Years ago, I remember having lunch in NY with a colleague from South Africa. After having a starter salad and waiting for our main course, he commented to me that he wondered why US restaurants always serve the salad first and not with your main course. He said he preferred eating his salad alongside his meal, not before it.
This memory came back to me during a recent training session. I was struggling with my cleans and not driving my legs well. My coach suggested to stop and switch to clean pulls. I did and soon my clean pulls were moving well, with an improved leg drive. I continued for several more sets of clean pulls and then switched back to cleans when my coach was satisfied I was ready to clean. The result was very positive, with my 2nd clean workout going much better than the 1st.
On a typical day, a person may begin with cleans or snatches and when those are done, they may add in some pulls to finish up the training session. How many times do our pulls look so much better than the cleans or snatches? In our gym, you often hear comments from other lifters watching you pull such as “just clean it” or “snatch it already”. This leads to the question: Why do we often look so much better doing pulls than the full lifts and how do we fix this? As we all know, Olympic weightlifting is about more than just pure strength. Technique and speed are also very important.
Pulls are critical for improving your lifts. When I do pulls, I think about driving the legs hard with my chest up while keeping my arms relaxed. Now, I should use the exact same technique for my full lifts. But for some reason, I often fall back into the bad habits of using my arms too much or not pushing correctly with my legs. To help avoid these bad habits, I’ve started to mix things up with my workouts. On some days where I plan to focus on cleans, I will start with clean pulls, working up to medium heavy weight, focusing on leg drive and relaxed arms. Then, I’ll do my planned clean workout, trying to retain the muscle memory from the pulls and keep the same smooth pull in the clean. Then after the cleans, I can do additional pulls, working to heavier weights. Changing the order of exercises every now and then can allow you to focus on improving your technique, which will lead to better lifts.
If you ever find yourself in a similar situation, where your Clean technique is not fully clicking but later your pulls are strong and smooth, talk with your coach about mixing it up once in a while. It has worked well for me and may work for you also. And the next time you’re having dinner, try having salad with your main course or maybe even start with dessert, which is one of my favorite ways to mix it up.
—John Tullo, a.k.a. “The Champ”
