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