Hang Clean
Trains the Quads.
- Equipment
- A barbell
- Mechanic
- Compound
- Force
- Pull
- Level
- Intermediate
How to do it
- Stand holding a barbell at arm's length in front of your thighs with an overhand grip just outside your hips.
- Set your back flat, chest up, and push your hips back until the bar is around mid-thigh.
- Drive the hips forward hard and extend the legs, letting the bar accelerate upward against your thighs.
- As the bar rises, pull yourself under it by dropping into a partial squat and driving the elbows through.
- Catch it on the front of your shoulders with the elbows high, then stand up.
- Lower it back to the hang under control, or set it down and reset.
Common mistakes
- Pulling with the arms early. The bar rises because the hips extended; the arms only guide it and then pull you under. If the shoulders are doing the lifting, the hips did not.
- Catching with the elbows down. Elbows high is what makes a shelf out of the front of the shoulders; elbows dropped means the bar lands on the wrists and rolls forward.
- Starting from a hang you cannot hold. This begins at mid-thigh with a flat back, and if the grip or the back cannot hold that position the movement has nowhere to start from.
- Learning it under load. The catch is a position, and rehearsing it with an empty bar is what makes the loaded version a lift rather than a scramble.