Hey Guys, Jeff Wittmer here, former olympic weight lifter,
Fitness Culture's weightlifting expert, and today we're gonna go through the three most
common mistakes we see in the clean.
Alright, one of the most common mistakes we see in the clean is during the second pull.
What happens is, when the bar gets around to knee level, we'll see a lot of lifters,
what they'll do is, they'll shift their knees forward towards the bar.
You're having an issue with shifting your knees forward instead of standing straight up and
utilizing your legs.
Hang cleans are gonna help because you're gonna start with the hang just around your
knees, and what that's gonna do is gonna allow the lifter to just focus on a shorter range
of motion, versus lifting off the floor.
Let's do a deadlift, and then lower to knee level, and instead of shifting forward, I'm
just going to focus on standing straight up, letting the bar come high into my thighs.
And what this is gonna do is shorten the pull for the lifter, and let him focus right when
the bar is at their knee, to just drive straight up with their legs.
The next exercise to improve the second pull is gonna be the block clean.
So similar to the hang clean, we're gonna want the bar right around our knee level.
The main focus is gonna be driving up with our legs.
That's the first action we wanna make, is thinking about it in your head, driving your
feet through the platform, and not shifting your knees forward towards the bar.
My shoulders are gonna be slightly over the bar, the first thing I'm gonna think about
is tightening my back and driving my feet through the floor.
I'm not shifting my knees toward the bar, I'm maximizing my leg power, I'm driving straight up.
The bar's only making contact with my thighs for just a short period of time, just across
a couple inches there, about 3/4 the way up my thigh.
The next exercise to help with the second pull we're gonna utilize for the cleans is
the pause clean, or some people may refer to it as the halt clean.
I'm gonna go ahead and demonstrate one now.
What the goal is gonna be, is right when the bar is below our knee, I'm gonna go ahead
and just pause, and from there, finish the lift.
It's gonna shorten the pull, it's gonna put us in a position to where we can just focus
on driving with our legs.
And I want to pause for a good 2 or 3 seconds, make sure I'm keeping my back tight throughout
the entire movement.
The only thing I'm thinking about is right when that bar is at my knee, that I'm pushing
my feet through the platform just like on the block clean, just like on the hang clean.
One of the next most common mistakes that we see in the clean that we're gonna discuss
is the bar crash.
So you'll see a lot of times lifters, as they're going under a squat clean, you'll see the
bar fall in some cases 2 or 3 inches or even more, where the bar is gonna fall on their
chest and then you'll see their elbows are knocked down, and from there, they're gonna
struggle standing up with the clean.
We're gonna talk about just a couple of mindset changes that you need to make throughout the
clean that's gonna help you focus on just meeting the bar.
One of the biggest issues that we see is when people are performing squat cleans, what are
they thinking about?
They think about pulling as hard as they can and as high as they can, and then dropping
under the bar as fast as they can.
What does that do when that happens?
It creates a gap in the bar between your chest and the bar.
The mentality that you need to take when you're performing cleans is wherever you pull the
bar to, so if I have a low squat position, if I pull the bar to around my waste, I'm
gonna take my chest and bring my chest to the bar.
If i'm gonna pull it a little bit higher, wherever the bar is at, I'm gonna bring my
chest to the bar.
Instead of taking the mindset of pulling as hard as you can, dropping as fast as you can,
that's when you see the dramatic crash.
That's why we're gonna focus on wherever you're pulling that bar to, bring your chest
directly to the bar.
The next most common mistakes we see in the clean is elbow position.
So what you'll see a lot of athletes or lifters do when they're performing a clean, is when
they're wrapping their elbows around the bar, they point their elbows out as they're going
around the bar.
What happens is, when a lifter points their elbows out when they go to wrap the bar, it
shifts the weight over into their index finger, and it can put you into a compromising position
with the finger tip.
That's why when you're pulling, you want to keep your elbows in tight with the body, and
try and keep as many fingers as you can around the bar, and have your elbows up in this position,
pointing up when you receive the clean.
There's a couple things we can do to help work on it, but the main thing you have to
focus on, there's no easy way to do it, but it's repetition of movement.
So you don't need to use heavy weight.
It can just simply be with the bar.
And higher rep sets.
It can be 5-10 reps with the bar.
And all we're gonna do is just short movements from the hang, and we're gonna practice wrapping
that elbow in tight around the body.
So you can watch me demonstrate here with the bar.
So I'm gonna go just from the mid hang.
And if you watch my elbows, I'm keeping them in tight with my body as I'm wrapping them around.
Instead of pointing my elbows out, like that movement.
I want to keep them in tight with my body.
Those are a few of the most common issues that we see in the cleans.
If you're able to fix or correct those issues you're really gonna see
some improvement in your clean.
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