body strength. With your 150lb squat, when a Lineman comes to pick you up, your going to get light up. So follow the advice that they are giving you. It will help you in the end for the season.

O an for the tackling its from the lower body power ;)[/quote].

My squat has risen from when i last posted in this thread…i rep with 185 on front squats…i already do them by now…Back squats not sure. When i tackle, i dont use a power/drive back style…i work the angle to make them go sideways…its all about the yards,so i work the angle and make try and make them fall sideways,and hold down the yards he gets after i first contact him…squats will help which is why i do them, but its not as if i need to squat as much as the back does to bring them to the ground,or anywhere near it

42

[quote]Achilles of war wrote:
Where is this semi pro league you are playing in that there are only “some” guys that squat in the 400-500 range. At my college even our SS is hitting over 500 lbs.

No idea why you are focused on a clean if you cant even squat 200. The whole “slam” part is irrelevant. This is coming from someone who played football but most importantly wrestled for 6 years. A strong back and legs lead to a stronger slam if thats what you are looking for…

At least work on front squats that will help your clean if thats truly your goal. May I ask what position you are trying to play at your weight?[/quote].

SS most likely…as for the league,your making too much out of 4-500 lbs that i mentioned,its just an estimate…but i should add that your teams SS is probably exceptionally strong for his pos. Because several nfl safeties actually can not hit 500 ive looked up some numbers…as for why i focus on the clean, as i said before its because i got good at it and want to become great…football comes 1st but cleans alone are a secondary goal of mine so to speak…as for slams, a football slam is different than a wrestling one…in football your sort of ‘working the angle’ to throw them sideways…but i agree,the squats would give me more power, to stay on my feet strong enough to slam them…however, i am certain upper body strength has alot to do with slamming somebody strongely

43

well, you may remember this thread from awhile ago…my max is now 240…I wish it had been more, but I’ve had some problems…by back healed enough to try it again in May, then for awhile I’d improve, then for whatever reason miss a few sessions…then have to get it up again…But nonetheless, its here at 240 now, so lets work with it. I do leg presses now, and I work in deadlifts…leg press I rep with about 470 right now, which I know isn’t much…but its much better than it used to be.

does push press help any with a hang clean? It will help beef up my shoulders I do know that, which will help in football since they’ll take a big bulk of the shots.

I’ve heard that more sets fewer reps per sets works well for strength training…at a max of 240, my last workout was…1 set of 4 at 225 1 set of 4 at 230 1 set of 3 at 235 1 set of 1 at 240

44

I think you are picking and choosing which advice to listen to on this site - and for the most part, you are picking and choosing the wrong advice. It is good that you are doing front squats, and adding in more leg work, but in the end you need to be working HIGH BAR BACK SQUATS. My advice is to stop hang cleaning anything over 75 % for a little while. Work up to 185 or so and do that weight for singles, doubles, triples, making sure your technique is FLAWLESS. in the mean time, test your high bar back squat 1rm. Make it your goal to get that number up 75-100 lbs. I guarantee you that if you can get your squat up 100 lbs and keep your technique nice on your hang cleans, you WILL PR the next time you test.

I am not a naturally athletic or strong person, but I have a good base of strength that I have worked to achieve. My squat is 365, and the FIRsT TIME I ever cleaned (literally first time ever) I was able to clean 235. Now I know we are different sizes, and you are hang cleaning not full cleaning, but even so I’m not too far off from your clean number, and I literally had never done the lift before. My point is, you aren’t listening to what everyone here has said - in order to be good at cleaning, you have to be strong first. Hammering cleans all the time only works when your squat and front squat are SO far above your clean max that it’s only technique that needs work.

Deaadlifts are great, but not as good as squats for the oly lifts. Leg press is a mass builder, but not as functional as squats. Front squats are awesome, but you can’t load them as heavy as you need to be loading them. High bar back squat is the lift you need to hammer to improve your overall strength. Get on a good progression and work your ass off, and in a year you will have opened up a whole new level of strength, which will allow you to actually make some substantial progress on your hang clean.

45

having a stronger squat has never ever lead to any detrimental effect to any athlete ever.

