The Clean Pull: How To Increase Your Pull Strength and Improve Technique
Clean Pulls might be the most useful lift for improving your clean, but most people do them wrong.
If you’re training to increase your clean, either as an olympic lifter, athlete, or just because you saw it and thought it looked cool, then you need to be doing clean pulls especially if you’re limited by strength.
Now, if you’re completely new to the olympic lifts, then I highly recommend checking out my free Weightlifting101: Beginner Guide + 6-Week Program first, otherwise, let’s get into it!
What Is The Clean Pull?
The clean pull is an exercise designed to help you improve your pulling strength and technique specifically for the clean.
Because of its simpler nature, you can perform the clean pull with weights heavier than you can clean. This allows you to develop pulling strength, speed, and power while practicing the ideal technique of a clean.
There are many variations of the clean pull, however for the purpose of this article, we’ll be going over the three most common variations in the next section.
The Clean Pull is also one of the key progressions in my free WL101: Beginner Guide + 6-Week Program!
How To Perform The Clean Pull
There are three common variations of the Clean Pull that you might come across in a weightlifting program, each of them are very similar, with only two distinct differences.
Pull Height
Top-End Weight
Other than these two differences, the set-up and execution of the lift will be exactly the same.
Clean High Pull
The Clean High Pull is the lightest variation as the goal is to pull the bar as high as possible.
To perform, set up in your start position with your feet in your pulling/power position stance, clean grip, and hips and back set appropriately. When viewed from the side, it should look like your hips are higher than or level with your knees, your shoulders are higher than your hips, and in line with or slightly in front of the barbell, but most importantly, that you have midfoot balance.
Begin pushing down into the ground to get the bar moving. Aim to mirror the exact pull technique you would use in the clean - moving the knees out of the way of the bar while keeping the bar close to the shins. Then as the bar passes your knees, begin moving your knees under the bar to recreate your power position without shifting forward onto the toes. Finally finish your extension as vertical and aggressively as possible, and keep the bar moving upwards by pulling your elbows high and out to the sides.
The goal with the high pull is to get the bar roughly sternum height before lowering back down to perform the next rep.
Clean Pull
The Clean Pull differs from the Clean High Pull only by the maximum height the bar reaches.
Your set-up and execution of the lift is exactly the same, however at the top of the pull, instead of continuing to pull the bar high with your arms, just let your arms stay connected with the bar, using them to keep the bar close, but not to continue pulling.
If you use enough leg drive to launch the bar, that means the bar should get to around belly button height with a small shrug at the top of the pull.
Clean Deadlift
A Clean Deadlift is exactly the same as a Clean Pull, however instead of shrugging and launching the bar, the weight will be heavy enough that you cannot launch the bar at all.
This variation will be the heaviest and slowest of the three, and is somewhat more rare to see in a weightlifting program.
How To Use The Clean Pull In Your Weightlifting Program
There are MANY different ways to use the Clean Pull and its variations in your training program!
One of the simplest ways is to add 3-5 sets of clean pulls for 2-5 reps after your clean workout, aiming for 10-20lbs heavier than your top set of cleans for the day. This will get the job done for the majority of weightlifters. Obviously if you are doing higher reps, you may need to use lighter weights, and if you are doing lower reps, then you can use heavier weights AS LONG AS you are maintaining proper positions and technique. If you are not practicing the same technique as you would use in a clean, then the clean pull will have far less carryover to your cleans, and clean pulls suck enough as is, so there’s no point in doing them just to get no benefit from them.
If you are heavily limited by your pull strength in the clean, then I recommend prioritizing Clean Deadlifts instead of Clean Pulls or High Pulls. It can be hard to know if you are actually limited by your pulling strength, but a good test is to see how high you can pull your max effort cleans. If you barely get the bar to belly button height with a max attempt, and then go up in weight and can barely break the bar off the floor, then Clean Deadlifts are probably the best option for you. For these, aim for 3-5 sets of 2-5 reps with more than your max clean 1-2x a week. This can mean you are doing up to about 130% of your clean, however for most pull strength-limited lifters, you will likely only be able to do around 105-115% of your max clean.
You can also use the clean pull as a drill to improve your technique with lighter weights. This works well if you have very inconsistent technique in your clean from rep to rep. Try these for 3-5 sets of 2-3 reps with 75-90% of your max clean, putting max effort into your focus on technique. Ideally you can have a coach or training partner holding you accountable here. Just remember that these are not something you can be lazy with your execution. If you don’t have a coach, these variations can help.
P.S. Each of those will take you to a demo video as well!
Another way you can use the Clean Pull is in a variation complex, which you can read more about in this article. Complexes like the Clean Pull+Clean are a great way to practice the ideal pull technique in the first rep, making it more likely you will use this technique in the clean that follows. Give these a try for 3-5 sets of 1-2 Pulls followed by 1-2 Cleans between 70-85% of your clean max!
Hopefully, this clarified some things for you and maybe even gave you a lightbulb moment with your technique. If you ever need a free form check on your videos, you’re always welcome to join my free discord here and drop your video in the #form-checks channel.
By the way, I’ve got a free beginner weightlifting guide and a 6-week program! If you’re new to the olympic lifts, then check it out here!
And if you’re looking for a weightlifting program designed to help you set PRs, improve your technique, and get strong af, then check out a FREE WEEK TRIAL of my 3 & 5-Day OlyStrong Team at the link below!