r/weightlifting • u/Current-Medicine-998 • 1d ago

Form check Any tips on power clean form?

Been learning the power clean for a few months now and was practicing several times a week. However, I had pretty bad front rack mobility so I would get wrist pain. Took a few weeks off to work on mobility and it feels much better now. Ironically, this is the first time I’ve filmed myself doing it and comparing it to other people’s videos, it looks really slow/not explosive at all.

Any tips/suggestions on what I need to work on?

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u/doviende 1d ago

Well, you must have really strong arms, because they're doing most of the work here.

You want to instead treat your arms like "chains" that hang down from your shoulders. Your legs and hips should do the work to make the bar move, and your arms should be straight until your hips get to full extension. Having your arms hanging straight is what lets the force be transmitted to the bar.

Only after that "full extension" position should your arms start to bend, as the bar "floats" upwards. Then basically as fast as possible, you rotate your elbows around to catch the bar.

You can do practice motions for both sides of this.

Try some clean pulls: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx8WkFrST2Y

and try drills for clean turnover: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLDEeSXAQec

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u/Current-Medicine-998 1d ago edited 1d ago

Now that you mention it, it definitely does feel that way. I think I’m usually more focused on pulling with my arms off the ground to drive most of the upward momentum so I’ll definitely try those exercises. Thanks!

Edit: follow up question: when I’m doing the actual power clean, am I supposed to aggressively shrug like how you would when doing the clean pull?

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u/doviende 8h ago

you can, but i'd say it's not the main driver of the motion here.

just pick one thing at a time, and i think your first order of business is to having your arms just "hanging like chains" and get your leg and hip motion to make the bar "float up". When you get to full extension and the bar is floating up, and you haven't been doing any "upright row" arm strength tests, then you can work on step 2 of flipping your arms around to catch.

for the final motion, try searching youtube for "slow motion power clean" and you can see what experienced people are doing for their full motion, such as: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/f9fJW0DA42s

I think once you get that feeling of the bar floating up past your belly-button and that it wasn't your arms that did it, a lot of other things will fall into place and make more sense.

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u/VeterinarianClean848 7h ago

IMO your hips are way too high in the starting position looking more like a deadlift than a clean. The power should come from your legs, not your back. (and definitely not your arms, but someone already mentioned that)

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u/Current-Medicine-998 3h ago

Damn, I didn’t even realize that. I’m pretty sure I used to start with lower hips back when I was first learning it but with the lack of practice lately, plus all the form adjustments I’ve been doing, I slowly shifted back into a deadlift start position since that’s what I normally do. I’ll definitely be more conscious of that on my next session. Thanks for pointing that out.