Strength Training Programs: The 7 Most Common Power Clean Technique Mistakes

Written on March 22, 2012 at 8:20 am, by Eric Cressey

In response to my article, The 7 Habits of Highly Defective Benchers, I had a few reader requests for a similar article on power clean technique.  Fortunately, I knew just the guy to write it for us: my buddy Wil Fleming.  Wil did a tremendous job writing up the International Youth Conditioning Association Olympic Lifting Course, and he shares some of his knowledge along these lines with us below. 

I had the unbelievable good fortune of learning to Olympic lift under the guidance of a former Olympian and a couple of national team coaches. Unfortunately, many athletes learn how to do the Olympic lifts from a coach who hasn’t had that type of training.

As a result, the power clean may be the single worst looking lift in most weight rooms.  Seriously, I know you can picture it.

Walking into many high school weight rooms, and you’ll invariably see some kid who has WAAAY too much weight on the bar getting ready to show off what he thinks is pristine power clean technique.  He’ll roll it around for a minute on the floor, then muscle it up and catch it in a position that makes you wonder how he has so much flexibility in his adductors (history in gymnastics?).

I am by no means the most explosive athlete; in fact, I definitely wasn’t at one point, but I learned from the best.  And, just as importantly, I learned to not make some of the mistakes that plague athletes trying to do the power clean.   Let’s look at some of the most common ones.

Power Clean Technique Mistake #1: Missing too many lifts

I actually had a coach recently tell me about his plan for having athletes max out. It went like this.

“Well we put about 15-20 lbs more on the bar than the athlete can do and then have him try it. He usually misses it, then we do that same thing again. Once they miss it a second time, we drop about 5-10 lbs and try it a 3rd time.  Sometimes they get it.”

Wait, what?

Exactly.

The sad part is that I think this is the mode that a lot of athletes get into when training. They think that just a basic overload in the lift is a good thing.

In truth, the power clean is a really complex pattern and overload isn’t always rewarded; technique is rewarded.  If you train knowing you are going to miss lifts, you are…drumroll here…going to miss lifts.

Something I learned – and something I instill with my athletes – is that missed lifts are a part of training, but they are not a consistent part of training. You’ll learn far more by completing lifts than by missing lifts.

Power Clean Technique Mistake #2: Starting from the floor when you can’t make it there in good position.

Is a power clean a power clean if you don’t start from the floor?

This is a mistake that I see all too often and with serious consequences.  Athletes are told and made to start from the floor with the power clean when in truth they have no ability to get down to the start position and maintain any semblance of structural integrity.

The true start position for the clean is uncomfortable, to say the least.  It requires hip mobility, ankle mobility, thoracic spine mobility, and tremendous trunk stability.  Most athletes are lacking in at least one of these areas.

Lacking the mobility and stability to actually achieve these positions means that an athlete will default to easier patterns to get to a bar resting on the ground. Typically, this will mean that they will achieve the movement from lumbar flexion, and then the cycle of back injuries occur.

As you can see in the photos below, this isn’t a position that you often see in the local high school weight room. (Photo Credit:  http://nielpatel.blogspot.com)

Fortunately – especially in young athletes – working to improve mobility in each of these areas can help tremendously in getting lifters in the right position.

In the meantime, just beginning the lifts from a slightly elevated (but static) position (A low block or another bumper plate) can help athletes get into a start position that does not include lumbar flexion.

Power Clean Technique Mistake #3: No consistency in the start position

In any movement – from a golf swing to a bench press – we preach consistency. The pattern that we create time and again is the one to which we will default when the going gets tough.

The power clean is no different, but if I walk into most weight rooms and training facilities, I see something entirely different.

Roll the bar around for a minute, hop up and down, roll the bar around some more and LIFT!!!

“But wait, I do three rolls every time, so my pattern is the same.”

The approach to the power clean should be the same every time you approach the bar.  Early on in training, I sought to eliminate inconsistency by crouching by the bar before beginning the lift.  Still, I found difficulty achieving a consistent position in my lift off from the floor.

My training really took off when I took a three-step process to get the bar in my hands.

