Athena Vale
The muscle clean is a weightlifting exercise that builds strength and power. Unlike the traditional clean, the muscle clean is done in one continuous pulling motion without dropping into a squat, making it simpler and more beginner-friendly. It targets multiple muscle groups, including the legs, back, shoulders, and arms, resulting in a comprehensive workout. The exercise focuses on improving an individual's ability to lift heavy weights from the ground to their shoulders in a fluid motion. It is also useful for building clean-specific musculature around the upper back and traps and can be modified to train around certain injuries.
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What You'll Learn
Muscle Clean vs Power Clean
The muscle clean and the power clean are clean variations that help lifters increase strength, power, and performance in the pull. Both movements can be used by nearly any level lifter to increase technique, pulling strength, and timing in the clean.
The muscle clean is a clean variation that can be done by almost any level lifter looking to enhance pulling strength, turnover of the barbell in the clean, and general upper-body strength specific to weightlifting movements. The muscle clean focuses on slower barbell accelerations and strength. It doesn't require the lifter to squat and catch the movement. Instead, it’s one solitary vertical movement and the bar is caught in the standing position.
The power clean is a powerful clean variation. Barbell acceleration is key to the power clean, as the lifter is forced to pull the barbell higher to secure a strong front rack in the power position. The timing, relative loading used, and barbell acceleration needed in the power clean are very similar to the full clean. The power clean requires a greater amount of skill and timing in the movement. For this reason, the power clean may pose some technical issues for beginners.
While the muscle clean can help to enhance turnover strength and pulling mechanics in the clean, the power clean may offer most coaches and athletes a greater return on training time invested if increasing one’s full clean or power performance is the goal. Typically, power cleans are done at 60-80% of a lifter’s full clean, which can help a lifter increase power production in the second pull of the clean. The muscle clean does offer some valuable benefits for lifters, however, due to the slower timing and lighter loads, it may not have the best application to the full clean.
If you had to choose between the muscle clean or the power clean, it is suggested to perform the power clean if your goal is to have the largest application to the full clean.
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Benefits of Muscle Clean
The muscle clean is a weightlifting exercise that builds strength and power. It is a variation of the traditional clean, which involves squatting. Unlike the traditional clean, the muscle clean is done in one continuous pulling motion without dropping into a squat, making it simpler and less intimidating for beginners. It improves your ability to lift heavy weights from the ground to your shoulders in one fluid motion.
Improved Strength and Power
The muscle clean is an excellent way to develop explosive power and strength. It requires fast hip and knee extension, which will help you generate force quickly. This is beneficial for weightlifting and sports and activities that rely on bursts of power, like sprinting, jumping, and throwing.
Targets Multiple Muscle Groups
The muscle clean targets a lot of muscle groups simultaneously, including legs, back, shoulders, and arms. This comprehensive workout promotes overall strength development and helps build a strong, balanced body.
Improved Leg Drive and Aggression
The muscle clean teaches leg drive and aggression through the first and second pulls, helping to maximize pulling strength and performance. It also helps lifters develop greater upper body pulling strength and proper racking positioning in the clean.
Training Around Injuries
The muscle clean can be a lower-impact alternative to a full clean. In the event of an injury, such as an ankle, knee, or hip issue, the muscle clean can be modified to accommodate the injury while still providing a beneficial workout.
Improved Technique and Coordination
The muscle clean emphasizes the importance of smooth and quick turnover to efficiently catch the bar in the front rack position, enhancing overall technique. It also improves coordination between the lower and upper body, as they need to work together to execute the movement correctly.
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Muscle Clean Variations
The muscle clean is a weight-bearing exercise that builds strength and power. It is a continuous pulling motion that does not involve squatting, making it ideal for beginners. It helps improve your ability to lift heavy weights from the ground to your shoulders in one fluid motion.
Hang Muscle Clean
This variation starts from a standing position with the bar at your thighs instead of the floor. You bend at your hips and knees, allowing the bar to hang above the floor (below or above your knees). This type of muscle clean helps you improve your ability to generate power from a different position.
Power Clean
The power clean is a variation of the traditional clean. It involves performing a clean from the floor but without fully squatting into the receiving position. The lifter typically receives the load with their thighs at or above parallel. This exercise helps increase the lifter's ability to pull the barbell higher and have a more explosive second pull. It can be used by beginners to improve their pulling strength and performance for the full clean.