If you can clean what you clean with your squat being so low, the limiting factor is not your technique but your strength at this point. Any olympic lifting coach will tell you this. Leg and hip strength are paramount to any athletic endeavour, even if you have to use your upper body you still need your lower body as a base. If you are weak it’s a weak base you are pushing off. Literally the difference between pushing with a pool cue and pushing with a string.

46

I want to know what position this guy’s playing that he can weigh less than 170 lbs. This whole thread seems crazy to me, I feel like the term ‘semi pro’ is either being used very loosely, or the OP is delusional about his chances of making a team.

Eat and squat.

47

[quote]N.K. wrote:
I think you are picking and choosing which advice to listen to on this site - and for the most part, you are picking and choosing the wrong advice. It is good that you are doing front squats, and adding in more leg work, but in the end you need to be working HIGH BAR BACK SQUATS. My advice is to stop hang cleaning anything over 75 % for a little while. Work up to 185 or so and do that weight for singles, doubles, triples, making sure your technique is FLAWLESS. in the mean time, test your high bar back squat 1rm. Make it your goal to get that number up 75-100 lbs. I guarantee you that if you can get your squat up 100 lbs and keep your technique nice on your hang cleans, you WILL PR the next time you test.

I am not a naturally athletic or strong person, but I have a good base of strength that I have worked to achieve. My squat is 365, and the FIRsT TIME I ever cleaned (literally first time ever) I was able to clean 235. Now I know we are different sizes, and you are hang cleaning not full cleaning, but even so I’m not too far off from your clean number, and I literally had never done the lift before. My point is, you aren’t listening to what everyone here has said - in order to be good at cleaning, you have to be strong first. Hammering cleans all the time only works when your squat and front squat are SO far above your clean max that it’s only technique that needs work.

Deaadlifts are great, but not as good as squats for the oly lifts. Leg press is a mass builder, but not as functional as squats. Front squats are awesome, but you can’t load them as heavy as you need to be loading them. High bar back squat is the lift you need to hammer to improve your overall strength. Get on a good progression and work your ass off, and in a year you will have opened up a whole new level of strength, which will allow you to actually make some substantial progress on your hang clean. [/quote]

what exactly is a full clean, do you mean power clean? I don’t do it from the box position…I basically deadlift it from the floor, then I flip it. That was the lift we did back in school, and it was referred to as a hang clean so I just called it that.

Anyways, the reason I go for deadlifts is because I feel like the deadlift half of the clean is holding me back. Basically, on my last workout…240 felt heavy to deadlift, but I soundly flipped it up…then I tried 245, and I couldn’t flip it because it was very heavy to deadlift, and I didn’t have enough strength left in my arms. So, I basically did about 10 reps of a 245 deadlift, divided into 4 sets. My deadlift max is probably 285 or so is what I’d guess. But basically, I feel my clean strength has caught up to near the boundaries of what I can deadlift. I also started trying this power clean and push press combined lift…power clean it from the floor, then push it up…drop it back down, do it again.

My leg press repping has gone up about 140 pounds since I started doing it, I don’t know what my back squat is now. For the clean progress, well as I said before it has gone up and down because I kept on missing workouts(I’d get sick, something comes up or whatever)…but basically, my max has gone up probably 20 pounds since the beginning of the year…and I want to make sure it continually goes up

What exactly is a high bar back squat? Isn’t there only one spot you can place the bar, which is on your shoulders. Do you just mean a standard back squat?

48

[quote]flipcollar wrote:
I want to know what position this guy’s playing that he can weigh less than 170 lbs. This whole thread seems crazy to me, I feel like the term ‘semi pro’ is either being used very loosely, or the OP is delusional about his chances of making a team.

Eat and squat.[/quote]

size isn’t very important in the league I play in, because the line is not very significant. It is something called 8 man football, where there’s only 3 lineman. 1 on 1 tackling situations usually happen at an angle, and if you play SS where I play you may never deal with a blocker. At an angle, its very easy to bring somebody down even if they knock you to the ground, since its not square on…someone could basically destroy me, and still only fall forward for roughly 2 yards. There are guys on the team that are even smaller than me actually.

The league isn’t inferior, some guys in the league played in college or arena, its just set up different.

Ultimately, I HOPE they run at me…what I’m worried about is the speed part, if they try and juke me out.

