Lost art of the powerclean and pushpress

For some unknown reason outside of college and pro sports gyms the powerclean and pushpress has become a lost lift.

It's a real shame as athletically no single lift gives you as much bang for your buck.

It trains the posterior chain, the core, how to absorb force and explosiveness all in one lift. Add in the pushpress and you train the quads, shoulders, triceps, upper back and the ability to transfer force from the legs to the arms.

As for the casual lifter looking to stay active and burn calories I can't think of a better lift, it's a shame people stopped exercising on their two feet and started laying down on benches and machines.

I know one of the reasons was when Westside became prominent they made popular the myth powercleans were harder to learn than the deadlift or squats or simple jumps, but as the video below shows that's simply not the case

 

Oh, not that I know that much about lifting, but when I used to do CrossFit (rather recreationally), these two along with squats were probably the most common barbell exercises we did.

 

I taught myself them when i was in my mid 20s and worked up to 110kg.

I re learned them this past two months and am back up to 95kg.

They along with the power Snatch and split snatch used to be the staple of the old York mail weightlifting courses (mail as is they posted the course to you in the 1940s and 1950s lol) so yep you can learn them yourself, just go easy,
Wear a belt or back support if needed, do the stretches Kenn talks about and build up slowly.

The squat clean and squat snatch are much harder and when they were brought into the Olympics they signalled the death of the power clean because it was so much harder to learn and pull off for the average lifter.

 

CrossFit has many issues but bringing the clean and snatch back to the average gym goer is something they should be applauded for