Solutions for Stalled Cleans

December 1, 2009 in EXERCISES Have a comment?

Cleans top off quickly, so consider dropping them (heresy!!!) for a couple of weeks and either try doing snatches, in their place on the program you are using or maybe something as esoteric as sled dragging. Or BOTH.

Most guys I have worked with have improved their clean usually by improving their snatch. You may want to try adding clean grip snatches to your program. From the knees,  clean grip, snap the bar to the overhead position in one move…light weights to start.

Cleans, like Benches, are nice at first because you add weight nearly every workout, then you seem to hit a wall. I tried pounding my head against that wall for years, but discovered, to my great relief, that walking around the wall is easier. So, try some variations, add some more general work like sled dragging, farmers walks, and even hill sprints, and back off on the cleans. If it isn’t a technique issue, then you just have to work around it. Remember, cleans seem to have a serious “wall” that might take a
while to work around. My weight was 265. I got to that number about two or three times, squat cleaning (after I met Dick) it, then clean and jerking it…finally, I breakthrough to 270.

Dick goes to the Olympics, I go up to the Sports Palace and Clean and Jerk 303 with my Dad. Moral??? None, really, save that all the work suddenly seems to come together and you launch into a new series of Personal Records.