Why are Power Cleans important?

What would you say, if there is one exercise that makes you stronger and more powerful, improves technical development and improves your ‘go – for – it’ attitude?

Maybe the Power Clean could be your answer.

why are Power Cleans important for athletes involved in strength and power sports
why Power Cleans are important for technical development
(another aspect that people don’t know) how power cleans can help the psychological or mental aspect

Why a Power Cleans are important for Strength and Power?

Power Cleans can make you more powerful once you have mastered the Power Clean Technique. I have referenced that in previous articles

that the mastery of the Power Clean technique should be the first step, before loading the Power Clean up and attempting to lift heavier and heavier weights.

How does the Power Clean make you more powerful?

Power can be defined as the ability to express force in the shortest period of time or Power is the product of Force and velocity (Power equals force multiplied by velocity) , for more in-depth information have a look at the articles

The Power Clean works both variables, force, and velocity. Force, because you will be able to lift heavy loads and velocity because you are required to lift the weight fast and accelerate the bar upwards and get under the bar fast. In fact, the more advanced you are, the more your ability to accelerate the bar will become the limiting factor.

Another point, that is often overlooked is, that the high eccentric forces in the catch phase might lead to a shift in fiber types towards more fast twitch fibers.

Why are Power Cleans important for technical development?

The Power Clean combines various fundamental movements in a unique way. It requires and teaches, hinging and bending, the triple extension, squatting and triple flexion.

If we go through it step-by-step, the triple extension teaches you how to express force and power, which is important for all activities related to running, jumping, hitting, kicking or throwing.

The triple flexion and squatting teaches you how to absorb forces, which is important for all activities related to landing, decelerating and changing direction.

I want to mention and put things in perspective, that just by doing Power Cleans you won’t automatically be better at changing directions, running, jumping, hitting or kicking, but betting better at Power Cleans will lay the right foundation to improve all the other skills I have just listed and will give the opportunity for a greater scope of improvement.

Why are Power Cleans important to improve the mental or psychological aspect?

On first sight, it’s not really obvious how the Power Clean can improve the psychological aspect. I have elaborated on that in more depth in the article The Ultimate Guide to Power Cleans

In a nutshell, this is an often overlooked aspect of the Olympic Lifts and its derivatives such as the Power Clean or Power Snatch, that it requires full commitment to the exercise. The nature of the Power Clean, as well as the Power Snatch, requires you to maximally accelerate the bar and then quickly get under the bar to catch and receive it (have a look at the different phases of the lift here How to do a Power Clean).

The moment you have to get under the bar to receive the bar you need to do that with full commitment and conviction, there is no time for doubts or hesitation. No wonder the BMX guys I am training are the best to do that because the nature of their sport requires that attitude anyway.

But it can also work the other way around, and I have seen that multiple times, that the action of committing to the lift has made athletes gutsier and they grew from this challenge.

Concluding Why are Power Cleans Important

Power Cleans train Power effectively by working on the force production as well as the speed expression. Power Cleans help the technical development since they uniquely train a variety of fundamental movements and Power Cleans to improve the psychological aspect since you have to commit to the exercise and go at it in order to master the lift.