Hey guys, trying to teach myself the power clean. I haven’t had any advice from somebody who actually knows how to, I’ve just watched youtube videos and tried to be mindful while lifting. I got somebody to record today so here’s what it looks like.
My power clean is far from great, but here’s what I noticed:
-The bar is moving away from you as you pull. Once it hits your knees, it should be coming closer, not drifting away.
-You’re doing more of a curl motion than a catch. The idea is to move your body around the bar, not the other way around. Maybe practice front squatting with a clean grip, and practice catching with an empty bar until you get the hang of it.
You are trying to explode the bar up too early and not popping your hips. See in the video where the bar moves a few inches away from your torso if you pause it around 0:05. The explosion of the bar should occur closer to your hips instead of just above your knees.
Practice with hang cleans to get a feel for this part of the movement. Focus on feeling the bar always touching you when going up and make sure to explode with the hips to drive the bar upwards, not forwards. Once you get a feel of the proper hip drive start to do the full PC with proper hip drive.
Keep your shoulders over the bar and wait for the bar to reach the top third of your thigh before driving hips in (elbows turned out/pronated throughout pull, aids bar path and pull under). Maybe try some RDLs to help staying over.
Thanks a lot for the input everyone! I’m definitely trying to pop the bar up to early, I’ll focus on that and I’m seeing the bar drift away from me as it’s going up.
Question on the hip/knee angles. Can somebody clarify how the timing of the hips and knees differ from a traditional deadlift? Cause at the moment I’m starting the lift like a traditional deadlift, keeping the knee and back pretty well synchronized.
I’m sure I’ve seen a great article or 2 specifically on this but can’t find one now…
One of the major differences is that in olympic lifting you must keep the shoulder directly over/above the bar until very late/high up in the second pull phase ie you should be able to draw a vertical line from shoulder to bar until the bar is near the top of the thigh AKA staying over. In a deadlift the hips are usually lower, trunk more vertical etc. The reason being that the objective of the olympic pull is to impart enough speed to the bar to allow you to get under as opposed to simply standing up eg line of most power v line of least resistance. Another key feature is double knee bend.
Here’s a good article on pulling by Sean Waxman
http://www.pendlay.com/A-Technical-Description-of-the-Pull-in-Weightlifting_df_103.html
Going back to your original question, in olympic lifting it’s more about shoulder and hip rising together eg get set and keep your chest up until the bar reaches top third of thigh then explode!
I’m just going to add PUT SOME FREAKING SHOES ON!!! You do not compete without shoes, so there’s no reason you should be lifting with no shoes.
As to your lifts, like people said, you’re on the balls of your feet and you stay forward the entire lift. You need to get bock onto your midfoot towards your heels and go straight up. Also, you’re tucking your hips when you go under the bar forcing your knees much more forward than they should. Lastly, your feet are not moving, they are staying glued to the floor, of course this could be because you’re in your socks and will slip and fall on your butt if you move your feet, so see my first sentence above. You can’t develop max power if you keep your feet glued to the floor.
Keep the bar close to your body instead of bumping it outwards. Also, whats with all the no shoes oly lifting recently? I swear every other video in this forum the past month has somebody without shoes.
[quote]akmcsnarfy wrote:
Keep the bar close to your body instead of bumping it outwards. Also, whats with all the no shoes oly lifting recently? I swear every other video in this forum the past month has somebody without shoes.[/quote]
I was noticing the same thing, hence the frustration!! 