StrapsWwhile Doing Hang Cleans?

I know pretty much everyone on this site will say to not use lifting straps for anything except the last few sets of extremely heavy rack pulls.

But, my question is: Do people use straps for hang cleans? For some reason, when I do them (currently, without straps) I feel that I’m going to drop the bar.

To my next quick question: whats the ettiquette on doing cleans? My gym doesnt have bumper plates but the floor is ovbiously the heavy duty rubber gym mats. Would it be ok for me to drop the bar? My orthopedist said it was ok for me to do cleans, but recomends me not catching the bar at my thighs due to a torn labrum.

Thanks

Tyically if you dont have bumpers, you dont drop the bar.

As for the straps, my former was an alternate on the 1984 Oly Team, he showed me how they used to use straps. The trick is to only wrap the strap around the bar once so if you miss the lift you can still dump the bar. And really its not a full wrap around, just wrap the strap around the bottom of the bar and thats it. It should provide a little help gripping the bar.

All the former-Soviet and Turkish weightlifters with whom I have trained and/or watched training use straps when doing hang-cleans or pulls for more than one rep. If you are training as a weightlifter, you should be getting enough grip work when doing classical snatches and cleans, so using straps from hangs and pulls should not present a problem. If your grip is a limiting factor on the classic lifts, I’d suggest doing direct grip work, e.g. farmer’s walks. It doesn’t make much sense to try to use hang-cleans to work the grip.

And, yes, you wrap the straps in a way different from the way commercially sold straps are wrapped. If I can get hold of a camera, I’ll try to post a picture. Dynamic Fitness, I think, and some other places sell very nice leather straps for o-lifts; but you can use even nylon webbing sold at a hardware store. Canvas straps are probably the best after leather.

I definitely use straps for high intensity oly lifts or variations because i don’t have access to bumper plates. they also double as wrist wraps. laters pk

[quote]rrjc5488 wrote:

To my next quick question: whats the ettiquette on doing cleans?[/quote]

I would suggest not performing cleans on the wood floor of the aerobics room during any pilates / yoga / meditation classes. Otherwise, I think you are in the clear.

BFG