Powerful hip drive is a must in strength sports. Popular among weightlifters and CrossFit athletes, the hang clean has you drive the barbell from knee level to shoulder height. Flip your elbows, then catch the bar in a front squat position.
Sound complicated? Yes, it’s a technical lift, but it’s still simple enough to be a fantastic entry point into even more complex lifts like the clean & jerk. Once you get the hang of the hang clean, you’ll be rewarded with stronger lifts and more full-body power.
How to Do the Hang Clean
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- Step 1 — Stand tall with a barbell in your hands, arms extended down, and feet spread shoulder-width apart. With a slight bend in your knees, push your hips back until the bar is at knee height. Ensure that the bar is close to your body.
- Step 2 — Push your feet into the floor and explosively pull the bar upward, keeping your chest up. Keep the bar close to your body and keep pulling until it’s in your hip crease. Make sure your chest stays up and over the bar.
- Step 3 — Drive your hips forward as hard as you can so the bar comes forward. Then, begin to pull the bar up to your torso until it’s at your shoulders. Focus on pulling the bar up toward you, with your elbows high, as if you’re doing an upright row.
- Step 4 — As the bar ascends, drop into a deep squat and catch the bar in the front rack position. Your elbows should be up and facing forward. By the time you’re in the hole of your squat, the bar should be resting across your collarbone. Drive up until you’re standing. Be sure to whip your elbows down and under the bar quickly.
Why Do It: The hang clean develops a powerful hip drive, which can help lead to a stronger squat and deadlift, bigger glutes, and — if you’re a weightlifter — a more powerful and clean & jerk and snatch. If you’re not ready for those complicated movements, the hang clean is a reliable entry point. Performed with heavy weight, the move is still challenging for more experienced athletes.
Equipment Needed: Barbell, Weight Plates, and Barbell Collars
Hang Clean Variations
Below are two common hang clean variations that you can use to improve performance, skill, and help you figure out how to increase strength in your bigger Olympic lifts, front squats, and deadlifts.
Hang Power Clean
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- Set up as you would for a hang clean.
- Perform the lift as usual, but when you catch the bar at your chest, stabilize while still standing.
- Softly bend your knees to receive the bar with minimal shock, but do not sink down into a squat. Reset and repeat for reps.
No-Foot Hang Clean
[Read More: How to do the Power Clean]
- Set up as though you were performing a regular hang clean.
- Slightly widen your stance to start the lift as compared to your usual hang clean; this stance, instead, should be more similar to your front squat stance.
- Proceed with the lift as normal, but do not lift or slide your feet after extension or while moving into your squat.
Hang Clean Alternatives
Here are three hang clean alternatives that you can program to focus on different aspects of the lift or mix things up.
Block Clean
[Read More: Muscle Clean Vs. Power Clean]
- Get two lifting blocks of your desired height and set up your barbell and weight plates onto them.
- Proceed with your hang clean from this elevated starting point. Reset and repeat for reps.
Hang Clean High Pull
[Read More: Sumo Deadlift High Pull]
- Set up for a hang clean.
- Proceed with the first half of your lift, but do not turn over the barbell into the receiving squat position. Instead, keep the wrists neutral and end the lift in a high pull.
- Reset and repeat for reps.
Kettlebell Swing
[Read More: The Clean & Jerk vs. The Clean & Press]
- To perform kettlebell swings, place the bell about a foot in front of you. Set up with your feet hip-to-shoulder-width distance apart and hinge at the hips to grasp the bell with both hands.
- Hike the kettlebell back behind you, between your legs. Make sure that you’re giving it enough height to swing above your knees, rather than below. Keep your back neutral.
- Squeeze your glutes and snap your hips up to come back to standing. Keep your lats engaged and use the momentum from your hip drive to bring the bell up to about chest height. Keep a soft bend in your elbows.
- Let momentum swing the bell back down and behind you. Repeat fluidly for reps or time.
Who Should Do the Hang Clean?
The hang clean is a power-based movement that can help with athletic development and explosive strength. Below are a few lifting populations who can benefit from such a movement.
- Powerlifters and Strongman Athletes: More powerful hips and legs will allow you to move weight faster and break through sticking points at the hip (such as the lockout of your deadlift).
- Olympic Weightlifters: The hang clean is a variation of the clean & jerk, one of your two competition lifts. So, doing the hang clean will directly carry over to your performance on the platform.
- CrossFitters and Functional Fitness Athletes: Increased force and power output can lead to faster sprint times, longer and higher jumps, and more force production when hitting balls, throwing objects, and tackling opponents. Many CrossFitters include hang cleans in their training, workouts of the day, and competitions, so they’ll directly impact your CrossFit performance, too.
Hang Clean Sets and Reps
- To Improve Technique: For training technique and skill, start with three to five sets of three to five repetitions with 50 to 70 percent of your one-rep max. Emphasize the positions, timing, and speed of the lift. This is not the time to let your ego get in the way of hang clean mastery.
- To Increase Power Output: Perform four to six sets of two to three repetitions, with 65 to 80 percent of your one-rep max. Be sure to perform these reps as powerfully and explosively as possible. In the gym, power generally begets power.
- To Get Stronger: Strength requires very heavy weight performed for just a few reps. Do five to 10 sets of two to three repetitions, with 80 percent (or more) of your one-rep max.
