In Depth on The Power Clean with Mark Rippetoe 

Rip has always reminded me of a 19th century lawman/gunslinger. A serious man, plain spoken and dedicated. He says what he means and he means what he says.

I learn more from Rip's videos half a world away than any "personal trainer" in flesh could teach me. Respect.

I wish Rip will tell me 'just exactly like that' after I clean.

Rip is truly an expert movement coach. One could only listen to this (without watching) and learn how to clean perfectly fine. 10/10. Ty for posting.

This is like 1000 million times better instruction that anything I have found anywhere for any movement. I am gonna be patient and go step by step, make sure I have a great foundation.

I love cleans. Helped me to increase my deads. Very hard for me to learn to do correctly but when you do get right, you wil know immediately. This is the best example I have ever seen.

I love this guy, I was doing an upright row when cleaning, im so excited to practice my deadlifts and cleans tomorrow. Then get my push work out in for the day

I've watched dozens of videos and this is the best explanation of the why's of the clean thanks

spot on, beautiful instructions, well done

Fantastic! I got tired of bruising my knees because of my terrible power clean technique. I was somehow jumping early enough that I'd bang my knees straight into the barbell. I switched to hang cleans to remove that possibility. Now that I see some really good video coaching, I think I can relearn the power clean but with good technique.

This guy is a genius. Simple and elegant. Thank you!

Intense guy, but I love it. That's why he's the man!

No other person, nor certifying institution teaches the PC (nor any other barbell lift) with such simplicity and clarity. Said as someone who's been to the seminar, and enrolled on SSOCCA for 6 months. The best time and money invested in learning barbell training.

Learned a lot thanks!

I do CF and I been overthinking “arm pulling” and been struggling for 3 years weeks. Everyone tells me tips but I don’t have a mirror to see if I’m mirroring the way others do it. This Detailed power clean video is amazing. We are doing them today so I’m going to think of EVERYTHING you have said. The detail of each body part matters a lot to me. No wonder it never felt right. No one really told me about Elbows straight and focus on the jump. That’s actually how I knew I wasn’t doing it right because I wasn’t jumping. GRACIAS SIR

Top I'll do all my best to learn this.... Thank you

VERY DETAILED, INDEED! 💪

Very informative

Props to the dude with the Mastodon shirt 🤘

18:50 The most replayed, you don't say??

Thank you.

Rip is the best.

This is literally golden, spot on instruction. But why does he seem pissed when he's teaching???

Don't forget to use those lats to pull the bar into the body as it passes the knees. "Clearing the road" as Dimas would say, pushing those knees back coming off the floor. Great video! Very thorough.

18:50 Lost all concentration.

Bravo!!

Great stuff Mark, thanks. Olympic lifting in America should have been taught decades ago.

In regards to arm pulling: (sometimes it helps me to understand WHY a thing is the case)..... remember that the objective when catching the bar is to catch in on your deltoids. If you put your hands into a rack position, then move your elbows in and out, you'll notice that it changes the position of your shoulders. Elbows stay in to ensure that the deltoids are forward and ready to catch the bar. This is my amateur but logical interpretation.

Damn Mark...u kinda look like Tank Abbot of the early UFC. That dude benched heavy too 😬😜😜. Great tutorials btw! Thanks for sharing.

More stuff to work on

Rippetoe the vault hunter

Pronation internal rotation... Rippetoe you a smart man :D

Just exactly like that

So I said in another post that I would no longer just criticize but try to offer some constructive help. Turns out Mark is not really that bad a guy. The reason that last lifter jumped forward is not because he started his pull too soon. In order to see what I'm talking about you'll need to replay the video at 0.25 speed. Start the video at 28:25. At this exact point the lifter makes contact with his thigh just above the knee - it does look like he starts the pull early. But he actually does not "jump" until the bar is level with the bottom of his shorts. This happens in a fraction of a second so the actual time will still read 28:25, which is why you need to replay at a slow speed. At 28:26 the lifter starts the jump amd this is where the error happens. Again where talking fractions of seconds but a fraction of a second before the clock hits 28:26 you can see that this lifter's knee angle is almost vertical. This means that he cannot effectively use his quads to impart vertical force to the bar. He has no choice but to shift his legs forward and bump the bar forward to get any movement at all on the bar. Right at 28:26 you can see the separation of the bar and the lifter. His heels are off the ground indicating that the center of gravity of the lifter-barbell system has shifted forward. From here the lifter then goes into his "jump," but it is now too late to effectively impart upward force on the bar. This is one of the key reasons why the high-hip start position is not optimal. I have seen this in several other videos that Starting Strength has posted on how to do the Olympic lifts. With high hips, you're starting with a very closed hip angle and a very open knee angle. On the way up, most lifters will open the knee angle even more to the point where the lifters' legs are practically straight at the start of the second pull. With no force being contributed from the quads, the lifter's only recourse is to move the bar up with hip extension only. This causes the bar to move forward and swing out. With a light enough weight, the lifter can pull the bar back toward him or her, or in this case compensate by jumping forward. This will work for light weights, and strong lifters can even move some appreciable poundage this way. In the beginning it might even seem to be an effective and efficient way of cleaning because "leading with the torso" and using all hip extension and little to no knee extension is a very common beginner error. I did it too. But at some point this technique will cause progress to stall because the bar moving away from the lifter is the cardinal sin of weightlifting. At the start of the second pull the lifter must be placed, the whole foot must be in contact with the ground, and the quads should contribute quite a bit to the pull to give the bar a vertical trajectory. Take this comment in the spirit it was intended. I am not trying to be an asshole here and I am not bashing the high hip deadlift-jump-and-shrug method for the sake of bashing the method. There are real downsides to this method as demonstrated in this and many other videos.