1, Cover my laces with the bar, brace the core and lock in the lats.
2. RDL to my knees.
3. Squat to the bar.

The first step is really about verifying that I have the proper relation to the bar and that my body is prepared to maintain a stable position throughout the lift. Keeping the bar close to the body on the initial lift-off will allow for the most efficient bar path while maintaining the right position.

Making an RDL movement to the knees allows my hips to be behind the bar. Getting the hips away from the bar will allow the hips to remain loaded throughout the lift.

Squatting to the bar maintains a consistent torso angle down to the start position, meaning that on lift-off the shoulders will remain forward of the bar.

With this three-part pattern, I am able to guarantee that I, or any athletes I coach, make it to the start position consistently.

Power Clean Technique Mistake #4: Pulling the bar too fast off the ground.

Lots of weight on the bar? Only one way to pull it: HARD. Right?

Not really.  The first pull off the ground is all about maintaining consistent position and gaining momentum into the second (more aggressive pull).

As a beginning lifter, I don’t think that there is any mistake more common than pulling too fast off the ground.  Speed is king in the Olympic lifts and coaches preach it from day one.

There is only one issue. A bar that is moving too fast will inhibit an athlete’s ability to make an aggressive second pull.

Think of it this way: If a car were driving past you at 90 miles per hour and you were asked to push on the bumper to make it go faster, you would have very little time to improve upon the speed of the car and therefore have no effect on its acceleration.

Imagine the same car moving past you at 5 miles per hour.  If you were to push on the bumper of this car, you could greatly improve its acceleration and velocity.

The same is true with the Olympic lifts. Pulling too fast before reaching the mid-thigh will make your second pull much less effective.

Power Clean Technique Mistake #5: Pulling around the knees

This is another really common problem among novice lifters.

The bar trajectory off the floor should be back. Struggling with this is pretty easy to do because the overall “feel” of the power clean is straight up.

The bar must always start in front of the center of gravity (on the floor away from the hips), and the first pull should be used to align the bar with the center of gravity.  Aligning the bar even more to the front of the center of gravity is a common problem that leads to a lot of missed lifts and poor catch positions.

If the knees do not go back on the first pull, the athlete will be misaligned forward of the toes in the above the knee position and not be able to put the full power of hip extension into the lift.

Power Clean Technique Mistake #6: Not finishing the Second Pull

Pretty early on, some athlete that you train will realize that the lower they can go to catch the bar, the greater likelihood they will have in being successful in catching the lift.

Not finishing the second pull (the fast pull) from the mid-thigh upwards means that the athlete did not reach full hip extension and did not close the gap between their body and the bar.

Not reaching full extension with the hips is a big no-no because it is the primary reason that athletes do Olympic lifts in the first place.  Explosively pulling on the bar to hip extension in the point right?

The Olympic lift happens fast, and as coaches we can miss things like this.  Assuming you don’t have Superman vision, the easiest way to spot this problem is watch for an athlete jumping forward in the catch.  A complete hip extension will result in the athlete catching the bar in the same position on the platform or slightly behind the starting position. Jumping forward is the red flag for an incomplete pull.

Power Clean Technique Mistake #7: Catching the bar like a starfish

The starfish is a magnificent creature, but it likes to spread its appendages all over the place, and that has no place in the power clean.  And, we all know that we have seen a starfish in the weight room before.

We talk and talk about the force production that is such a valuable part of Olympic lifts, but equally valuable is the force absorption that must occur at the moment of the catch.

When an athlete catches like a starfish they are putting themselves in a position that will lead to injury.  If this pattern is the reaction to absorbing a stress on the body, then I really fear the moment when they come down from a maximal effort jump in competition.

So, do yourself a favor and don’t allow any starfish appearances in the weight room.

Conclusion

Try as we might, some of these things will always occur when you have people doing power cleans. Eliminate the majority of the problems and you will have people safely pulling a lot of weight, fast.

