Clean from Blocks
Trains the Quads.
- Equipment
- A barbell and lifting blocks
- Mechanic
- Compound
- Force
- Pull
- Level
- Intermediate
How to do it
- Set a loaded barbell on blocks at the height you want to pull from — commonly knee or mid-thigh.
- Stand with the bar over the middle of your feet and take a clean-width overhand grip.
- Set your back flat, chest up, and take the weight without the bar moving.
- Drive the hips forward and extend the legs explosively.
- Pull yourself under and catch the bar on the front of your shoulders.
- Stand up, then return the bar to the blocks rather than the floor.
Common mistakes
- Bouncing the bar off the blocks. The start is a dead stop — the blocks exist to remove the momentum a floor pull has built by that height.
- Setting the blocks by what is available. The height decides which part of the pull is being trained, and knee-height and mid-thigh are different exercises.
- Rounding the back to take the bar. The start position is a flat back at that height, and a block height you cannot set up to is the wrong height.
- Dropping the bar back onto the blocks from the shoulders. Blocks are not built to be landed on from overhead; the bar is lowered, not released.