In the Starting Strength programming we use versions of the Olympic lifts and they’re very important to the program. But a lot of people figure out a way to get out of having to do them. The reason they don’t want to do them is because they don’t know how. They haven’t figured out how to do them or their coach has not figured out how to coach them. So they just avoid them and do light deadlifts.

The Olympic lifts are in there for a reason. What we are using the Olympic lifts for is to teach your nervous system to accelerate a load, to pull on the thing fast, because a power clean or a power snatch can’t be done slowly. So if you’re successful in racking either a power clean or a power snatch in the rack position you have pulled it fast. And pulling it fast is the point of the whole thing. You can’t pull it fast if your back’s in the wrong position. So you have to be in extension. You have to be familiar with the correct pulling mechanics off the floor. In order to correctly perform either a power clean or a power snatch:

• The bar has to be right over the middle of the foot.
• Your hips have to be high.
• Your chest has to be up.
• Your low back must be locked into extension.

And a power clean and a power snatch are not particularly difficult exercises. It’s not like going down an ice covered hill at 98 miles an hour on two boards. It’s nothing like that. They’re not the most complicated movements in sports. So what you should do is you read all about these two movements in the blue book because you have to know how to do them. And then you try you get somebody to show you how to perform the movements and coach you on your mistakes that you’re making because you can’t see. If you can’t see what you’re doing, you need to set up a camera and video your workouts, which you really ought to be doing anyway. You ought to be videoing your workouts so that you can learn to identify your own errors.

The power clean and the power snatch are explosive. And what we normally do with a regular novice (a guy from 18 to 35 comes into the gym to start lifting weights), we’ll start him on the the other exercises: on the squat, the deadlift, the bench press and the press. He’ll do those for three or four weeks and then it will be time for him to start doing the power clean in place of making the deadlift go up 5 lbs every workout.

The deadlift can go up faster than the squat because it’s basically an easier lift that starts from a higher hips position off the floor. Unless something is wrong with you, you can always deadlift more than you can squat on day one and that’ll be true for a couple of years. You’ll always be a stronger deadlifter than you will be a squatter until you get to be an advanced lifter. But the power clean serves a purpose:

• By being difficult in and of itself because of the technical requirements of the acceleration.
• But by virtue of the fact that the weight is lighter, it’s not as stressful as the deadlift, which is a grind on the fifth rep. Both forms of pulling are important in this program.

Who should power clean? Everybody that can power clean should power clean. And if you are hiring a coach and your coach hasn’t taught you the power clean, you need to ask why because you’re supposed to be being taught to power clean. Power snatch is a another exercise that can be used in place of the power clean depending on the circumstances. But if your coach has not taught you how to power clean, then you need to ask him why not. And if he says that you don’t need to do it, get another coach because that’s not the method. The method includes the power clean.

Who can’t power clean? If you’ve got an injury that would not respond well to slamming around, racking a bar at the top of the pull of the power clean, then you don’t need to power clean. If you’ve got a spinal injury, if you’ve got neck problems, if you’ve got an uncooperative elbow because your elbows are going to have to flex quickly, if you’ve got injuries in any of these things in the kinetic chain from the floor to the bar that preclude you from power cleaning, then don’t power clean. And more importantly, if you’re an old person (if you’re 55 or 60), and you’re just starting out and you’ve never done this before, Mark Rippetoe would probably hesitates to put you on a power clean unless you insisted that you do it, and you were a pretty good athlete and you could do it efficiently and safely. But old people’s connective tissues (their tendons and ligaments) aren’t the same as young people’s connective tissues. And as a result, the explosive nature of power cleans and snatches present a danger to older trainees that younger trainees need to ignore.

If you’re young, you need to be clean and snatching and if you’re old, you probably don’t. So keep this in mind. If you’re not getting the most out of your training, it’s probably because you’re failing to include the clean and the snatch. But if you keep getting hurt while you’re doing the clean and the snatch, it’s probably time to drop those two lifts.

Bibliographic references:

• Starting Strength. (2025). When to Add the Olympic Lifts [Video file]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/21MDJn12vbM?si=INHRQTxL19dzNUZr
• Rippetoe M. (2011). Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training, 3rd Edition. The Aasgaard Company.