Power Clean: Is it Really that Effective

Its about that time of year when all the high school off season programs are in full swing. Here in a few months most teams will be performing maximum efforts in the following exercises: bench press, squat and power clean. If you asked a coach why they perform these exercises they'd say, " The bench press measures upper body strength. The squat measure lower body strength and the power clean indicates how powerful an athlete is."

I'm only going to address the power clean issue, because to me it does not indicate maximum power production. The power clean is an extremely technical lift that can take years to master. Most of the time, a maximum effort at the power clean turns into a display of survival. The technique is horrible and the kids feel like they failed because they could pull the bar to their chin, yet they couldn't catch the bar. If you've ever coached this lift you know what I'm talking about.

I've been training myself for 15 years and I've still not mastered the lift. It takes an enormous amount of time to become proficient at this lift...and to me its not worth the time! In the time it takes me to train an athlete to perform a proper clean I could have taught him how to perform a vertical jump, broad jump and a clean pull.

Its my recommendation that coaches teach the broad jump(horizontal power production), vertical jump (vertical power development/indicator of acceleration capacity) and the clean pull (starting strength). If you do this you will maximize your time and have three great tests to accurately measure power production.