49

[quote]rehanb_bl wrote:
having a stronger squat has never ever lead to any detrimental effect to any athlete ever.

If you can clean what you clean with your squat being so low, the limiting factor is not your technique but your strength at this point. Any olympic lifting coach will tell you this. Leg and hip strength are paramount to any athletic endeavour, even if you have to use your upper body you still need your lower body as a base. If you are weak it’s a weak base you are pushing off. Literally the difference between pushing with a pool cue and pushing with a string.[/quote]

I’m not sure why people keep saying the limiting factor isn’t my technique, I already know that. I never said anything about my technique at all, much less it being a limitation. The whole point of starting this thread was to find other lifts that could assist me in the improvement of my hang clean.

For what you said about squats, well I know full well they aren’t a limiting factor. And your right, you need your lower body as a base, but I’ve already acknowledged that. However, I’ve been told that I can’t have a 300 clean unless I squat 400 or so, which I know isn’t true. I realize that I won’t get to 315 if my squat is only at 180 or so…but if my clean outweighs my squat then there’s no way it has to top it by 100 pounds to reach 300

But I do know that at a certain point, my lower body won’t be able to handle what I’m lifting, and to prevent that from happening, I work on the legs

50

[quote]Halfspin4life wrote:

[quote]flipcollar wrote:
I want to know what position this guy’s playing that he can weigh less than 170 lbs. This whole thread seems crazy to me, I feel like the term ‘semi pro’ is either being used very loosely, or the OP is delusional about his chances of making a team.

Eat and squat.[/quote]

size isn’t very important in the league I play in, because the line is not very significant. It is something called 8 man football, where there’s only 3 lineman. 1 on 1 tackling situations usually happen at an angle, and if you play SS where I play you may never deal with a blocker. At an angle, its very easy to bring somebody down even if they knock you to the ground, since its not square on…someone could basically destroy me, and still only fall forward for roughly 2 yards. There are guys on the team that are even smaller than me actually.

The league isn’t inferior, some guys in the league played in college or arena, its just set up different.

Ultimately, I HOPE they run at me…what I’m worried about is the speed part, if they try and juke me out.[/quote]

Ahhh. I know 8 man football. You should’ve said that earlier :slight_smile:

I still think you’re undersized, and will be seriously injury prone, but whatevs. You’re the one getting hit, so it’s up to you.

As far as the squat goes, I think you’re underestimating how much it might be holding you back. You can’t say for sure that bringing up your squat won’t help you to kill it on the cleans, because you’ve never done it. Your technique has to be pretty solid with how much you’re cleaning now, so I personally feel like your base strength level is the problem. For the most part, bigger people can generally clean more weight.

51

What do you weigh now and how tall are you?

52

Ahhh. I know 8 man football. You should’ve said that earlier :slight_smile:

I still think you’re undersized, and will be seriously injury prone, but whatevs. You’re the one getting hit, so it’s up to you.

As far as the squat goes, I think you’re underestimating how much it might be holding you back. You can’t say for sure that bringing up your squat won’t help you to kill it on the cleans, because you’ve never done it. Your technique has to be pretty solid with how much you’re cleaning now, so I personally feel like your base strength level is the problem. For the most part, bigger people can generally clean more weight. [/quote]

Well, I didn’t mention it because the focus was more on the weights, figured I’d talk about the football stuff just if someone brought it up. I’ll be fine, I know how to play well in contact situations and take less punishment along the way, I did it back in high school and we had some pretty beastly dudes.

Anyways, I hear what your saying about squats. I never said it wouldn’t help, I just said that I think some people here are exaggerating a bit. Because I can say for certainty I don’t need a 400 lb squat to clean 300. However, I see your point and I am working in leg exercises. I however do believe that because of what happened last session, that deadlifts are an important part of the process, especially because its half the lift basically.

I would also like advice on the whole sets/reps thing..as well as how many times a week I should go.

53

High sets (8 ) Low reps (1-4) as many times a week as you want. Olympic lifters who are serious train their Oly lifts several days a week. Someone else already mentioned this, but this thread would have been better off in the Olympic Lifts section.

54

You need to get your legs stronger. That is the only way to increase your clean.

