Clean Your Press

About a year ago I started cleaning all of my press sets, and I prefer it. There’s a lot of utility in doing it, but it’s just cool. Here’s an example:



Weightlifters in the press era (before ’72) always cleaned their presses because it was a contested lift. In the early days, there weren’t even racks, so cleaning the weight was the only way to get it on the shoulders for overhead movements. Whenever Bill Starr writes about pressing, he encourages lifters to clean it and even said that it’s possible to lift more weight that way. Bah, how could that make any sense?

Lift More Weight
Yet, the first time I cleaned and then pressed the weight, I completed a weight that was typically difficult out of the rack easier. I believe this was because my grip widened slightly (I have broad shoulders) and perhaps I was using a more narrow grip. However, other lifters have echoed similar experiences in lifting more after cleaning the weight. Some possible explanations include better wrist position after doing a clean compared to a normal un-racking, better intra-thoracic/abdominal pressure post-clean, or better thoracic extension post-clean. It also could be a combination of all three reasons, plus some other factors that are specific to an individual.

Practice The Clean
Since you’ll be cleaning every set of press or push-press, you’ll significantly enhance the number of cleans you perform IRREGARDLESS of program. This may not be relevant for a stress application — for example, my best press of 240 is at most 68% of my max clean — yet it can solidify starting position and teach attention to detail regarding “finishing the pull”. It can be used as speed practice; really focus on a fast jump in the power clean. It can also be practice for “getting under the bar” in a full clean. Since it’s probably a lower percentage of your max, it won’t significantly inhibit the press itself or the rest of the training session. Whether you want to power it for general strength work or do a full clean for Oly practice, you’ll get more repetitions which will only improve your skill. Uh, assuming you don’t suck really bad or something.
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