Tempo Clean: The Best Clean Variation For Technique
The clean is a fast movement.
Or, that’s how most people think about it. In reality, it’s only the fast, explosive movement you’re familiar with IF you have efficient technique. The way to learn efficient technique?
Moving slow.
The tempo clean or slow pull clean is one of my favorite variations of the clean, and one of the key progressions in WL101, my free beginner guide and 6-week program for learning the olympic lifts.
What Is The Tempo Clean?
The tempo clean is a variation of the clean that is designed to help you practice the clean, specifically the positions and transitions during the pull.
For those who struggle with errors such as…
Jumping forward or backward
Not making bar-body contact
Early arm-bend
This clean variation can help you dial in your technique to solve the root cause of these issues, rushing the lift.
Check out the demo video here!
How To Perform The Tempo Clean
To perform the tempo clean, set up exactly as you would for a normal clean, with your clean grip, hookgrip, stance, and start position. Check out this video for a deep dive into the setup for a clean.
Perform the clean as normal, however instead of starting the lift fast, force yourself to take four seconds to move the bar from the ground to your power position, typically upper thigh. Then, once you reach your power position, finish the lift as fast as possible like you would in a normal clean.
By slowing down the pull you can take the time to make any corrections in your technique.
Tempo Clean Mistake #1: Shifting Balance
One of the most common mistakes in the clean that the tempo clean can help fix is shifting balance.
Most forward and backward jump issues are related to your balance shifting excessively during the pull. Ideally during the pull, you should maintain midfoot balance from the ground to the power position to allow for maximum vertical leg drive.
This often happens for a few reasons
Your start position balance is too far on the heel or the ball of the foot.
You started correctly but either shifted your balance too far back as you passed the knee or did not get the knees out of the way enough and went forward around them.
You started correctly and navigated the knees correctly, but you threw your hips forward into the bar as the bar was moving toward your power position.
Each of these issues revolves around awareness of balance throughout the pull. So during the tempo clean, take the time to focus on staying perfectly midfoot and you will see some massive improvement in your technique.
Tempo Clean Mistake #2: Lack Of Bar-Body Contact
Another common mistake people make in the clean that the tempo clean can help with is a lack of bar-body contact.
If you want to be good at the clean, you need the bar to make contact with your thighs. You will never clean the most weight possible without it.
By slowing the pull for the clean down, you can check yourself at every moment in the pull.
“Is the bar close to me?”
If not, make it close. If yes, keep going!
Every rep you do, make sure to keep this contact, and if you don’t do it right, do it again until this is not an issue.
Tempo Clean Mistake #3: Starting Too Fast
Probably the most frequent mistake lifters make in the clean is starting the lift too quickly (lifters make this mistake in the tempo clean too).
This usually comes from a lack of understanding of how speed in a clean is developed.
Ideally in the pull, the bar should be the slowest from the ground to the knee, faster from the knee to the power position, and fastest from extension to the bottom of the squat.
By starting the lift as fast as possible, you will almost always set yourself up to slow down later in the pull, which is a cardinal sin of technique.
Start slow so you can finish the lift fast, and in the case of the tempo clean, you must force yourself to follow the four-second tempo. You will likely find yourself at the knee position at the 1st second and then begin slowing down again, which just reinforces the technique we don’t want to develop.
With any variation, HOW you do the lift matters more than simply doing the lift.
Beware, You Might Not Feel Like You’ll Have Enough Time
The most common struggle I find people facing with the tempo clean is that…
“It doesn’t feel like I’ll have enough time to get under it”
This is very common among lifters who rely heavily on bar height to get under a bar rather than speed under the bar.
Unfortunately, the reason that you struggle with the tempo clean is exactly the reason you NEED the tempo clean.
Perform these at just heavy enough of a weight that you get freaked out mid-pull but not so heavy that you don’t commit and you will find your golden spot of technique work.
How To Implement The Tempo Clean In Your Weightlifting Program
The Tempo Clean can be implemented a number of different ways.
My favorite of course is as a progression for beginners to learn the clean. That’s why I include it as a main focus in WL101: Beginner Guide + 6-Week Program, which you can download for free here. As a progression, I will not prescribe any weight percentage or RPE, just simply pick a weight that you can perform 8/10 reps correctly with, and do them about twice a week for 2 weeks or so, or until your technique is consistent.
Another way you can use the tempo clean is as a movement primer, which you can read more about in this article. To use the tempo clean as a movement primer, simply perform your first 3-5 warm-up weights on a normal clean workout as a tempo clean. Not only is it a great warm-up for the legs and back, but it will also help you dial in your pull technique especially if you struggle with any of the mistakes in section two.
Another option for programming the tempo clean into your workout is as a lighter variation before your normal strength work like I do on our Skills and Strength days on the OlyStrong 5-Day Team. If you have a strength-focused day with no olympic lifts, you can add some lighter sets of 2-3 reps for 3-5 sets to get some additional volume and practice with the clean. This works especially well if your first strength exercise is a front squat or a clean pull, as you are also warming up the same muscle groups and movement patterns.
Hopefully, this helped! 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.
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!