If you are serious about weight lifting, learning how to clean is essential. If you want to showcase your muscles, cleans are a great way to test your strength.
Hang cleans are no exception. They require a lot of effort and involve a lot of body parts. Hang cleans are a great way to add cleans to your workout routine or challenge yourself in the gym.
Let’s talk about power cleans and their differences. We will also discuss the benefits they can bring to your training.
MUSCLES HAVE WORKED
You need to know the anatomy of the muscles that you are going to be using before you start adding another exercise to your workout routine. Knowing what you are working on will help you to use your knowledge safely and engage your body for maximum results. Hang cleans can be done all over the body. Although they don’t target every muscle in your body simultaneously, you will be engaging many of your lower body muscles and your upper body in succession.
Lower Body: Most hang cleans will target the lower half of your body. Your hip flexors will be the ones doing the bulk of the work. They’ll generate the lift you need for straightening your body and lifting the weights to your shoulders. Because of all the lifting, squatting and support you will be doing during the whole process, your quadriceps and hamstrings are going be working hard. Your core and glutes will be your support muscles during the hang phase of your clean, and your calves will be crucial in helping you stay grounded as you lift your toes up and reposition your feet.
Upper Body: Just because your lower body is putting in the most effort during the exercise, doesn’t mean that your upper body is doing well. Your top half will also be strengthened. Your core muscles will be receiving the most attention out of all the muscles in the upper body. Your core muscles, transverse abdominals, rectus and yourobliques will all be engaged during your entire hang clean. Your core must be engaged in order to protect your back and to provide force throughout your body. Without a strong core those weights won’t go anywhere.
To lift the weight off the ground or above your hips, you will need some muscle. After all the flexing and clutching that you do to lift the weights towards your shoulders, your forearms will be sore. After you have lowered your body to the hang position, the spinal erectors help you straighten your spine. You’ll be working your trapezius and latisumus dorsi muscles to stabilize your upper body and back during lifting.
CLEANING UP
Hang cleans can be a variation of the clean family. Understanding where you’re coming from is the first step to understanding the differences between a power clean and a hang clean. Similar to how you need to understand what an apple looks like before you can distinguish between different varieties of apples, you also need to know the difference between each of them.
Clean is an exercise that involves placing your barbell on the ground and moving your body to a squat under the bar. After you have gotten into this full squat position, you can use the rebound from the squat for a standing position. Next, you can either go into a jerk or return the weights back to the ground to start another rep.
From there, the family of cleans branched out. This is where we do our hang clean. Now that you know how to properly clean, hang cleans can be divided into two separate groups.
CLEANING UP
Hang cleans can be a variation of the clean family. Understanding where you’re coming from is the first step to understanding the differences between a power clean and a hang clean. Similar to how you need to understand what an apple looks like before you can distinguish between different varieties of apples, you also need to understand what an apple is.
Clean is an exercise that involves placing your barbell on the ground and moving your body to a squat under the bar. After you have gotten into this full squat position, you can use the rebound from the squat for a standing position. Next, you can either go into a jerk or return the weights back to the ground to start another rep.
From there, the family of cleans branched out. This is where we do our hang clean. Now that you know how to properly clean, hang cleans can be divided into two separate groups.
HANG CLEANS
Your hang cleans will be different from regular cleans. The goal is to start from a standing position and return the weights to a hanging position. If you are going to do hang cleans, it is important to get your back straight and core engaged. These are a great way to increase your overall strength and compound.
It’s important to know your starting point. This is what will determine whether you can keep clean safely and effectively.
Your elbows should be slightly outstretched. Internal rotation is something you want to encourage with your arms. Internal rotation will engage your lats and get your arms ready for lifting the barbell. This internal rotation will ensure that the bar remains close to your body. We don’t want the bar to move away from you, ruining you center of gravity, and forcing you into strange contortions to get it back in time to lift your weights.
Place your feet on the ground. To increase your stability, your feet should be approximately shoulder-width. Until you lift the bar and place your feet underneath the weights, your toes must not touch the ground.
Your core should be strong. Every exercise requires core strength, but hang cleans are especially important. When you hang the weights, your back must be flat. Once you have racked the weights on your chest, a solid core will help you keep them in check.
Once you have established a good starting position, it is time to get into a comfortable grip for your hang clean. Many weightlifters will recommend a hook grip. This will increase your grip strength, and help you to lift heavier weights faster.
To get the weight down to your knees, push your chest forward and your butt back. Do not overextend your body, but keep your muscles engaged while you hang. Your weight should be equal to your arms. However, your elbows, fingers and shoulders should remain engaged so that your arms don’t hang out of their sockets.
