Power Clean
Trains the Hamstrings.
- Equipment
- A barbell
- Mechanic
- Compound
- Force
- Pull
- Level
- Intermediate
How to do it
- Set a loaded barbell on the floor over the middle of your feet, stance about hip-width.
- Take an overhand grip just outside your legs, back flat, chest up.
- Lift the bar keeping it close, with the torso angle steady through the knees.
- Drive the hips forward and extend explosively as the bar passes the thighs.
- Pull yourself under and catch the bar on the front of the shoulders with the hips above parallel.
- Stand tall, then lower the bar to the floor under control or drop it if the platform allows.
Common mistakes
- Catching below parallel. The power version is defined by receiving the bar high — if you are sitting into a full squat, it has become a clean, which is a different lift with a different weight.
- Pulling early with the arms. The bar accelerates from the hips; the arms only redirect it.
- Letting the bar swing away from the body. A bar out in front has to be dragged back before it can be caught, and that is where the back takes it.
- Choosing it as a general strength lift without the coaching. The pull is trainable on its own — clean pulls and shrugs — and the catch is the part that needs teaching.