Power cleans exercise for hybrid athletes: worth learning?

The power clean is the most impressive-looking lift a hybrid athlete can learn, and the one most often learned from a 40-second video and a lot of optimism. A bar goes from the floor to your shoulders in under a second. Done well, it's a beautiful expression of power. Done badly, it's a reverse curl with a tantrum at the end.

So is the power cleans exercise worth learning if you also run? Short answer: yes, if you have access to a qualified coach and a reason to train power. No, if you're teaching yourself from the internet in the middle of a marathon build. Jumps, throws and swings get you a lot of the same benefit with far less skill. Below: what the lift is, what the research says it does, how coaches usually teach it, and how to fit it into a running week, whether you plan it yourself or use a lifting coach that adapts weekly.

What the power cleans exercise is

A clean takes a barbell from the floor to the front rack position: resting on the front of your shoulders, elbows high, fingertips under the bar. A power clean means you catch it high, in a partial squat with your thighs above parallel. A squat clean (or full clean) catches it in a full front squat, which lets you lift more weight but needs more mobility and more skill.

The lift has four parts:

1. ›First pull. Floor to just above the knee. It looks a lot like a deadlift: bar close, back flat, push the floor away.
2. ›Transition. The knees move back under the bar as it passes them, so you end up in a strong position at mid-thigh.
3. ›Second pull. The explosive bit. Hips and knees extend violently, the bar accelerates, you finish tall on the balls of your feet.
4. ›Catch. You pull yourself under the bar, whip the elbows around, and receive it on your shoulders in a quarter squat. Then stand up.

The first pull is close to the setup in deadlift explained, which is why coaches usually want a solid deadlift before they teach the clean. Everything after the knee is a different skill entirely.

For runners, the lift doesn't belong at the center of anything. In a strength program for runners, the core is heavy squats, hinges and single-leg work. A clean is an optional extra for power, not a replacement for any of those.

What power cleans actually do for you

The case for Olympic lifting is speed. You can't clean a bar slowly, so every rep trains your ability to produce force fast, which is the quality behind jumping, sprinting and changing direction.

The research backs that, with a catch. A 2016 meta-analysis of six studies, mostly in young athletes with lifting experience, found Olympic weightlifting training improved vertical jump height by 7.7% compared with control and 5.1% compared with traditional resistance training. The catch: there was no difference compared with plyometric training. A 2018 meta-analysis reached the same shape of answer for the countermovement jump: weightlifting beat traditional resistance training, and weightlifting and plyometrics were equally effective.

Read that the way a hybrid athlete should. Cleans work for power. So do jumps. Jumps take an afternoon to learn. Cleans take months.

What the research here doesn't show: that cleans make you a faster distance runner, or that they protect you from anything. Those studies measured jump height in young athletes. If someone sells you power cleans as a 10K time-saver, ask for the study.

Who should learn the power clean (and who shouldn't)

Good candidates:

• ›You have access to a qualified weightlifting or strength coach, at least for the first few months.
• ›Your goal involves power: field or court sport, sprinting, or you simply want to be more athletic.
• ›You can already deadlift and front squat with decent technique.
• ›You can get into a comfortable front rack, or you're willing to work on it.
• ›You're in a base or off-season block with room for a new skill.

Skip it for now if:

• ›Your only coach is a phone propped against a water bottle.
• ›You're in a race build. New, technical lifts don't belong in the weeks before a goal race.
• ›Your wrists, elbows or shoulders complain in the front rack. Get that looked at by a coach or professional before you add speed to it.
• ›Your time for lifting is two short sessions a week. Spend them on the big basics.

Not learning the clean isn't a failure. Most hybrid athletes will get more from heavy hinges, single-leg work and a few jumps than from a lift they practice twice a month.

How coaches usually teach the power clean

Learn it with a qualified coach. This is a speed skill. Small faults, like the bar swinging away from your body or the arms bending too early, are almost impossible to feel from the inside and very easy for a good coach to see. The outline below is common coaching practice, so you know what to expect, not a self-teaching program.

Most coaches build it top-down, from the easiest position to the hardest:

The Romanian deadlift matters more than people expect here. The hang position is basically the top half of an RDL, so our guide to Romanian deadlift doubles as clean homework. Learning a lighter, cleaner hinge is the fastest route to a good hang position.

