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How to do a Squat Clean to increase your strength and improve your performance in CrossFit WODs.

Set up for a Squat Clean

  • Begin with your heels hip width apart
  • Bar is on the ground and hands are gripped just outside of your shins
  • Shoulders are at or just over the bar
  • Back is flat and tight
  • Chest is up
  • Core is tight
  • Weight is in the balls of feet

Points of Performance for a Squat Clean

  • Push your knees back as you stand the bar up from the ground, keeping the hips and shoulders rising at the same rate
  • From the mid thigh, pull the bar into the body and aggressively jump, extending the hips, knees, and ankles (triple extension)
  • With a big shrug of the shoulders, elbows come high and outside the bar then back around while pulling yourself under to receive the weight
  • Receive the bar in a full front squat so that it rests on the shoulders with the elbows up
  • The bottom of the squat is with the crease of the hip below the knee
  • Drive through the heels back to a standing position
  • The clean is completed when the knees and hips are fully locked out and open at the top

Tips and Tricks for a Squat Clean

  • Think about driving through your heels
  • Speed under the bar is the key
  • The power from this lift is initiated in the hips
    • Think about 2 speeds; slow and controlled off the ground, and explosive from the top of the knees to the hips
  • One continuous pull from the ground to shoulders
    • Stopping or hesitating at any point in the lift is only going to stunt the momentum created from the floor
  • Pull with long arms
    • An early arm bend will only dampen momentum created from the floor