55

[quote]RampantBadger wrote:
What do you weigh now and how tall are you?[/quote]

5’11 155

56

[quote]flipcollar wrote:
High sets (8 ) Low reps (1-4) as many times a week as you want. Olympic lifters who are serious train their Oly lifts several days a week. Someone else already mentioned this, but this thread would have been better off in the Olympic Lifts section. [/quote]

8 sets really, I’ve never heard that before. Are you sure about as many days as you want? I’ve always been told that you need days of rest, and that the work you did strengthens your muscles on those days. I used to go every 2 days, now I go 2x a week. In school we did 3x per week…Monday,wednesday,thursday

57

[quote]Halfspin4life wrote:

[quote]flipcollar wrote:
High sets (8 ) Low reps (1-4) as many times a week as you want. Olympic lifters who are serious train their Oly lifts several days a week. Someone else already mentioned this, but this thread would have been better off in the Olympic Lifts section. [/quote]

8 sets really, I’ve never heard that before. Are you sure about as many days as you want? I’ve always been told that you need days of rest, and that the work you did strengthens your muscles on those days. I used to go every 2 days, now I go 2x a week. In school we did 3x per week…Monday,wednesday,thursday[/quote]

great lesson in the variables of intensity, volume, and frequency. if you adjust one you adjust all the others. so if you lift one day a week you can do much higher volume and intensity. if you want to lift everyday then at least one of the other variables have to come down to compensate.

the total for all 3 is related to ones work capacity. so if you want more of all of them, train your body to do more work.

58

[quote]Halfspin4life wrote:

[quote]flipcollar wrote:
High sets (8 ) Low reps (1-4) as many times a week as you want. Olympic lifters who are serious train their Oly lifts several days a week. Someone else already mentioned this, but this thread would have been better off in the Olympic Lifts section. [/quote]

8 sets really, I’ve never heard that before. Are you sure about as many days as you want? I’ve always been told that you need days of rest, and that the work you did strengthens your muscles on those days. I used to go every 2 days, now I go 2x a week. In school we did 3x per week…Monday,wednesday,thursday[/quote]

If you do 8 sets of 3, that’s 24 total reps. You think that’s too much volume? Hell, if you’re pulling singles, you could pull 15+ if you want to. And yes, I’m sure you can do it 5 days a week if you want to. I don’t particularly care what you’ve been told, my guess is you weren’t talking to olympic lifting specialists. By ‘in school’ do you mean in high school? High school strength coaches are often borderline retarded. Seriously. Google Broz gym. That’s kind of the go to example for training the same lifts every day.

59

If I may comment…the powerclean is the most important exercise for football players…that said getting your squat up and deadlift will increase your potential for a strong powerclean…you could have a heavy day where you work up to a max single then back off some and work back up to a miss again, a medium day where you work up to the rep before the rep that you missed on heavy day, and for a light day you could do about 80% singles for 10 singles on a 1 minute clock…you can train cleans a lot because its prettty tuff to overtrIn cleans

60

[quote]flipcollar wrote:

[quote]Halfspin4life wrote:

[quote]flipcollar wrote:
High sets (8 ) Low reps (1-4) as many times a week as you want. Olympic lifters who are serious train their Oly lifts several days a week. Someone else already mentioned this, but this thread would have been better off in the Olympic Lifts section. [/quote]

8 sets really, I’ve never heard that before. Are you sure about as many days as you want? I’ve always been told that you need days of rest, and that the work you did strengthens your muscles on those days. I used to go every 2 days, now I go 2x a week. In school we did 3x per week…Monday,wednesday,thursday[/quote]

If you do 8 sets of 3, that’s 24 total reps. You think that’s too much volume? Hell, if you’re pulling singles, you could pull 15+ if you want to. And yes, I’m sure you can do it 5 days a week if you want to. I don’t particularly care what you’ve been told, my guess is you weren’t talking to olympic lifting specialists. By ‘in school’ do you mean in high school? High school strength coaches are often borderline retarded. Seriously. Google Broz gym. That’s kind of the go to example for training the same lifts every day.[/quote]

Yes, I meant high school. Are you telling me this overexertion thing is a myth? Because I’ve seen it effect people. One of our coaches used to be a personal trainer and he had told us about guys who’s numbers dropped because they came in every day.