Personally, I find that the most beautiful thing that CrossFit® has given us be his Liaison with Olympic weightlifting. We know that our beloved discipline has the merit of having given a good dusting - not only in professional athletes, but also in "Sunday" ones - to theoly weightlifting.
And Olympic lifting means extremely technical, clean, highly calculated gestures. It means superfine, functional, intense muscular work.
And that wonderful attachment of the quadriceps to the knee.
The clean is a "simplified" derivation of the Olympic lifts.
a fundamental, an explosion of controlled brutality, a wonder to be able to master.
Index
The movement of the clean
Control, athleticism, power. And then again agility, precision, coordination, balance.
Continuous? Do you do low reps with big loads? You develop the force. Do you do long sets, with light loads but few, very few breaks between sets? You strengthen the cardiorespiratory system to the maximum.
The principle of warnings in clean
Do not, I repeat: do not rush with loads.
When it starts study the movement of the clean (studying: you got it right. my articles don't screw around), and you do it with only the barbell, it seems to you that the weight takes on light and irregular trajectories. Of course it makes you think: load, so I stabilize it.
No. This is the recipe for stalling. The failure. The WODs you can't close. The shame in front of your battlemates.
PVC pipe, patience, constancy. And you get there.
Powerlifter word.
Points for a spectacular clean
- use the hook grip (hook grip). It will be uncomfortable, contribute to sore thumbnails, but allow you to pull up much heavier weights. Study it (also this one): I told you about it in a special article.
- Starting position: feet hip distance apart. The arms are just outside the legs, but tight: the sense is that do not interfere with the legs during movement.
- the resting barbell is above the midline of the feet, as in a deadlift.
- stay “tight”. Contract the muscles, the abdomen, raise the chest, lock the shoulders back, torso as vertical as possible.
Explode of legs and hips. Snatch the weight off the ground. Fly it, damn it!
While the balance wheel makes its trajectory, your weight shifts from the soles of your feet to your heels, and you tend to go backwards. One thing must be very clear to you: it's not the arms that pull. The arms are hooks that hold the weight.
When the weight reaches mid-thigh, you are in the so-called explosion point: it is as if you now have to “jump” in place.
At this point, everything is waaay fast.
- the balance picks up speed
- at the same time, "go down" to the ground, squatting into a deep squat.
- prepare the front rack position which will accommodate the balance wheel
- you let the weight of the bar guide you into the squat as you slide under it
- with a squat (which I demand is textbook) you return to an upright position
The official CrossFit® video will explain the movement to you in a big way.
Ready for your clean?
I'm sure yes.
The work on the clean (as well as the one on the Olympic lifts, such as clean&jerk and snatch) is a very technical, demanding job the patience to perfect every moment of the gesture.
Take your time, don't rush with the weight to load, and you'll see that you'll eat the WODs that include the clean.
Promised.
PS. if you want to learn more: here another great article on clean.
And one last tip: we have activated a lot of discounts on Amazon: from 30 to 70% on all sports categories! It's all on our dedicated channel ????
SUBSCRIBE HERE TO THE TELEGRAM CHANNEL