I was doing this exercise this morning (power) and felt that as soon as I really start to go heavy I start to break form. How I usually train is pick a weight I know I can do 3 sets of 5 with, next workout I up the weight and try and do 3 sets of 5 again, I keep increasing the weight until I can no longer do 5 reps on all 3 sets and work with that until I can.
Squats, bench, weighted pullups, etc that technique has always worked wonders for me in increasing strength. But power or hang cleans has always been harder to do this, it feels as if I am starting to break form, not every rep is the same.
One way I was thinking about doing it is just keeping the weight the same for a bit but really focussing on using speed and power to lift the weight, not over doing it just to complete the rep.
How do you guys usually go about increasing the weight on these kinds of lifts, does it come easier for you then your other lifts?
I basically just up the weight if I can. I maintain good form because I worked with lighter weights for a while before going heavy. Also, Olympic grip front squats helped.
Still, I up the weight until I can barely finish the reps. But to you, I would say that technique is much more important than weight.
You could probably benefit on varying your reps a bit more. Doing 5 reps all the time will not work forever. Try doing everything between 1-5 reps. Instead of upping the weights all the time you could try building the reps.
Take some weight that you can do 2 reps easily then go like this (use the same weight for all sets and workouts):
1st workout: 6 sets of 2 reps
2nd workout: 5 sets of 3 reps
3rd workout: 4 sets of 4 reps
4th workout: 3 sets of 5 reps
After this increase the weights and start the cycle all over again. You can also do every other workout 5x5 if you power clean twice per week for example.
This is not the only way to progress…there are many other ways to go as well. The point is to vary reps and weights more.