About the Author

Wil Fleming, CSCS, is a member of the International Youth Conditioning Association Board of Experts, and co-owner of Force Fitness and Performance in Bloomington, IN.   To learn more about Wil’s teaching system for the Olympic lifts, be sure to check out the IYCA Olympic Lift Instructor Course. To follow him on Twitter, click here.

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Bench Press Technique: Should You Keep Your Feet Up?

Written on March 16, 2012 at 8:52 am, by Eric Cressey

A few weeks ago, I published a blog, Are Pull-ups THAT Essential?, that was the single most popular in the history of EricCressey.com.  One particularly important point I made was that chronically driving the scapulae into depression with overuse of the lats could lead to various injuries in lifters and athletes.

In the comments section after the article, one reader had a great question along these lines: Isn’t benching with a big arch and cueing “down and back” with the shoulder blades during a bench press the exact same thing?  Shouldn’t the feet be up on the bench to get people out of extension?

I think it is a similar thing, but not the exact same thing.  And, I am not a fan of bench pressing with the feet up on the bench.

Before I get into the details of why, though, we should make an important differentiation between “gym” bench press technique and the bench press technique used by competitive powerlifters in competition.

In competition powerlifting bench press technique, the goal is to shorten the range of motion of the bar while maximizing leg drive.  Putting yourself in a big lower back arch and tucking the feet up under you more is the way to do this.  Additionally, equipped powerlifters wear bench press shirts that pull the shoulder blades forward, and the humerus into extension past the body.  Accordingly, the lifter has to consciously pull the shoulder blades down and back to counteract this tension and not jack up the anterior aspect of the shoulder.  After about 20 minutes of searching my laptop, I found this old video of me from 2005 when I was a legit 165-pounder (you can tell by the ostrich legs).  Notice the big arch and how much upper back involvement I needed to “fight” the shirt (and, for the record, I was never good at using the shirt…hated those things):

The Average Joe doesn’t need to worry about these factors when he’s lifting in the gym; he just needs to figure out what gives him the optimal set-up to stay healthy and still benefit from the exercise.  Still, I think we can learn a few things from the powerlifting approach.

First, I’m not convinced that such substantial loads for the upper body alone are a good thing. There are smaller joint structures and more mobility than stability than we see in the lower body, which can handle far greater loads. Sharing the load with the lower body tends to better distribute overall training stress.  Bringing the feet up on the bench takes this away.

Second, folks are more likely to go into excessive humeral extension (elbows pass the body) in the bottom position with a “sunken” chest. So, they either jack up the anterior aspect of the shoulder there – or the elbows flare out and we deal with a host of other stability issues.

Third, in standing, we actually have a “normal” lordotic curve.  I think it’s optimal to maintain this lordotic curve on the bench rather than take it away completely.  Core stability isn’t about cranking someone into excessive extension or flexion; it’s about learning how to maintain neutral.  A “middle of the road” approach like the one in the videos below is fine for most lifters (you’ll notice a slight arch is even more important on the close grip bench press, as there is a greater tendency for humeral extension past neutral when the hands are closer together):

Fourth, there is something to be said about learning from very strong people and their experiences.  We learned about how bracing was far superior to hollowing in terms of core stability by simply looking at world class squatters and what they did under insane loads.  Along these same lines, you simply don’t see world class bench pressers with the feet up and shoulder blades winging out. The flat back posture shifts guys into an abducted scapulae position from the get-go – and it becomes excessive at the top of the press. Internal rotation with protraction closes down the subacromial space and can cause increased rotator cuff impingement as well.  A similar thing actually happens when guys have to lift off the racks to themselves to start the lift, and it’s one reason why I always recommend getting a bench press handoff.

Fifth, you have to appreciate that the amount of time spent in scapular depression and lumbar extension (if you are even past the point of “neutral”) is relatively trivial.  If this position provides some extra stability, and doesn’t take place for long enough to yield chronic adaptations, I’m all for it.

Hopefully, this brief overview explains why I don’t like to have the feet up with bench press technique.  If you’re looking to learn more, I’d encourage you to check out Mike Westerdal’s new resource, Bench Press Explosion.  It features some outstanding bench press technique advice, as well as 18 different bench press specialization strength training programs.

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