The Power Clean
by Lance Lacoste
"The Power Clean is a key exercise (for athletes) because it trains the muscles to work in an explosive manner as a single unit." - Gayle Hatch
At no point during athletic competition does an athlete use just one single muscle. Therefore, when training athletes it is important to train the muscles to produce explosively using the entire body. For these reasons, the Power Clean is of the best weight room exercises when training athletes.
The Power Clean is the best simulation of on-field play that any weight room exercise can offer. The reason for this is that the Power Clean is a total body exercise that combines explosiveness and flexibility all into one exercise. This exercise is not a test of strength, but a sheer test of the amount of power an athlete can apply while maintaining flexibility and discipline to maintain good technique. These aspects of the Power Clean are why it is of the most popular lifts in all of sports.
Throughout the Power Clean, the lifter maintains a very athletic position which carries over to the playing field. The lift is a triple extension lift of the hips, knees, and ankles. These joint extensions are the same joint extensions used to jump, tackle, block, or even swing a baseball bat. Therefore, the movement of the Power Clean is directly training the athletes to produce on-field power.
The Power Clean is a multi-joint exercise based around power and the ability to apply force. Those who are good at the exercise are not always the strongest athletes but the most explosive athletes. It has been found that those who Power Clean well are also great runners and jumpers. The Power Clean is a great tool to use in order to teach athletes how to apply large amounts of force using the entire body. Those athletes who are trained properly to Power Clean will simply have learned how to produce more force using more muscle fibers than those who are not trained to Power Clean. In addition, this exercise teaches athletes how to correctly apply force from the core of the body to the extremities.
The Power Clean also teaches an athlete how to accept large amounts of force while producing large amounts of force. Most exercises have an eccentric phase and a concentric phase. The concentric phase of an exercise is when the muscles shorten to generate force. The eccentric phase of an exercise is when the muscles elongate while under tension due to an opposing force. The Power Clean begins with a concentric phase then goes to an eccentric phase, and then back to a concentric phase to finish the movement. These phases are very quick and reactive and can really be applied to athletics. These quick movements really test an athlete's coordination while training the central nervous system.
Another variable of the Power Clean is flexibility. The most important factor of the Power Clean is good technique. In order to demonstrate proper technique, the athlete must have good flexibility. The Power Clean stresses great flexibility of the ankles, hips, knees, and wrists. Therefore, over time the athlete will possess a greater amount of mobility in these joints which is extremely valuable when attempting to make some of the necessary athletic on-field movements. Also, this type of flexibility and mobility will reduce the risk of injury.
In conclusion, the Power Clean is the ultimate exercise for any power-driven sport. Those athletes who commit themselves to mastering the Power Clean are giving themselves a great advantage during competition as they will be equipped to apply maximum total body power.
Reference List
Works Cited
- Rippetoe, M. (8/06). The Power Clean. The Crossfit Journal .
- (AgainFaster.com, 2006)
- Mior, Ian (7/25). How They Do It?. The Queensland Weightlifting Association Journal.
- Waxman, Sean (10/06). "The Hang Power Clean: Become an Explosive Machine by Mastering the Superior Power Move". http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0801/is_10_67/ai_n16776859/
- Gayle Hatch
