[quote]ronaldo7 wrote:
Airtruth wrote:
Power cleans are an excellent exercise
There are about 3 exercises you can do to replace the power clean.
You have 5 minutes in the gym, do you do 1 set of 3 exercises or 3 sets of an exercise equivelent to 3 exercises?
Nearly everybody says OL lifts are not worth the injury risk for beginners… they’re right. The powerclean is not an olympic lift. I would not recommend a snatch, or clean and jerk, possibly not even a clean. but a power clean yes.
If you want to replace them with rows fine but it doesn’t hit the back the same way. If your starting off choose one for a cycle then choose another or do them on two seperate weeks to see if theres any difference for you. What’s 2 weeks in a life time of training?
What do you mean by clean and power clean?..do you mean clean as in Squat clean?[/quote]
Usually when people say Clean it’s implied that it’s a Squat Clean.
Clean = Squat Clean
Power Clean = Power Clean : Catch above parallel and not ridden down below parallel
[quote]deadlift425 wrote:
It builds USEABLE, FUNCTIONAL muscle compared to some exercises. Remember, beyond a certain point, strength is useless without power!![/quote]
How is the shrugging portion of a power clean any more “functional” than a barbell shrug? Here we go again…
IMO the biggest benefit of the power clean is going to be the increase in motor unit recruitment and neurological efficiency which will add to the amount of weight you will be able to lift in other exercises such as the squat and deadlift.
[quote]PB Andy wrote:
deadlift425 wrote:
It builds USEABLE, FUNCTIONAL muscle compared to some exercises. Remember, beyond a certain point, strength is useless without power!!
How is the shrugging portion of a power clean any more “functional” than a barbell shrug? Here we go again… [/quote]
you know, for all the times you need to explosively lift an object off the ground and rack it on your shoulders…
There’s less time under tension and volume of tension on power cleans than most “non-explosive” lifts, so they might not induce as much hypertrophy as other lifts. However, the explosive nature of the clean would probably get you more efficient at firing high threshold motor units. This would probably have some degree of carryover to your non-explosive lifts. Also, I’m pretty sure the type II muscle fibers controlled by HTMU’s have the most potential for hypertrophy, so becoming more efficient at recruiting them would increase your potential for muscle gain.
However, that’s all a bunch of hyper-analytical stuff that hurts people’s brains. Practically speaking, I think that the power clean is a good lift - when performed correctly. In my experience, most people have a tough time performing the movement properly. If your power clean looks more like a deadlift combined with an “extreme reverse curl”, I’d say that it’s not worth your time.
[quote]challer1 wrote:
PB Andy wrote:
deadlift425 wrote:
It builds USEABLE, FUNCTIONAL muscle compared to some exercises. Remember, beyond a certain point, strength is useless without power!!
How is the shrugging portion of a power clean any more “functional” than a barbell shrug? Here we go again…
you know, for all the times you need to explosively lift an object off the ground and rack it on your shoulders…[/quote]
But we are talking about building muscle here. This was the OPs original question.
My traps and upper back exploded when I started doing cleans.
But as a side note, this was when I started training competitively in O Lifting. So we would be cleaning, snatching, clean deading, snatch dead, snatch pulling, etc. etc. So tons of upper back and trap recruitment 6 days a week.
So yes power cleans will put on muscle. Better than heavy deads and shrugs? well that’s debateable.
[quote]deadlift425 wrote:
It builds USEABLE, FUNCTIONAL muscle compared to some exercises. Remember, beyond a certain point, strength is useless without power!![/quote]
How is strength useless compared to power if you want to be strong?! It depends on what you want to focus on.
Lets see anyone here post up a video of them PC for reps and see how the form is. As long as the form doesn’t go to complete sh!t and get you injured it’ll be fine.
I’m willing to bet a lot of guys will have okay form that doesn’t get themselves injured, but how desirable is this?!