I recently added the clean and press as the pressing movement for my shoulder work. I love it, but I’m not sure if it is suited to my needs. I’m mostly looking for hypertrophy, which is generally acheived best through high time under tension. My question is, should I be doing the clean and press as an explosive movement, or should I slow it down to increase the TUT? I’m thinking that the clean should be quick, because I could see it turning into some sort of shrug/reverse curl mutation if I slow it down. Any thoughts? Thanks in advance, RM.
DO NOT SLOW CLEANS DOWN! They should be as fast as possible. They’re an explosive lift and that’s the only way to do it. But just because they’re dynamic doesn’t mean that they’re worthless. They heavily recruit the hamstrings, glutes, quads, lower back, upper back, trapezius, rear deltoids. Remember that the hamstrings are fast-twitch and respond best to short burst of activity and would therefore get a great workout from cleans. I’d recommend doing 'em once a week, on leg day(the hip-dominant day if you have one), do them first in the workout, try 3-4 sets of 3 reps(never do more than 6 reps), with about 2m of rest, if you’re new to 'em then keep the weight light for the next month or so, work on speed and technique. If you got questions feel free to ask.
Where can I get a “howto” so to speak on how to do clean and presses?
Like Nathan said, there’s no such thing as doing a clean slowly. Yes, time under tension will be short, but the tension will be very high from lifting explosively. You can do the press portion with longer TUT if you like.
the press is a front military press, do with it as you want.