The barbell clean is a lift we often perform in CrossFit. It involves taking load from the ground to the shoulders and finishing with the knees and hips locked out.
The clean is a dynamic lift that requires speed, coordination, and strength. It is a great movement for improving power output and overall fitness and is often included in our CrossFit workouts.
Power vs squat Clean
In a full clean, the weight is caught at the bottom of a squat, with the hips below parallel. To catch the weight low, the full clean requires good mobility in the hips and ankles, and it relies on a strong front squat to raise the weight.
In a power clean, the weight is caught with the hips above parallel. While a power clean needs the bar to travel higher than a full clean (and therefore needs more power), it is a less technical lift, so the power clean variation is often taught first.
Power cleans and full cleans both have their benefits and if your goal is to get better at CrossFit, it is worth it to practice both variations.
And even if your goal is overall fitness and wellness, the clean is a movement that can help you achieve these goals. Cleans can be a full-body movement when executed correctly.
Plus, once you have your technique dialed in, cleans are just a fun lift!
The front rack and mobility
In this article, we will discuss ways to improve your clean. A large component to improving this lift will be our mobility, specifically the front rack.
If you have not spent much time with the barbell on your shoulders in the front rack position, odds are you find it uncomfortable. We want to change that, as the better our front rack is, the more we can support the weight on our entire frame rather than just our arms. Stretching out our front rack will involve loosening our lats, shoulders, and forearms.
To see some excellent stretches for the front rack, check out this article by Movement Enhanced.
In addition to these stretches, we need to stretch our front rack with a barbell. Hold a barbell at your shoulders and alternate, pushing one elbow through, then the other. Hold each for 15 to 30 seconds. Then, push both elbows through, getting the bar as close to your shoulders as possible. You can perform 5 – 10 slow and controlled presses here, focusing on elbows staying in front of the bar.
You can also place the bar on your back and, once again, alternate pushing one elbow forward and then the other.
Every time you use a barbell, get a front rack stretch in, and spend a decent amount of time with it. The more comfortable you become with a barbell sitting on your shoulders, the more ready you will be to catch a clean and perform a good lift.
Front rack mobility isn’t the only thing we need to work on. We also need to work on ankle, hip, and back mobility. A great place to start would be improving your front squat. The more comfortable you are there, the better your cleans will feel.
If you want a more in-depth guide on clean mobility, check out this article by BarBend.
Drills for the clean
Before working on specific drills for the clean, we can always go back to the basics. Work on your mobility, front squats, and deadlifts until you feel comfortable with the mechanics of those movements. Once you do, we can progress to some drills for the clean.
Clean Pulls
Clean pulls isolate the first and second pull, focusing on developing power and reinforcing proper bar path. They are a great drill for creating power in the pull, as well as keeping the bar close and drilling a full hip extension. For a clean pull, start how you would a normal clean, and be sure to brace your core and lats. Lift the bar like a clean, and once you reach mid thigh, explode up, thinking of driving your head into the ceiling. Keep the arms straight through the lift, then lower the bar back to the ground.
Muscle Cleans
Muscle cleans are another great tool for emphasizing hip drive while improving the turnover phase of a clean. A muscle clean is performed similarly to a clean pull; this time, we turn the arms under the bar, catch in the front rack, and keep the legs straight. This drill will also help us keep a close bar path while ensuring a quick turnover.
Hang Power Cleans
Hang power cleans are a good movement to continue drilling the fast extension of the hips and improving timing before going to the full clean. We can start hang power cleans anywhere above the knee. As you do your hang cleans, be sure to pass through the power position, keeping the bar pulled in close to the body and not letting it bounce outward.
There are many other drills out there to improve your clean and other Olympic lifts, but starting with these (and keeping up the front squats and deadlifts) will improve your cleans. You can utilize more power in the lift, become more efficient in your workouts, and notice increased coordination, balance, and overall fitness. Many of these drills do not need to be performed as heavy as possible. In fact, empty barbell work can be very beneficial to drilling the movement of the bar and will transfer over to heavier work.
If you want to improve your clean, step back from the heavy weight and drill the mechanics. You can keep the weight heavy in your squats and deadlifts, but take time to prioritize the lift when doing clean work in group classes.
