Starting Strength

losing tightness at the floor. This clean will be your first official full power clean. Do this succession of positions without a lot of repetition at each level, so that you start learning to make each rep count. If I were coaching you, I’d let you do only one rep at each position. After you finish this process, set the bar down, set up a correct deadlift with your clean grip, deadlift it off the floor, and clean it. Do a couple reps from the floor like this. If you are wearing weightlifting shoes with higher heels, remember to get back off of your toes before you start the pull.
    At this point, unless there is a timing problem or some other reason to repeat a step, all your subsequent power cleans will be from the floor. The progression from the top down serves to emphasize the jumping aspect of the movement, and once this is understood and mastered, the full pull should be used. Understood and mastered means that:
     
During the pull from the floor, the bar never leaves the skin of your legs.
Your elbows stay straight until after the jump.
The jump does not start until the bar gets to the jumping position.
The bar lands on your shoulders with your elbows pointed forward; it does not land in the hands.
Right now, the speed happens at the jump, not from the floor.
    As it feels better, the pull will increase in speed from the floor, but for now, think slow and correct from the floor and fast at the jump. Again, make sure your eyes are forward and slightly down. An incorrect gaze direction makes a correct clean much more difficult, and a sloppy clean can sometimes be repaired with this simple change.
    Note that from the point at which the knees unlock at the top, they do not move forward any more as the bar is lowered to the knees, and that from just below the knees on down, they do move forward. In other words, the hips lower the bar to the knees, and the knees lower the bar to the floor. Coming back up is the exact opposite movement – straighten your knees until the bar clears them, and then return to the jumping position by dragging the bar up your thighs as you extend your hips.
    Using the hook grip
     
    Within a couple of workouts, when the movement is good enough for you to worry about peripheral matters, start using the hook grip ( Figure 6-17 ). The hook grip is critical in enabling heavy weights to be used. It should not be considered optional. The hook grip should be learned before much weight is being handled in the lift. The hook grip consists simply of laying the middle finger on top of the thumbnail as you wrap your hands around the bar, and letting the bar settle into the bottom of the “hook” made by the fingers. This grip allows the bar to rest in the bend in the fingers during the pull, not up high in the tight fist. The friction between the thumbnail and the middle finger provides the grip security, enabling the forearm muscles that would otherwise squeeze the grip tight to relax. This relaxing enables the elbows to rotate faster when the bar is being racked. Most people will release the hook as they rack the bar, due to a lack of flexibility in the wrist. You will need to reset the hook for each rep.

    Figure 6-17. The hook grip. Note that the middle finger catches the thumbnail. The friction of the finger against the thumb is amplified by the weight of the bar squeezing the grip components together, and it makes for a much more secure grip than grip strength alone can produce. The hook grip also allows the bar to ride slightly lower in the hands than does a standard grip, thus effectively lengthening the arms just a little.

    After the hook grip is adopted and the mechanics of the movement are sound, the pull from the floor can “mature” into a more efficient movement. At first, the model is slow to the jumping position, and then fast at the jump . As the pull becomes more comfortable and the correct movement pattern is more embedded, the model becomes the higher the bar, the faster it moves . This model provides for the acceleration needed to rack heavy weights. Start the bar off the floor from the mid-foot, and then start pulling it faster as it comes up. The objective is to be pulling it as fast as possible as it touches the thighs. Since the bar speed begins to drop immediately after the jump, the momentum you impart to the bar before this point is all it will ever have.
    Concentration is required to provide the explosion necessary for a heavy clean, and this starts during the