Testing Week: Hang Clean

In preparing for sports and while putting athletes through a program it is important to always be evaluating them for improvements in abilities such as strength, posture, flexibility and so forth. This week marks about six weeks since our last strength evaluation in which we use 3 exercises as our "indicators" for improvement in strength along with a few skill test to determine our progress over a certain period of time.

Test 1 of 3
Hang Clean

Why

1. Ground Based Movement: The ability for an athlete to produce force against the ground will determine the athletes ability to do jump, run, and accelerate. Also, athletes do everything with there feet on the ground, standing up, and getting from A to B as fast as possible.

2. Multi Joint: The primary goal for us while performing an explosive movement is to achieve triple extension. This would be the full extension of the ankle, hips, and knees in the most explosive manner possible. This is important because triple extension happens when running, jumping, and most anytime you try to produce great amounts of force during competition.

3. Athletic Position: It is important to train an athlete in similar positions that he will play. Due to the fact that most all the positions will assume the athletic position through the duration of a game, it would indicate the importance to develop strength/explosiveness from this position. A great article on this topic see : (Don't) Assume the Athletic Position by Coach Kenn.

So far the testing has gone great. We have had an average increase of ~25 pounds with the best being a 50 pound jump from 320 to 370 in just 6 weeks form the last testing. It is important not to just jump into the hang clean with out progressing however. I wrote a while back about our progression in the clean and it has paid off. I used a bottom up approach, teaching the basic concepts of triple extension through jumping exercises, and loaded jump shrugs. They gradually progressed into high pulls and cleans down the road. We emphasized the hip extension portion a lot by programming basic variations of some corrective stretches paired with the explosive lift to coordinate that pattern.

There are many people who may choose to do these from the floor or simply not at all. Why I chose to do them...Results. Our verticals continue to go up, 40's are all going down so I feel like the force developed from the clean has paid off.