Starting Strength, 3rd Edition - Mark Rippetoe [118]
Figure 6-8. The hang position. Note the straight elbows, internally rotated, and that the lifter’s chest is up, eyes are looking slightly down, and feet are in the pulling stance.
In the hang position, your arms will be internally rotated, placed in that position with the same motion used to pronate the grip. This movement is used in the hang position to start the process of learning to keep the elbows straight, one of the most important, and apparently one of the hardest, things to learn about the clean. Get in the habit early of snapping the elbows into this position every time to begin the process of the clean.
Figure 6-9. In the hang position, your reminder for straight elbows will be rotating them internally. Make sure they stay in this position anytime the bar hangs in the hands.
The next step is to get the bar onto the shoulders. From the hang position, with the correct-width grip, get the bar up onto your shoulders, any way you want to right now. It should sit right on top of the frontal deltoids (the meaty part of the front of the shoulders), well away from the sternum and collarbones. This position is referred to as the rack position (Figure 6-10).
Figure 6-10. The rack position, with chest up and elbows pointed forward.
The key to this position is the elbows: they must be up very high, pointed straight forward, with the humerus as nearly parallel to the floor as possible. Some people will have trouble getting into this position due to flexibility problems. A grip width adjustment usually fixes this, especially if the forearms are longer than the upper arms. Widen the grip a little at a time until the position is better. If your elbows are up high enough, the bar will clear the bony parts and sit comfortably on the bellies of the deltoid muscles. The bar should not be sitting in the hands, and the hands are not supporting any of the weight. The weight is resting on your shoulders, and your hands are trapping it in position between your arms and shoulders, just like they do in the squat. This position is secure and pain-free to the extent that you will never in your entire life clean a weight that will be too heavy to hold like this. It is imperative that you understand that this is where the bar goes and not anywhere else – not sitting on your chest, and not just carried in your hands. You must not stop with your elbows pointing at the floor (Figure 6-11).
Figure 6-11. The incorrect elbow position places the elbows directly under the bar and places the weight of the bar on the arms and wrists instead of on the shoulders.
Figure 6-12. The cure for incorrect elbow position. To fix the problem of lifting your elbows after an incorrect rack, you can lift them (or have them lifted) repeatedly enough that initially catching the bar in the correct position becomes reflexive.
Lower the bar by dropping it down the chest and catching it at the hang position. This means that you do not reverse-upright-row or reverse-curl the bar down to the hang position – you actually drop the bar and catch it. Some people actually let it slip from their grip before they figure this out. Just catch the bar at the hang, with no attempt at all to lower it with the arms. This step teaches two important things. First, the bar path in a clean must be as close to vertical as possible for physical efficiency, and when you drop the bar down from the rack position close to your chest, you are practicing the vertical bar path on the way down that you will use on the way up. If you un-curl the bar to put it down, you are pushing it away from the vertical balance line; dropping the bar close to the chest keeps it directly above the mid-foot. Second, the arms do not interact with the weight during a clean – what makes the bar go up is the jump, not your arms performing an upright row (perhaps the most unfortunate exercise ever invented, for several reasons). If you learn immediately that the arms do not either raise OR lower the bar, you will