Speed Under The Bar During The Clean

One of the keys to making a heavy clean is getting under the bar quickly. 
Provided you pull the bar high and close enough, being confident and having the ability to drop under the bar will stop the bar crashing or worse yet, just high pulling the weight and feeling like you just can't possibly drop under only to then look back at the video and see you had more than enough height on the bar.

Two exercises that can help you develop a feel for how to pull under a heavier bar are tall cleans and hip cleans. 

1. Tall Cleans
These are a speed drill that teach you the skill of getting under a low bar and putting the brakes on at the right height. Your intent should be to stand on the ball of the foot with the legs locked out and move the bar about an inch or two up by shrugging, then drop under by pulling your knees up hard and throwing the elbows up into the front rack as fast as you can! 

2.Hip cleans 
The hip clean helps you gain confidence to pull a heavy bar close and fast and drop under it with confidence. This is a good movement to help bridge the gap/connect the dots between the tall clean and the clean from floor.

A good way to maximise the benefit of these two movements is to use them in the same session as so: 


Tall Clean x 5 x 5 reps 
The weight can be very very, VERY light for this. The aim is to move under the bar and catch it just above full depth, throwing the brakes on and then sinking into the hole and standing up.

Hip Clean 
For technique: 50-60% of your best clean for triples focusing on the same thing as above, catching and pausing just above full depth then dropping down all the way and standing up.

For strength: to focus on developing strength and developing more confidence under heavier loads you can either try to chip away at some singles and doubles at 85-90%, or max out. 

Come Train With Me

If you want help working on your weightlifting come check out the club sessions and programming at Built Differently Gym in Tottenham, all the details you need to find out more are here > Club Sessions and Programming <