I was watching McErlane clean 315 the other day, and as with all situations in which the practitioner is truly adept, he made it look effortless. The illusion of ease got me thinking about what it would take to do the same myself. It was pretty simple (on paper):

1)    I'd have to fully rehab my partially torn ACL, because my quads don't like to contract around it (subsequent video analysis showed that my hang cleans look more like Romanian deadlifts)

2)    I'd really have to get my front squat technique/strength down -something I've traditionally had difficulty with.

Before I progressed any further with this daunting list, I began to wonder about the need for perfect Olympic lifting form. While I'm usually the first person to jump in and claim that of any lifts we have, those of the Oly-ilk are the most technically difficult, and as such, require the greatest level of technical proficiency.

But that's for the actual Olympic sport. What about the reason for which 99% of people actually do these lifts; power development.

It would seem to me that maximal power comes from the first two pulls (at most), and has little to do with the following catch or front squat. People spend years developing technique for the latter, but to what end? Certainly convention plays a role, but physiologically speaking, why so much focus on the lift after the first two pulls? Shouldn't high pulls be sufficient? This would yield all of the benefits without the temporal investment of full clean form.

NOTE: Myotest-based power data could help to answer this question.

Until next time,

Raise The Barr!