Benefits of the Hang Clean
Below are the hang clean benefits that you should expect when you start integrating this powerhouse of a lift into your program.
Generate More Power
The hang clean will help you increase muscular coordination and athleticism. The best plyometric exercises often produce amazing results in power and force output, kinesthetic awareness, and neurological adaptations needed to train harder, run faster, and be a more explosive athlete. This move is as explosive — and beneficial — as they come.
Better Clean & Jerk Technique
The hang clean works to specifically increase a lifter’s ability to generate power and optimal timing of the barbell at the hip as they finish their pull. Unlike the full clean, the hang forces a lifter to stay over the barbell and drive their legs into the floor.
You’ll be simultaneously focusing on power development at the end of the movement. The lower the bar is to start, the more carryover you’ll have to a full clean & jerk, which starts with the barbell on the floor.
Build Up to More Complex Lifts
Haven’t quite mastered the clean & jerk yet? Mastering hang clean form is a potent tool for practicing the type of bar speed and technique you’ll need to eventually clear the bar from the floor to over your head.
[Read More: How Much Should You Clean]
With a hang clean, barbell speed and technique is key. Gaining confidence with this movement can build both the physical strength and mental confidence you need to start the pull from the ground and finish locked out overhead.
Muscles Worked By the Hang Clean
With the hang clean, muscles worked sweep across pretty much your entire posterior chain.
- Hamstrings and Glutes: The hamstrings and glutes are engaged during the bar’s initial lowering phase, right before the first pull. During the hang clean, these muscles act like rubber bands, allowing tension to build before explosively thrusting the hips forward to initiate the lifting phase of the hang clean.
- Quadriceps: The quads are worked during the catch and squat phase of the lift. They’re taxed isometrically as you sit in the hole of the squat with weight loaded in the front rack position. Then, they’re even more active as you squat up.
- Back and Traps: Your entire back works hard to keep your torso upright during the squat portion of the exercise, as you’ll be inclined to dip forward during the front-loaded squat. Your traps will step up to the plate in a big way during the second pulling phase of the hang clean.
Common Hang Clean Mistakes
The hang clean might be a complex lift, but you don’t have to reinvent the proverbial wheel. Avoid these mistakes and you’ll be off to a solid start.
Not Warming Up
With any workout, you’ll want to perform a thorough dynamic warm-up. Then, aim to do a few warm-up sets with whatever specific lifts you’re working with. Always move through hang cleans with an empty barbell before moving on to the rest of your ramp-up sets.
Another unique component here: make sure you’re being very diligent about warming up your wrists. Hang cleans can be tough on the wrists, but they don’t have to be. Move through wrist rolls, reverse wrist rolls, wrist extensions, and wrist flexion movements as your bare minimum to prepare for this lift.
Starting With the Bar Too Far Away
As with the deadlift, your midfoot should be right over the bar when you’re starting your lift. Otherwise, you’ll have to start this power-focused move by rolling or pulling the bar toward your body. This wastes very valuable time, energy, and force transfer that all should be going into your initial pull.
Going Too Heavy
The great thing about the hang clean is that you can load up fairly heavy when you’re ready to. But if you try to slap on too much weight, too quickly, you’re likely to skimp on your form. Stick to the principles of progressive overload and make sure you’re only adding weights that you can handle with impeccable form.
FAQs
As with any Olympic lift, the hang clean can be intimidating. Rest assured: here are the answers you’re searching for.
Yes. Many weightlifting coaches teach using a top-down method, with the hang clean being one of the first movements taught. The hang clean is a great way to simplify the pulling phase of a clean & jerk and help lifters learn how to properly extend upward, finish the pull, and then move underneath the barbell into the front squat.
As they progress, new lifters can perform the hang clean from a lower-hanging position, until they finally move to the floor. This is also a great clean variation to increase the rate of force production for all levels as well.
While it certainly can contribute to muscle hypertrophy goals, it’s not primarily a muscle-building move. The hang clean is a power-based movement that needs to be done with speed and force. The best muscle-building exercises are typically done with a slower tempo and keep the target area engaged for the duration of the set.
The hang clean engages the hamstrings, but only for a second or two. The same goes for the quads. If you want bigger thighs, you may be better off performing multiple sets and reps of front squats versus the one rep you do during each hang clean rep. For hamstring growth, aim to prioritize Romanian deadlifts or lying leg curls.
These are just starting points, but here are some goal-based set and rep suggestions:
To improve technique: Do three to five sets of three to five reps with a light to moderate weight. Load up about 50 to 70 percent of your one-rep max.
To increase power output: Perform four to six sets of two to three reps, using 65 to 80 perfect of your max.
To bolster strength: Do five to 10 sets of one to two reps with at least 80 percent of your max.
1. Hold a barbell with both hands, arms extended down, standing tall with feet shoulder-width apart.
2. Hinge forward slightly until the bar is past your knees. This is known as loading your hips.
3. Drive your hips forward and pull the bar upward, keeping it close to your body.
4. As the bar nears your shoulders, quickly drop into a squat and catch the bar in a front squat position.
5. Get stable, and then drive up until you’re standing. That’s one rep.
Featured Image: baranq / Shutterstock
