MAP

July 26th, 2010
by randy

“The Clean”

The King of All Exercises

Were it not for the snatch, the clean would have but laughable challenges to the title “King of All Exercises.” Oddly, we start our examination of the clean with mention of the snatch. We do so in order to early, and only once, offer the observation that many of the superlatives attributed to the clean apply equally to the snatch. Clearing the air early with admission of the snatch’s peer status, we can speak more freely of the clean’s unrivaled qualities and need not repeatedly suggest the snatch’s possible exception to the clean’s peerless qualities.

Mechanics

The clean is a pure bit of functionality. The clean is simply pulling a load from the ground to the shoulders where frequently the object is being readied for lifting overhead. With the clean we take ourselves from standing over an object pulling it, to under it and supporting. (Compare this to the muscle-up where we take ourselves from under an object to supporting ourselves over it.)

In its finest expression the clean is a process by which the hips and legs launch a weight upwards from the ground to about belly button height and then retreat under the weight with blinding speed to catch it before it has had the time to become a runaway train. The movement finishes with the hips and legs again working by squatting the weight to full extension.

The speed and force with which the clean (and, yes, the snatch) drives loads give it developmental properties that other weight training movements cannot match. Deadlifts, squats, and bench press will never approximate the speed and force and consequently the power required of a clean at larger loads and for this simple reason, while important movements, are not the clean’s peers. Power is that important.

Developmental Qualities

The clean builds immense strength and power but this is only the more obvious part of the clean’s story. (This complex movement actually contains within itself two princely exercises – the deadlift and squat.) The clean is unique among weight training exercises in that it demands extraordinary athleticism beyond strength and power.

Experience coaching the clean will show that a lack of sufficient speed and flexibility are common impediments to learning the clean and that refinements in coordination, accuracy, and balance are the biggest obstacles of all.

The clean requires and develops enormous strength, flexibility, power, speed, accuracy, agility, coordination, and balance. The movement is as complex and nuanced as any movement in sport and can only be improved, never fully mastered.

At high reps, especially when fused with the push-jerk, the clean becomes a powerful tool for developing vitally important functional cardiorespiratory endurance and stamina.

There’s no part of your physical development that can’t be positively impacted by developing and improving your clean. The benefits to strength, flexibility, power, speed, accuracy, agility, coordination, and balance are directly proportionate to the load you can clean and the benefits to your cardiorespiratory endurance and stamina are directly proportionate to the reps and load you can clean.

THE

CrossFit Journal

IN THIS ISSUE:

1

July 2003

Application

The clean is as complete as an exercise can be, trains for super useful core to extremity motor recruitment patterns, and trains and conditions for imparting large and sudden forces. It is “golf swing” or “baseball pitch” complex yet accessible to all who want to learn it.

Fortunately, you need not develop marked technical proficiency at the clean to harvest from its broad and potent athletic offering. In fact, errors in the clean’s execution may actually increase many of the demands of the movement at any given load, so that the more trouble you have developing a good clean the more benefit practicing and training it deliver.

Finally, the clean is a gateway exercise to the clean and jerk – one of the two Olympic lifts. The clean and jerk continues the clean’s journey from ground to shoulders with a second, powerful, whole body movement, the jerk, which sends the load overhead.

It is the combined movements, the clean and jerk, that at high rep protocols simultaneously improve all ten general physical skills associated with physical training. Learning and working towards mastery of the clean is well justified by this application alone.

Set-up and Preparation

Ideally you’d like to acquire a training bar and plates to learn the clean. The rig above is Bigger, Faster, Stronger’s fifteen-pound “Aluma-lite” bar and five-pound training plates. The entire setup comes in at only twenty-five pounds.

It is all too common for beginners to practice with too much weight. Typically, when learning the clean the lighter weight seems to fly around erratically. In an attempt to control the movement the athlete often wants to pile weight on the bar. All this accomplishes is to mute the effect of some of the errant movement, which serves only to mask errors in technique.

If you cannot perform the movement consistently and properly empty handed or with a broom- stick your progress will come to an early screeching halt with weight. When that happens your faults can only be diagnosed and corrected back at training loads, which is tantamount to starting over. Don’t waste your time by being in a hurry to lift large loads.

If the training bar and plates is out of your budget you can make a training rig from PVC pipe and plywood. World Class Coaching’s videotape on the clean, “The World’s Most Powerful Lift”, features homemade lightweight training bars and plates.

Taping and Chalking

Taping the wrists will help with the discomfort in the racked position. The thumb is also taped to keep the skin on it while using the hook grip. Use cloth athletic tape.

Chalk up with gymnastics and weightlifting chalk (magnesium carbonate) available from most sporting goods stores.

2

July 2003

Hook Grip

The hook grip will greatly add to your lifting capacity. Though uncomfortable, if not painful, initially, with practice the hook grip will feel perfectly natural.

Push your hands down hard on the bar then reach around the thumb with the index, middle, and ring finger trapping it against the bar. The pinky, unable to reach over the thumb stays wrapped around the bar.

Depending on the size of your hand, you may or may not be able to get your ring finger around the thumb.

With a load, the bar does not stay in the hand but hangs from the fingers. The hook grip may eventually increase your clean by 50% or more!

Stance and Hand Placement

The starting stance for the clean places the legs and feet directly under the hips. This stance is slightly narrower than a squatting stance but keeps the forces on the hip to a minimum.

The chalk outlines, above left, show foot outlines of both the starting stance and the “catching” or squatting stance. The starting stance is forward and narrower than the catching stance.

The hand position is wide enough to keep the arms from interfering with the legs while pulling from the ground.

Ultimately your hand position will be determined by adjusting the grip so that the bar hits the explosion point where you’ve maximum capacity for hip and leg extension. More on this later.

Dave Leys, above right, is in the starting stance. His feet are in the inside chalk outlines seen to the left. When he drops under, he’ll land in the outer, rearward outlines.

3

July 2003

The Rack

Notice in the picture to the left that the weight is sitting squarely on Dave’s chest and shoulders with his elbows pointing forward. This posture, called “racked”, is critical to weightlifting and demands and improves wrist and shoulder flexibility.

Practice the rack with a moderate load on a squat rack. Reach out for the bar pushing the shoulders and chest up and out, and then step under the bar resting the bar in the channel formed by the chest and shoulders. The hands grip is compromised with several fingers possibly coming off the bar; that’s O.K., the hands are only babysitting the bar.

With the bar racked on the shoulders lift it from the squat rack with the legs just several inches exposing the shoulders, chest, and wrists to the posture.

With regular practice anyone can learn to “rack” the bar and even arrive at acceptable levels of comfort with the position. Without this technique your clean’s development will be unnecessarily and dramatically limited.