Clean Deadlift

Execution

1. Inhale, brace your core, lift your chest and straighten your spine, with your hips lower than your shoulders.
2. Exhale and push the floor away with both legs, dragging the bar close along your shins as it rises.
3. Once the bar clears your knees, drive your hips forward to stand fully upright, squeezing your glutes at the top.
4. Inhale and hinge the hips back first, then bend the knees to lower the bar back down the same path it came up.
5. Set the bar down on the floor under control, letting it come to a complete rest before the next rep.
6. If you run out of strength mid-set, bail right away: when the bar will not break the floor or your back starts to round, give up the rep, put the bar straight back down the path it came and end the set instead of grinding it out.

Quick cues

• Bar stays brushing the shins.
• Chest up before you pull.
• Push the floor away with the legs.
• Hips and shoulders rise together.

Common faults

• Fault: The hips shooting up while the shoulders stay low

  Fix: Keep the chest and hips rising at the same rate from the moment the bar leaves the floor.

• Fault: The bar drifting away from the shins as it rises

  Fix: Actively drag the bar close to the legs, like pulling up a zipper.

• Fault: The lower back rounding the instant the bar leaves the floor

  Fix: Brace the core and lift the chest before the bar leaves the floor; if it still rounds, reduce the load.

• Fault: Leaning back excessively at the top lockout

  Fix: Standing tall and squeezing the glutes is enough — there is no need to lean the torso back.