Power Clean.
The power clean pulls a barbell from the floor to the front rack position in one explosive movement, catching the bar in a partial squat rather than a full squat. It trains pulling strength, hip extension power, and the coordination to receive a moving bar, making it one of the few barbell lifts that develops athletic explosiveness directly.
Step by step.
Set the bar over the middle of your feet with your stance about hip width. Grip just outside your thighs, drop your hips, and pull your chest up so your back is flat and your shoulders sit slightly ahead of the bar.
Push the floor away with your legs and lift the bar off the ground. Keep your torso angle the same as the bar rises past your shins, and let your hips and shoulders come up together rather than your hips shooting up first.
Once the bar clears your knees, drive your hips forward into it, bring your torso upright, and stand tall fast. Extend your ankles, knees, and hips hard so the bar gets light and starts to travel up.
As the bar peaks, pull your body down under it and whip your elbows around and forward. Catch the bar across your front deltoids and collarbone in a quarter squat with your elbows high.
Stand up out of the partial squat to finish in control. Lower the bar back to the platform or down to your thighs to reset, then take your setup again for the next rep.
The first pull (floor to knee) is a strength movement, not a power movement. Most beginners rush the first pull and lose position before the explosive phase even starts. From the floor, the bar rises by extending the legs with the torso angle held constant. The hips and shoulders rise at the same rate. The bar stays close to the shins. If your hips shoot up before the bar clears your knees, you've essentially converted the lift into a stiff-leg deadlift followed by a muscle clean, neither of which is the point.
The "double knee bend" (the transition at mid-thigh where the knees re-bend slightly as the hips push through) is what separates a real power clean from a fast deadlift. As the bar passes the knees, the torso shifts more vertical, the hips drive forward, the knees re-bend slightly, and the explosive triple extension (ankle, knee, hip) happens. This is where the power is generated. Cue: when the bar reaches mid-thigh, push the floor away again and get tall.
The catch position is a quarter squat, not a standing catch and not a full squat. Elbows should shoot forward aggressively. The goal is to get the upper arm parallel to the floor or higher, with the bar resting on the front deltoids and clavicle. If your elbows are pointing down and the bar is on your wrists, you're muscling the weight up rather than rotating under it. Tight wrists are a real limiter here; some lifters need weeks of daily wrist mobility work before a proper front rack position becomes accessible.
One honest note on load: the power clean is a skill lift, and adding weight before the mechanics are consistent is counterproductive. The bar doesn't have to be heavy to be a real training stimulus. Working at 50-60% of your maximum and doing 3-5 sets of 3 with 3-minute rests will produce more athletic development than grinding heavy reps with poor mechanics. Those percentages only mean something off a real number, so calculate your one rep max on the clean and program each session as a slice of it.
The bar lands in the same front rack a front squat uses, so the two lifts feed each other. Build a comfortable front squat and the catch stops feeling like a crash, and you carry the leg strength to stand up out of a heavier clean.
Common questions.
A full power clean starts with the bar on the floor. A hang power clean starts with the bar at mid-thigh (the hang position) and skips the first pull from the floor. The hang version removes the floor setup and emphasizes the explosive hip extension phase, which is useful for athletes who are specifically training the second pull mechanics or need a lower-fatigue variation. Both catch the bar in a partial squat. Beginners often learn the hang version first because it simplifies the setup and lets you focus on the hip drive and catch without worrying about pulling from the floor.
Only as high as necessary to rotate under it and catch it in the front rack. For a power clean, that's roughly chest or chin height before you pull under. You're not trying to row the bar to your sternum. You're generating enough height that you can drop into the quarter squat catch position with the bar landing on your front deltoids. Lifters who try to muscle the bar to shoulder height with their arms miss the point; the arms' job is to pull the body under the bar, not to lift the bar higher.
No. The power clean requires you to release your grip during the turnover and re-grip in the front rack. Straps tether your wrists to the bar, which prevents the wrist rotation needed to get into the catch position and creates a real injury risk if the lift goes wrong. Chalk is appropriate. Grip strength should be developed alongside the lift. If your grip is failing on power cleans, the weights are either too heavy or your grip needs direct training.
Yes, but it takes longer. The power clean has more moving parts than most barbell lifts, and self-correcting through video review is the realistic approach without a coach present. Film yourself from the side and from a 45-degree front angle. Watch for: hips rising before the bar clears the knee (first pull fault), no hip drive through the bar at mid-thigh (second pull fault), and elbows pointing down in the catch (front rack fault). Each fault has a specific drill that addresses it. Progress is slower without real-time feedback, but many athletes have developed solid power cleans through patient self-coaching.
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