Open Grip in the Rack Does NOT Cause Crashing in the Clean
An open grip in the rack position is NOT what’s causing your cleans to crash!
Here’s one of the best lifters in the world cleaning a world record into a fingertip rack position with zero crashing.
You avoid crashing in the same way with any rack grip. Whether you open your hand completely, keep the hook, or anything in between, you need to do the same basic thing:
Never let a gap form between the bar and your body in the first place.
The only way opening your hands will create a gap is if you do it too soon—relax your grip only once the bar is at your shoulders and your elbows are coming up in front of it.
It’s common to hear coaches advising lifters whose cleans crash to hold a full or even hook grip into the rack position as a solution.
But this only MIGHT help IF the underlying problem is poor timing of the grip release. And even then, it’s not actually solving the problem, but finding away around it.
Worse, it often creates other problems like slow elbows, a short turnover and an insecure rack position, along with the injury and pain potential of that position.
Many lifters, because of proportions, not just mobility, physically CANNOT keep a full grip in the rack position, and trying to force it will never work.
Address the actual problem.
Yes, that means “doing the whole clean right,” as at least one commenter will say as if it’s the height of absurdity to say that doing something right requires doing it right…
Here’s one of the best lifters in the world cleaning a world record into a fingertip rack position with zero crashing.
You avoid crashing in the same way with any rack grip. Whether you open your hand completely, keep the hook, or anything in between, you need to do the same basic thing:
Never let a gap form between the bar and your body in the first place.
The only way opening your hands will create a gap is if you do it too soon—relax your grip only once the bar is at your shoulders and your elbows are coming up in front of it.
It’s common to hear coaches advising lifters whose cleans crash to hold a full or even hook grip into the rack position as a solution.
But this only MIGHT help IF the underlying problem is poor timing of the grip release. And even then, it’s not actually solving the problem, but finding away around it.
Worse, it often creates other problems like slow elbows, a short turnover and an insecure rack position, along with the injury and pain potential of that position.
Many lifters, because of proportions, not just mobility, physically CANNOT keep a full grip in the rack position, and trying to force it will never work.
Address the actual problem.
Yes, that means “doing the whole clean right,” as at least one commenter will say as if it’s the height of absurdity to say that doing something right requires doing it right…