Nice chub 'n' tuck, Rip!

You’re smart sir 🤓

Smart guy, everything he says is correct

How should I incorporate the power clean on a push pull legs split Doing squat 2 Times Per Week and deadlift 1X Week ?

This video was extremely useful thank you is there any chance you will do the snatch in a future video

Very thorough and detailed.

They got one of the Mexican brothers from breaking bad to perform the power clean 😳

Hands on instruction

8:03 LOL Hahaha. ....

1,5x playback is very useful here :-)

Wish Rippetoe would do 2-dumbbell power clean video

25:51 Mastadon shirt! hell yeah

Sir, do you have a video on how to reduce knee pain? After doing power cleans, I get sore tendons underneath my kneecaps. Sometimes my chiro buddy works at my hips to relieve the pain underneath my knee caps.

"The Athletic Position"

18:50. The moment I decided to become a personal trainer

what shoes are those?

Never in all my years on youtuge have I ever seen a video with not one dislike.

Is there no scoop as taught in other power clean videos?

18:49 ur welcome

I did upright row. That's why my lower back keep aching.

When you eventually get to the young woman in the thumbnail......

Renee Zellweger looks gorgeous here!

Dat back hair doe

18:50 Why does he have to do that.

Hip driveeeeee

So you don't jump in the actual excersize?

Who came up with this lift

This guy sounds exactly like Dave Ramsey

the clHHHHHHean

18:50 the thumbnail used by others to get more views

RIP always looks like they one wise man you thought was on good team but ends up working for the bad team at the end of the movie.

Am I the only one that notices that Mark wears high heals?

Why are there a bunch of music stands in the corner ?!

Mark sounds like Dave Ramsey

@18:49 jfc rip.

gahhh thats whhy i got injured i was jumping

should i trust this man as if he is yoda?

Hehe thx

Didn’t know Zac galafinakis was good at power cleans 😆😆😆

imagine big chungus cleaning

Where's the girl at??

18:50 Bro what the heck

#metoo @ 18:50 lol

This is way too complex for me. After 7 weeks on the program, I'm still struggling with correct form on the deadlift and squat. I've never really been athletically inclined anyway.

This is what Rip does a good job of. Not nutrition or health advice.

1: No hook grip = limited weight can be used. 2: At the start the hips are too high. In that position you can not properly push of the floor with 1st pull. 3:. Shoulders should be a) above the bar or b) just in front of the bar, Not way out in front of the bar in setup/first pull which will cause the bar to loop and you get a clean and long jump 4: There is no "jump position". It's called the power position and it's the results as you sweeping the bar back, as your shoulders will follow and your knees will re-bend slightly naturally as the bar position changers from out by your toes like when you set up to above the center of the foot just before extension. 4. The elbows do go up because your pulling yourself under the bar after triple extension (even in a power clean) 5. Elbows are normally high and straight or slightly down and out in the rack. Never in. 6. Did not teach the athlete to lock shoulder blades, lock lats and set shoulders neutral in set up. 7. As bar goes from floor to knees the back angle should be in same angle as setup. Two out of five stars.

Dude with a beard at the start looks like Tyrion Lanister

18:50 sly Rip

18:00 She's a nice looking woman!

Why does Rip look like he's about 6 days away from dying of bacon poisoning?

I’m sure there are some things you can take away from here. However, there are more experienced people to learn the power clean or clean from. Rip isn’t the best source. The way he has them rotated the elbows is actually conducive to the high pull he wants to avoid and is totally unnatural. An easy test would be to hold your arms at your side exactly as he describes, elbows out, and imagine pulling the bar up. You get a high pull type of bend. Now rotate the elbows to face directly behind you while holding at your side, and pull up, you get a bend that is directly back, which allows the bar to travel closer to the body, and sets you up perfectly to rotate the elbows under the bar as discussed in the video.

Sully should have himself teach his own son, how to do the Clean.

Im a guy (going bald) and I feel anxious each time this girl is jumping the bar to the rack position. I m afraid that something bad will happen to her hair

Me like thick Jennifer Anniston

What a way for mark to take the fun out of exercising

The dude talks better than he can demonstrate.

Rip grabbed her butt, love it... OG coaches don't care about the woke culture.

18:51! CANCEL HIM!

That blonde woman is so nice looking.

Any other weightlifters here that see huge flaws in how he teaches the power clean?

Mark... I really need you to interject the phrase “Son of a bitch” every 30-40 seconds.. like this... “pick up the bar son of a bitch... not that wide, son of a bitch... jump, son of a bitch... and so on.

Marc you don't look healthy... 🙄

Difficult part for these two is to get the bar past there bellys

2nd comment woah! And i don't see anyone giving a shit

That jump is too much exaggerated. It should be a slight contactless moment to get into position, it should not be an actual jump as demonstrated here

i'm watching this and to the point where the blonde girl is demoing...and I all can think is "Please pull your fucking hear behind you" that's really stupid to have it over your shoulders when you're trying to catch the bar on the shoulder.. ok *unpauses the video* let's see if she does it.