Some cues coaches commonly use:

• ›"Bar close." It should brush your thighs, not swing out.
• ›"Long arms." The arms don't pull until the legs and hips have finished. Bend early and you lose the power from the bigger muscles.
• ›"Jump, then shrug." Drive the floor away, finish tall, then pull yourself under.
• ›"Fast elbows." Whip the elbows around to catch the bar on your shoulders, not in your hands.
• ›"Catch high, land balanced." Feet flat, quarter squat, chest up.

The hang power clean from above the knee is where many hybrid athletes can happily stay forever. It trains the explosive part with less to go wrong.

How to program power cleans

Coaching conventions, not commandments. With cleans, the rule is quality over fatigue. Technique breaks long before your muscles do.

Low reps aren't laziness. In a study of ten recreational weightlifters doing three sets of six power cleans at 80% of one-rep max, technique held up better when they rested 20 seconds or more between reps than when they did six reps straight through. Short sets, or a few seconds' reset between reps, keep the reps looking like reps.

Cleans go first in a session, after a warm-up, before any heavy lifting. Fatigue and speed skills don't mix.

They don't cover everything. The clean is not a hamstring builder, and it trains the knee side of the hamstrings barely at all, so curls still have a job; our guide to hamstring curls covers which version to use. And for grip and trunk under heavy load, a farmer's walk is a lot simpler than another set of cleans.

No coach? Alternatives that train the same quality

If you can't learn the clean properly, these train fast hip extension with a fraction of the skill:

• ›Jumps. Box jumps, broad jumps and squat jumps. The meta-analyses above found plyometrics improved jump height about as much as weightlifting.
• ›Kettlebell swings. A fast, explosive hinge. Easy to learn, easy to load, and it fits a home gym.
• ›Trap bar jumps. Light trap bar, jump. Loaded power without a catch.
• ›Medicine ball throws. Scoop tosses and overhead throws. Fast, forgiving, hard to do wrong.
• ›Heavy hinges. For the strength side, an RDL or trap bar deadlift. If barbells aren't available, any good romanian deadlift alternative keeps the hinge in the plan.

Where power cleans fit a running week

Cleans are fast, neurologically demanding work. They want fresh legs, and they leave your hamstrings and hips feeling it.

• ›Put them on a day when you're fresh, ideally an easy run day, with the run after or a few hours later. Not after intervals, and never the day before intervals or the long run.
• ›Separate them from hard running. An updated meta-analysis on concurrent training found explosive strength gains were blunted more when aerobic and strength training shared a session than when they were separated by at least three hours. Speed is the whole point of a clean, so give it the gap.
• ›Learn them in base, not in a build. The weeks before a goal race are for sharpening what you have.

A sample week with cleans in a base phase:

Cleans open the only heavy lower-body day, a full day after intervals and with a rest day before the tempo. The run comes hours later, at an easy pace.

If anything hurts, as opposed to feeling worked, stop and see a professional.

How exrsz handles power cleans

exrsz builds a periodized plan from your goal, schedule, level and equipment, so power work shows up in base phases and gets cut back as a race gets closer. It balances fast lifts, heavy lifts and your runs in one plan, adapts each week to how you actually trained, and reshuffles missed sessions. It won't teach you the clean. That part needs a coach in the room.

FAQ

Are power cleans good for runners?

They can be, for power, but they're optional. A 2016 meta-analysis found weightlifting improved jump height compared with control and traditional lifting, but not compared with plyometrics, so jumps are an easier route for most runners.

What muscles does the power cleans exercise work?

The glutes, hamstrings and quads drive the pull, the calves and traps finish it, and the upper back, shoulders and trunk catch and hold the bar. It's a whole-body lift built around fast hip and knee extension.

Can I learn power cleans on my own?

You can try, but learning it with a qualified coach is the better choice. It's a speed skill with faults that are hard to feel yourself and easy for a coach to spot.

What's the difference between a power clean and a hang clean?

A power clean starts from the floor; a hang clean starts from a standing position with the bar lowered to the thigh or just below the knee. Hang versions are usually taught first because they skip the first pull.

How many reps of power cleans should I do?

Low reps: sets of one to three, with full recovery between sets. A study of power clean technique found technique held better with at least 20 seconds' rest between reps than with six reps done straight through.