Dead Hang Clean
This variation starts from a dead hang position, where the lifter holds the bar at hip height with both knees and hips extended before initiating the pull. It encourages the lifter to drop under the barbell with speed and works the abdominal and back muscles hard to prevent body rotation.
Three-Position Clean
This variation involves performing three lifts from different starting positions in one go. The most common execution is a traditional squat clean, followed by a hang squat clean, and then a high-hang squat clean. This is often used to train technique under fatigue.
Sandbag Clean
The sandbag clean involves lifting a sandbag from the floor to your shoulders in one explosive motion.
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Muscle Clean Technique
The muscle clean is a complex bodyweight movement that requires skill, mobility, strength, and coordination. It is a free weight and total-body exercise that primarily targets the hamstrings and, to a lesser degree, the biceps, calves, glutes, hip flexors, lats, lower back, quads, shoulders, and traps.
To perform a muscle clean, start by getting into the same position as you would for a power clean, with the bar on the floor. Keep your head up and looking forward. Maintain a tight core and a natural arch in your lower back. Thrust your hips forward and come up off your toes as you clean the weight up to your shoulders. Ensure you do not drop your hips or bend your knees to catch the weight as you would in a power clean or full clean. Instead, keep your body rigid and maintain control as you bring the weight up in one solitary vertical movement.
It is important to note that the muscle clean is an advanced exercise suitable for those with a high level of physical fitness and exercise experience. When learning this movement, it is recommended to start with lower repetitions to avoid fatigue and focus on perfecting the technique. You can also deconstruct the movement into individual parts to improve your form and address any faults.
Additionally, the muscle clean has variations, such as performing it on rings or using a straight bar. It is also similar to the muscle-up, which is a specific movement in gymnastics and competitive fitness/CrossFit training. The muscle-up involves hanging from a pull-up bar with a wide grip and performing either a strict or kipping straight bar dip to finish the movement.
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Muscle Clean Progression
The muscle clean is a great exercise to introduce the clean, which is an Olympic weightlifting exercise. It is a solitary vertical movement where the bar is caught in the standing position. This exercise is about efficiency and the correct technique, rather than just brute strength.
The muscle clean is a progression from exercises like the deadlift, which teaches a straight bar path, and the medicine ball clean, which teaches how to retreat under a load. The muscle clean is a good next step as it teaches the hip extension and strong arm pull needed to elevate the load, without putting the shoulder into a compromised position.
To perform the muscle clean, the athlete starts with the hip extension, followed by a strong arm pull, and then remains standing tall, pulling the bar chest-high. The elbows are then rotated from above and behind the bar to in front of and parallel to the bar.
When learning the muscle clean, it is recommended to start from the hang (middle of the thigh) and work on front squats and RDLs first to build strength in the hinge and front rack position. The toe angle can be experimented with to find what feels most comfortable.
The muscle clean is a great exercise to build the correct motor patterns and progress towards more complex movements, such as the power and squat clean. It is a valuable exercise for CrossFitters, helping to improve their front squats and overall capacity.
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Frequently asked questions
Muscle clean is a weightlifting exercise that builds strength and power. Unlike the traditional clean, where you squat, the muscle clean is done in one continuous pulling motion without dropping into a squat, making it simpler and less intimidating for beginners.
The muscle clean targets multiple muscle groups simultaneously, promoting overall strength development. It is an efficient way to build a strong, balanced body. It is also an excellent way to develop explosive power, making it easier to generate force quickly.
Start with your feet hip-width apart and the barbell on the floor in front of you. Keep your shins close to the bar and your toes pointed out slightly. Bend your knees and hips to grab the bar with a grip wider than your shoulders. Keep your back straight, chest up, and eyes forward. Extend your legs and lift the bar off the ground, keeping it close to your body. As the bar passes your knees, shift your torso upright and drive through your mid-foot, extending your hips, knees, and ankles. Shrug your shoulders and pull the bar up with your arms.
There are several variations of the muscle clean, including the hang muscle clean, where you start with the bar off the floor, and the tall muscle clean, which removes the lower body from the lift. Other variations include the power clean, which involves pulling under the barbell, and the strict muscle-up, which focuses on muscle building rather than momentum.
