How to Do Power Clean & Its Benefits

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December 30, 2021

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Power clean is a strength training exercise that targets various muscle groups of your body. Usually, strength training exercises hit only one or two types of muscle groups but power clean is famous for working on almost all major muscle groups.

Benefits of the Power Clean

Here is a list of some power clean benefits that you get by adding the exercise to your workout at home:

Increases Your Full Body Strength: As we already touched upon, power clean lift targets a large number of muscle groups in your body. It strengthens your quadriceps, deltoids, core, triceps, hamstrings, glutes, lower back muscles, trapezius, etc.
Improves Your Vertical Jump Ability: Many sports require high vertical jumping or what is called explosive power. Practising power clean exercise regularly will improve your jumping power and the ability to lift heavy weights.
Makes You Better At Clean Techniques: Power clean is not the only clean exercise. A few other examples of clean exercises are Barski clean, Block clean, Block clean pull, etc. Power clean lift can help you get better at your clean technique and do these exercises easily.
Help You Burn Calories: If you decrease the weight and increase the number of reps, power clean will act as a weight loss exercise. The fat will get burned and lean muscles will replace those fats, giving you an aesthetically pleasing look.

How To Do Power Clean

If you are impressed by its benefits, you should definitely learn how to do power clean. If you focus on the technique, you will be better able to reap the health benefits of this exercise. Down below, we have jotted down the perfect technique to do a power clean. The power clean workout is broken down into five phases so that you can learn the technique easily.

1. Strong Stance

Maintaining a strong stance is important so that you do not hurt your back or drop the weight. To make a strong stance you will have to stand straight with your feet at a shoulder-wide distance to each other and distribute your body weight evenly on the ground through soles. Engage your lats to keep your back tight and maintain good body posture while lifting the weight.

2. First pull

Keep your hips low and ensure that they do not come up quicker than your shoulder while lifting the weight. Push the floor by putting pressure through the heels. Keep the arms locked and knuckles facing the floor. Your elbow should slide along your thighs. Maintain this position until the barbell touches your thighs.

3. Second pull

This is the part where you drive your hips forward with high intensity. Focus on the drive of your hip instead of hitting the bar. By doing so, you will transfer your kinetic energy into the bar. After that, you will have to pull your elbows to the maximum height and then start the process of catching the barbell.

4. Catch the bar

If you practice it with the right technique, a clean will feel similar to a front squat. Once the bar reaches a level above your hips, you have to get yourself into the front rack position. After that, catch the barbell with the help of your legs. The moment the barbell becomes too heavy for power clean, you will have to engage your lower body and use the core strength. That is the point where you realize why front squats are essential for every clean exercise. Now, stand the barbell up, keep the knees and chest up, and move with full force.

5. Bar path

While dropping the barbell on the ground, you have to make sure that the process is smooth and fast. Keep the weight closer to your body so that you can bring your shoulders and the barbell together. Turn out the elbows and drive forward and up. By now, you should be in the rack position. If you miss the front rack, you might also miss the lift.

Power Clean Variations

Your power clean workout needs not to be monotonous as you can do the following power clean variations:

Power Clean And Jerk: If you want to challenge your muscles a bit more, you can add a jerk movement while doing the barbell power clean and put the barbell overhead.
Dumbbell Power Clean (Also Called Db Power Clean): A traditional barbell or kettlebell power clean focuses on various muscle groups simultaneously. However, if you want to focus on a particular muscle, you can use a single piece of equipment like a dumbbell and practice the “dumbbell power clean”.
Hang Power Clean: This variation is a little more challenging than the traditional barbell power clean. To practice the exercise, all you have to do is start with the barbell in a hang position, a little down the pelvis region.

Precautions And Safety Points

A powerful strength exercise like the barbell or DB power clean needs to be performed with the right technique or you might end up doing more harm for your muscles than good. Here is a list of some precautions and safety points to keep in mind while practising power clean exercise:

Do not assume a wider stance to feel more stable. It will put extra pressure on your thighs.
Not engaging your core while lifting the weight might lead to pain in the back.
The main purpose of power clean is to increase your strength, not increase your heartbeat. So, do not increase the reps of dumbbell power clean to more than five.
If you have any type of injury in the back, lower body, joints, shoulders, you should avoid barbell or kettlebell power clean until you completely recover from the injury.
Always start power clean with lightweight plates such as 10-pound plates or even less than that.

Conclusion

It is true that there are a lot of power clean benefits but mastering the exercise is also not easy. It is important to practice this exercise with the right technique. But once you master the technique and start practising the exercise regularly, it will become a one-for-all exercise of your strength workout.

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