power clean vs. olympic clean - General - Prof. Verkhoshansky Web Site

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With great sadness I have to announce that my father passed away at Sandro Pertini Hospital, Rome, on Wednesday, June 23 2010.

I wish to thank all those around the word who have sent messages of condolence and expressed gratitude for his work. My father will be greatly missed by us all, but I am sure his work will continue to influence many coaches.

In the last years of his life it was his will to divulgate his work in English directly under our control so that many of the misinterpretations due to inaccuracy of translation made in the past from his Russian manuscripts and articles could be understood.

The first step of this project was the website on which we started to publish articles and manuscripts and, according to his will, the site will continue to be open until all his works have been published.

Natalia Verkhoshansky

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New Forum Special Strengt... General power clean vs. olympic clean

1/16/2010 8:44 PM

	PCexpress
6 posts

power clean vs. olympic clean

This has bothered me for some time. The "westernized" version of the Olympic clean known as the power clean almost completely removes the eccentric portion of the lift. It consists of a powerful concentric contraction off the floor and catches the bar at its peak so hardly any downward force has to be absorbed. However people compare the power clean to the depth jump and other "plyometric" exercises all the time. But these exercises consist of a rapid (ideally) eccentric contraction followed by a concentric contraction aided by the stretch reflex. So how is the power clean like the depth jump at all???

Also, I used to do an exercise I referred to as the power press. It was essentially a Jerk with the bar behind the neck. Safety considerations aside, I believe this exercise contributed greatly to my increasing my vertical leap to around 34" at one time. I could power press around 285 lbs. at my peak and the only way to get it down was to literally drop it onto my back (in the position I would hold it while squatting) and slow it down by a powerful eccentric contraction of my lower body. I was never able to re-create this powerful of a contraction thru any other plyometric exercise. And ironically, I believe the primary benefit of this exercise came from the lowering portion rather than the actual concentric lift. Thoughts???

-Ed Miller
USA

2/15/2010 1:47 AM

	lulupuff
1 posts

Re: power clean vs. olympic clean

Hi Pc,
This is intresting in what you are saying here. I competed in Olympic Weightlifting for15 years and 8 of those years at a very hight level. Now been coaching it for over20 years.
My coach always had us do power cleans with an eccentric catch as much as possible. So we didn't get under it the speed like doing competitve clean.

As for the power press exercise, we used to have a shot putting athlete in our gym who was about the same age as me at the time and did this very same exercise.

He did it with 200kgs for 4 reps. ( very powerful individual ) and maintained that he had a superior eccentric contraction while doing this paticular exercise.

All the best,

Andy

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