POLL: Customize Your Clean!

If you stumbled across a loaded barbell and your life depended on getting that barbell to your shoulder, how would you do it? For anyone who is slightly proficient with strength and conditioning, your answer is likely some variation of a clean. The clean, of course, is the movement made famous by the Olympic sport of weightlifting that moves the barbell dynamically from the floor to support at the athlete’s shoulder.

If you could change anything about the clean, what would you change? Would you put your feet someplace else? Would you hold the bar differently? Would you do different things with your hips?

If you wouldn’t, that fact places the choreography and the points of performance of the clean in a category of utility that transcends opinion, rules, or methodology. Function is tethered to task and best practices therein. In my opinion, that is in and of itself the most beautiful fact of functional movement. I hope you cherish it, too. 

Logan Gelbrich  

@functionalcoach

PS – you can do this thought experiment with any functional movement with a rich history.