ALL ABOUT THE POWER CLEAN

Welcome to a new post about Olympic movements. In today's post, we will talk about the correct execution of the exercise known as "Power Clean", the muscles involved in this execution and the most common mistakes that are usually made.

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As we already know, in all the variants of these exercises it is essential to have an excellent technique before introducing a lot of weight into our workouts, so if you are thinking about starting to train through these movements, make sure you have a good technique and if possible, that a qualified person corrects you and assures you that you are doing it correctly. This movement, like almost all these movements, is a movement that works practically the whole body in a great kinetic chain. These exercises are used to work mainly strength and power.

Next, we tell you how to execute correctly the technique of this exercise, which can be divided into 4 phases:

• Phase 1:
• Opening of the feet as well as the width of the shoulders.
• Grip of the hands slightly more open than the width of the shoulders.
• Almost 90º knee flexion.
• Straight and firm back.
• Head upright.
• Phase 2:
• Strong impulse with the legs through a fast extension of the knees.
• Arms do not exert force, only the movement of the bar continues to be extended.
• Important to maintain scapular retraction (shoulders back, pulling out chest).
• Phase 3:
• Place the body under the bar, when it reaches the maximum height.
• Elbows forward.
• Bar rests on the deltoid and clavicle.
• The weight is cushioned by bending the knees forming the angle necessary to reach the height of the bar.
• Straight back.
• Phase 4:
• We end up standing up through the extension of the lower extremities.
• Arms and bar remain in the same position.

Once the execution has been carried out, the bar must be lowered and there are two ways of doing:

1. Lower the bar to the hip and then to the floor flexing your legs, without forgetting to carry your back straight.
2. Release the bar from the last position and move away. If the floor where the exercise is performed is of the right material for releasing the bar, it is advisable to release it, since when considerable loads are moved, it is difficult to lower the bar the other way.

On the other hand, as we have already mentioned before, it is a movement that involves practically the whole body, although we can find greater activity in the following muscle groups:

• Hip flexors.
• Hamstrings.
• Quadriceps.
• Deltoids.
• Trapezium.
• Gastrocnemius.
• Rectus abdominis.
• Quadratus lumborum.

Next, we leave you a video that we hope will help you to observe the correct technique of this exercise.

See you in the next post.
May the force be with you!

REFERENCES

Badillo, J. J. G. (1991). Halterofilia. Comité Olímpico Español.

Blaya-Haro, F., San-Pedro-Orozco, P., Juanes-Méndez, J. A., Morales, L. T. G.-, Franco-López, Á., & Rodríguez-Montes, J. A. (2016). Modelo geométrico y matemático aplicado a la biomecánica de la región lumbar en atletas de halterofilia. Journal of Negative and No Positive Results, 1(6), 201-209. https://doi.org/10.19230/jonnpr.2016.1.6.1075

Cometti, G. (1998). Los métodos modernos de musculación. Recuperado de https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/libro?codigo=241742

Díaz, J. E. Q. (2008). La técnica de los ejercicios de fuerza. Sport Training Magazine, (20), 38-43.

Newton, H. S. (2006). Explosive Lifting for Sports-Enhan(Enhanced edition). Champaign, Ill.: Human Kinetics.