Power Clean Trajectory

Here’s a great little video that tracks the line of travel of the barbell and the athlete’s body through space on a power clean.  Notice that our featured athlete’s arms are straight and relaxed throughout the initial movement.  She “jumps” the bar completely with her legs and once the bar lofts from the momentum of the jump, she then gets her elbows around and catches it in a front rack.  Notice that her feet actually leave the ground with her arms straight and that she is completely extended in the air before she gets her elbows around  to catch the bar in a front rack.  Watch the trajectory of the bar as she jumps it off the ground.  This is how the trajectory of your lifts should look like when you do power cleans, whether you’re going light or heavy- especially if you’re going heavy.  It kills me to see some of our athletes muscle up the bar up with a reverse curl- often more severely when they’re going heavier.  Even if you make the clean, you’re just reinforcing bad mechanics.  Your form should be consistent and if you can’t lift heavier with good form just practice or do your WODs with lighter weight.  That’s why it’s called “The hard work of slow progression”.   It will pay off in the long run and you will be less likely to get a shoulder or elbow injury!   After all, you’ve heard the cliche, “practice makes permanent“- that is, it will be much harder to fix later the more you do it the wrong way!  If you’re going for the squat clean, you may not be able to jump the bar quite as high, but it still comes up in a straight line.  You  just have to get under it faster.  The technique is essentially the same.

 

I had Roger take a look at the video.  He commented that the hips are a little high to start the lift.  (I used to and sometimes still do my lifts like this, more from a dead-lift starting position.  I think it’s helped some now that I start in a deeper squat.)  He also noticed that her head cranes up at the initial position and mentioned that the cervical vertebrae should be in line with the thoracic vertebrae and that her jump is a little high, but I think that’s due to her performing the clean with a weight that is rather light for her.  Can you spot any form breaks?  Post thoughts, cues or compliments to comments.