Non-Olympic Lifter Wanting to Learn

Hey everyone, I’ve been lifting for a couple of years now and would really like to begin adding hang/power cleans into my routine, particularly hang cleans as i’ve read that those are the easiest to pick up on in terms of technique.

My question is how should i progress??Meaning, at what point can i start adding weight? I’m primarily interested in strength training with some muscle gain and train 3x a week on a push/pull/legs split, which i’ve been getting good gains off of. I plan on doing hang cleans on all 3 days. The main thing i wna know though is is absolute perfect technique still a huge deal for the guy who has no intention of competing in oly lifting, when it comes to making good strength gains?? I’ve been watching vids of guys doing power cleans lifting 300+ on youtube, and their form is far less than stellar, but they’re still pretty strong for non oly-lifters.

This leads me to believe that you can still make good gains from week to week as with any other lift if you eat and lift well without getting too much into the technicality of it all. What’s your guys’ view?

[quote]MCG101 wrote:
Hey everyone, I’ve been lifting for a couple of years now and would really like to begin adding hang/power cleans into my routine, particularly hang cleans as i’ve read that those are the easiest to pick up on in terms of technique.

My question is how should i progress??Meaning, at what point can i start adding weight? I’m primarily interested in strength training with some muscle gain and train 3x a week on a push/pull/legs split, which i’ve been getting good gains off of. I plan on doing hang cleans on all 3 days. The main thing i wna know though is is absolute perfect technique still a huge deal for the guy who has no intention of competing in oly lifting, when it comes to making good strength gains?? I’ve been watching vids of guys doing power cleans lifting 300+ on youtube, and their form is far less than stellar, but they’re still pretty strong for non oly-lifters.

This leads me to believe that you can still make good gains from week to week as with any other lift if you eat and lift well without getting too much into the technicality of it all. What’s your guys’ view?[/quote]

Good technique is essential from an injury prevention standpoint. Sure you can see poor form all over the internet, but you have to ask yourself ‘can you relate to those athletes?’ Meaning a good athlete can get away with crap form because they are already naturally strong, explosive, and well…athletic. If you are not naturally strong, explosive, etc. then you need to work on technique to put up the same amount of weight.

Relatedly is the issue of cause and effect. If someone is doing the lifts with atrocious form and still putting up a fair amount of weight, odds are they were already strong to begin with and that theyre not getting much out of the lifts.

I guess there are degrees of technical competence. It would be good to do the movement in a way that won’t result in injury. Like how losing your lumbar curve when deadlifting is a bad idea. It would also be good to do the movement in a way that it trains what it is supposed to. Like how it is generally a pretty good idea to use hip drive on hang powercleans since one of the virtues of the exercise is that it will get you a more powerful hip drive. I guess there are different degrees of paticular-ness that one can have beyond that… One probably doesn’t need to go too overboard in order to get good gains from the exercise, though.

I think the answer to your question is in your question. Your goal is in general getting stronger and adding some muscle not competing in olympic lifting and your degree of proficiency in the lift can reflect that. Alexux stated it very well, get the basics down and get strong with them.

[quote]alexus wrote:
It would also be good to do the movement in a way that it trains what it is supposed to. Like how it is generally a pretty good idea to use hip drive on hang powercleans since one of the virtues of the exercise is that it will get you a more powerful hip drive. [/quote]

Couldn’t agree more, one of the biggest things I see most people in the commercial gym I go to do is people doing cleans and basically using no hip drive at all. It’s just the first pull leading into an all arms muscle up. I’m not saying you need picture perfect technique and need to worry about the tiny technique points, but if you want to get the most out of the exercise you do need to have a decent level of technique.

Head over to california strength and check out the clean progression videos. The clean isn’t too hard to learn if you start learning it the right way from the start.

i think the snatch would technically be easier to learn. purepowerathlete.com is my buddys site he has some great instructional clean and snatch progression videos. plus more power is generated in the second pull of the snatch. start there to develop power!

one of the biggest things I see most people in the commercial gym I go to do is people doing cleans and basically using no hip drive at all. It’s just the first pull leading into an all arms muscle up.

my biggest peeve is when people arm muscle more than i can hip drive :-/

(yes, i’m somewhat impressed by their strength - but mostly i’m just unimpressed with my weakness)