Starting Strength

in pulling from the floor in a manner that is demonstrably inefficient just because some very strong elite weightlifters have been observed doing it this way – an argument that is based on description rather than analysis. The limitations of mechanical efficiency apply less stringently to stronger lifters than to less-gifted lifters who have a smaller margin of error in which to display their abilities.
    This is especially true when it is not necessary to pull the bar in a curved path – the human body can quite easily conform itself to the realities of gravity and mechanics and pull the barbell up in a straight vertical path. In fact, when this happens, the top part of the pull increases in efficiency along with the bottom part, as we shall see. It is important to be as efficient off the floor as possible. Most problems that develop at the top part of the pull can be traced to an incorrect starting position and the resulting bad initial pull off the floor.
    The path the bar makes through space from the start position to the rack position is a major factor in diagnosing the efficiency of the lift, because it describes the interaction of the lifter with the bar. Observe the bar path by looking at the end of the bar from a position at right angles to the lifter, with your eyes looking straight down the bar. Imagine that the end of the bar traces a line in the air during the lift; this line is the bar path, and it is very important to develop your ability to form an image of this line. Watch other lifters do the movement, and learn to translate the image formed of the bar path to your perception of the bar as it moves up from the floor to the rack position.
    There are several advanced movement-analysis instruments that record and interpret bar path information, but none is as immediately useful in real time as the experienced eye of a coach. The power clean is a complicated movement, and of all the lifts presented in this program, it benefits the most from the input of an experienced coach.
    An ideal bar path is illustrated in Figure 6-21 . If the correct position over the middle of the foot and the correct back angle are established, the bar comes off the floor in a vertical path as the knees straighten out, and the back angle will be constant for at least the first few inches of the pull. The bar follows an essentially vertical path until it reaches the jumping position, after which it curves slightly away as the lifter’s elbows begin to rotate under the bar. At the top, the bar path will make a little hook as the bar comes back and down onto the shoulders in the rack position. Individual body segment lengths and girths may vary among lifters, but this general bar path will be observed in every correct power clean.

    Figure 6-21. The bar path of the power clean. If the bar starts from a position over the middle of the foot, the bar should travel in an essentially vertical path until the jump occurs at mid-thigh. This ideal vertical path will be altered if the start position is forward of the mid-foot.

    Let’s review the angles involved in the pull and see what varying them does to the bar path. The knee angle, hip angle, and back angle are the same for the power clean’s pull off the floor as for the deadlift.

    Figure 6-22. The angles for analyzing the power clean are the same as for the deadlift or any pull from the floor: the hip, knee, and back angles.

The correct starting position facilitates an efficient pull. For example, when the knee angle is too closed, as when your knees are too far forward, your back angle will be too vertical, placing your shoulders behind the bar and your hips too low. Two possibilities exist for the next action on the bar, and in neither of them can the bar come up in a straight line ( Figure 6-23 ).
    First, the bar can move forward to get around the knees. This usually occurs only with lighter weights. Pulled forward around the knees this way, the bar will be too far out in front – off-balance forward – as it approaches the jumping position, and the lifter will have to either pull it back in or follow it forward by leaning into the bar or jumping forward at the rack position. Second, the bar can move back toward the mid-foot as it comes off the floor. This is what usually happens with a heavy clean. The pull starts, balance is off forward with the weight on the toes, so the bar gets pulled back into balance over the mid-foot. The knee angle opens and the back angle becomes