Starting Strength, 3rd Edition - Mark Rippetoe [117]
Learning the Power Clean
The power clean is best learned from the top of the pull, down. This means that you will first learn the technique of catching, or “racking,” the bar on the shoulders, so the emphasis in your mind is on the rack position from the beginning. When you are learning the power clean, remember that speed becomes important at the top of the pull, not off the floor. The lower part of the pull, from the floor to the mid-thigh, gets the bar in the correct position for the explosive movement that racks the bar, and this lower part must be done correctly, not quickly, at least at first. From the middle of the pull on up, the movement must get faster, but this cannot be done correctly if the lift has not been started from the floor correctly. By learning the top of the power clean first, and worrying about getting it down to the floor later, you assign the correct priority to the most important part of the pull. After all, the first part of the power clean is essentially a deadlift, which you already know how to do. When you have learned the top of the pull, we will slide down, a little at a time, into a deadlift, making the transition from half a power clean to the whole thing.
The empty 20 kg (45 lb) bar will be correct for most people to comfortably learn the movement with, but some smaller kids and women might need a lighter bar, such as a 15 kg women’s competition bar or an even lighter shop-built one. There is no point in adding weight to the bar at first, because you are learning the movement only. It doesn’t make sense to learn this movement without a bar, as you do with the squat, because to do a clean, you need a bar to provide some resistance for the elbows to rotate around. A broomstick or a piece of PVC pipe is too light to have sufficient inertia to stay in place during the turn, and learning with PVC is an excellent way to introduce bad arm habits from the very beginning.
Foot position will be the same as for the deadlift, and similar to the stance for a flat-footed vertical jump or a standing broad jump: place your feet 8–12 inches apart, with your toes pointed slightly out.
Figure 6-6. The basic stance for the clean is the same position used for a flat-footed vertical jump.
This is the stance that allows you to apply maximum power to the ground and begins the process of convincing you that the power clean is really a jump. You will have to reset your stance before each rep, because after the jump, your feet will land in what is essentially a squat stance.
Figure 6-7. The difference in pulling stance (A), from which the clean begins, and the racking stance (B), essentially the same as the squat stance, the stable position the feet will reflexively seek after breaking contact with the ground.
Now that you have the correct stance and an empty bar of the right weight, you will learn the hang position, the rack position, and the jumping position, in that order.
Learning the hang, rack, and jumping positions
First, the position at the top of the pull, with the bar in the hands at arms’ length and with straight elbows, straight knees, and chest up, is referred to as the hang position (Figure 6-8). Get into the hang position by taking the EMPTY bar off the floor with a correct grip and deadlifting it. The correct grip for most people will be about 2–3 inches wider on each side than the grip they use for the deadlift. The power-clean grip is wide enough to let the lifter’s elbows freely rotate up into the rack position, to be described shortly, and will obviously vary with shoulder width. Later, we will learn the hook grip, but for now, a normal thumbs-around, or double-overhand, grip will be fine. Your eyes will be looking at a spot on the