Balance your body weight and your hands with the weight of your feet. You’ll end up balancing the weight poorly if you balance too far forward on you toes and too back on your heels. This will make it difficult to get a good workout and could lead to injury. This is the most common problem area and you can fix it quickly with help from a mirror or a partner.
Bring the weight up to your hips.
To reposition your feet, straighten your torso by pulling the weight towards your chest.
You can now explodely flip your arms underneath the weight. You should have your feet creating a stable platform for the weight you just lifted.
Start from the hanging position and return the weight to your hips.
There are a few options to make your hang cleans more manageable. You can split them into two clean camps. Clean variants are all about how your thighs angle when you stop the momentum of the weights. A power clean is a variation of the standard clean in which your thighs are at an angle higher than ninety degrees. Power cleans are all about your legs and your ability to maintain your balance. To be able to power clean, you must avoid a full squat. Although it sounds easy, you will need to have a lot more power in your lower body to lift the weights without having to squat.
This means you can either lower yourself to a full squat depending on what kind of work you are trying to do. Cleans of all types, power or not, can be very beneficial for your lower body. You can incorporate the deep squat into your workout. This will work on your quads and the entire bodywork. However, if you are looking to improve your isometric strength, keeping your legs at a horizontal angle while powering through the momentum of the weights is a great option. The squat is an eccentric and concentric exercise.
MISTAKES TO ABIDE
Cleans are great for the whole body. The problem is that you can’t control your form, look for shortcuts or act recklessly in order to get results your body doesn’t want. You’ll be fine as long as your lifting skills are smart and your form doesn’t drop.
Pay Attention to Your Body: When you are lifting the weight on your shoulders, your chest is not being clocked. If you place too much emphasis on your chest when lifting the weights, you could bang your collar bone. You might think of it as a landing pad. Even though you are making a throwing motion in order to lift the weight and pull yourself under, you will never lose control.
Recognizing Your Limits: If your body is not ready to do hang cleans, you are not ready. You can save yourself a lot of pride, and even injury by lowering your body into a full squat rather than allowing your legs to fail while you rack the weights across your shoulders. You shouldn’t be pushing yourself beyond your limits. However, you should make sure that you don’t lose progress because of impatience or pride.
When lifting weights, it is important to watch your form. Good form is more than following the rules. It’s about putting your body in the best position to engage the muscles you are trying to train. You can only force your muscles to contract in one direction so if you try to force them to lift, it will lead to injury and frustration.
You’ll be more successful if you keep your mind on the form when learning a new exercise. You can keep your back flat by thinking about the areas where tension is felt and which muscles are being engaged. Instead of letting your back bend to the weight of your weights, your core should keep your core tight. When you are hanging the weight, keep your glutes tight and stabilize yourself with your quads.
Who is this for?
Hang cleans can be a great exercise for many reasons. They should be a part of your routine. There are many reasons why hang cleans can be beneficial for everyone. Here are some things to think about if you are considering them.
Hang cleans can be a great middle ground in the world. You will be somewhere in between a complete clean and a jerk, so you can work your way up to that. The exercise will be the same for both ends. Hang cleans will help you succeed if you are working on your clean or your clean-and-jerk.
These are not just a quick way to increase your total body weight. It’s not possible to gain muscle mass or grow stronger by doing hang cleans. Hang cleans can be more like a musician practicing difficult riffs over and over, rather than a shortcut to success. Like any other clean, you’ll be working on your cleans and building muscle. You’re only working on one part of the entire movement. This will train your muscles, your mind, and get you ready for more.
Hang cleans are used by athletes of all levels to increase strength and muscle. Hang cleans will keep your muscles tense for the duration of the exercise. This is a great way to increase energy and encourage growth. You could compare it to regular cleans where you are encouraged to unload between sets, and you might argue that hang cleans may even be more beneficial than standard cleans.
There is no one definition for the hang clean. If you are concerned about your wrists and your ability to apply weight to your shoulders, internally rotate your arms, and try to find a more comfortable grip. To make it easier, you can do a power hold clean with your legs elevated above a squat. You can lift more or less weight depending upon your strength level and your goals for muscle growth or fat loss. No matter your level of skill or goals, they’re a great exercise for all ages.
SQUEAKY CLEAN
Hang cleans are a great way to show your strength. Hang cleans are a great way to build the most visible muscles. They also provide a compound exercise that can burn fat and calories. They are safe and easy to use for lifters of all levels.
