Pause to Clean Up Your Clean

Pause to Clean Up Your Clean
Written by Bryan Miller

First, a little bit of weightlifting history: The clean is called a clean because, until 1964, the lift needed to be “clean”; meaning a clean was not allowed to touch the body on the way to the shoulders. If it touched the body it was red lighted and ruled a bad lift. Fast forward to today and that rule has been changed. And because the bar can now touch your body, you are therefore able to lift more weight than you would have previously been able to under the old rule.

The bar-body collision aids in producing more power and upward propulsion. Watch any world class weightlifter and all of them will touch the bar to the body on the clean. Granted, some lifters “bang” the bar and create more horizontal displacement than others; however, that is not important in this article. The point is, they ALL establish a contact point where the barbell touches their body.

Now, a major problem I see in novice lifters is that they are impatient and attempt to start their second pull before the barbell even passes the knee. Instead, they are trying to rip the barbell off the floor and attempting to “jump” before ever pulling the barbell back into their hips. The result is that they often miss contact with their body. The result is they’re lifting far less than their potential.  

All lifters should strive to establish a consistent contact point as high up the thighs or into the hips as possible. Establishing that consistency takes time and effort, but one of the methods that I have found helpful for myself and our novice lifters is to incorporate tempo and pauses to their lifts. To remedy the problem of impatience off the floor, you may consider a slow tempo pull to above the knees, then a full pause, followed by your snatch or clean. The pause will help the lifter familiarize his or herself with the correct positioning, and will require that they keep the bar close and drive through full extension in order to maintain the required power to make the lift. For a good example of how you can use pauses at various phases of both the snatch and clean, check out the video below of Olympic medalist Dimitry Klokov performing pause reps in his training.

Paused reps are one of my favorite techniques to solving faulty mechanics; I encourage you to try them out in your training and if possible, get some video analysis from a qualified coach, or better yet in person!