As a power lifter and one who prides himself on a big and ever increasing deadlift I have become a student of the positions one needs to reach to achieve proper and efficient from in the dead lift. I have become as well a firm believe through teaching the correct positions first and foremost the rest of the things will work them selves out in time.
By knowing and achieve each position your are then best able to transition to the next, and as well by knowing them first you then have the ability to ID what went wrong when you miss a lift or something feels heavier then it should.
In the same light, since joining Charles here at Staley Training Systems I became a student and now teacher of proper O-lifting form. Included in that is the clean. The same thing can be said about the positions of the two.
Coming again from a power lifting / Deadlifting background the relation of the positions of the proper clean and proper deadlift perplexed me. More so then the similarities in the positions of these very like lifts was the small yet huge in execution difference. I thought it would be helpful to quickly break down and explain the positions of a proper deadlift and proper positions of the pull portion (minus the catch) of the clean for those trainee’s and athletes like myself that use both in their programming and help you to be able to view them as the similar but yet very single entities they are.
(Note: I am going to give generic form on the deadlift and not take into account slight variances in body structure that would warrant adjustment. Still the basic premise of the lifts is the same)
The differences are slight but evident.
In the deadlift you are positioned with the hips higher, looking to get the hamstrings wound tight like a drum, and weight shifted toward the heels to achieve a strong tight starting position at the point you need to produce the maximum force in the lift.
In the Clean you use more Knee flexion, the hams are not strung tight yet as you are looking to achieve that at the power position.
In the DL you start the pull HARD with Hip and knee flexion looking to gain a mechanical advantage and get your body behind the bar as far and fast as you can to utilize body weight against the bar.
In the clean you initiate the pull with knee flexion and simply maintain the hip angle to obtain the power position. The Power position shoulder in front of bar hams would like a Bra strap ready to burst. From the power position this is where you GO! Hit extreme power and hip flexion to jettison the bar in a straight close line up the body.
In the DL when the bar reaches the top of the knee, the same place as the power position in the clean you should already be firing glutes as hard as possibly to get your hips under your torso and shoulders as far behind the bar as possible to make the lockout as smooth and easy as it can be.
Achieving lock out when the hips have reached full extension past the point at which a clean will go and knees are locked.
Below is a video walk through as well that may help you graps the difference between the clean which is a LIFT with the bar going up in a steady controlled fashion to reach a position where the bar, by forceful hip flexion can be launched to the shoulders.
The DL which is more of a pull backward utilizing as much of the rearward pull of the body weight to get the shoulders behind the center of gravity pulling on the bar as soon as possible.
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