5 x 5 Stronglifts and Powercleans

BuyingorSelling

Hi all, i am doing Starting Strenght 5 x 5 for the last number of weeks however i would like to incorporate powercleans into my routine as i feel the explosive aspect of them would be useful for me as a football player.

Which workout should i alter to incorpoate the powerclean and also what sets and reps would be recommended

Workout A

Squat
Bench
Inverted Row
Push up

Workout B

Squat
Press
Deadlift
Pull up

shg101

Well, he is very specific that any changes makes it no longer Stronglifts 5x5!

Personally if I was you and I had to do it, I'd replace the push-ups to failure with the power cleans on workout A.

Sets & reps? Why, 5x5 of course?

token

I'd do it on A. Either replace the rows or alternate it with the rows. Generally people do oly lifts for 1-3 reps. 5x3 is a popular rep scheme for powercleans.

Or alternate with deadlifts if you feel like a bit of extra recovery.

d'Oracle

What token said.

dartstothesea

Would like to throw oly lifts in my routine (when I learn how to do them...)

Would keeping rows in A but doing the powercleans before them (i.e. powercleans right after doing bench) be sensible? Or would I already be a bit too fatigued in certain muscles when it came around to rows then?
Assuming I'm going more or less to failure on the powercleans. I don't know if that's the done thing for powercleans or anything.

g'em

dartstothesea wrote: »

Assuming I'm going more or less to failure on the powercleans. I don't know if that's the done thing for powercleans or anything.

No, we try and avoid failure as much as possible with the olympic lifts - training to max has its place, but it's more useful for competition prep than for strength gains. The thing about these lifts is that not only do you have muscular fatigue to worry about but neural fatigue as well, and the latter will kick in quicker than the former usually because the lifts are so full-body in nature. With olympic lifts the absolute max number of reps that we (when I say we I meant weightlifters i.e. we train this lifts exclusively) would do is 5 but normally we work in the 1-3 rep, 3 - 5 set range, and at that only during a very high volume phase. The guys in the gym who are using the olympic lifts for S&C would do 3 rep sets at 80 - 95% for max strength gain - anything more that that and you'll just annihilate your CNS unnecessarily.

With your question about putting powercleans in the program above - the honest answer is I don't know. Are power cleans not already a part of Starting Strength or am I getting mixed up with another program?

Scuba Ste

You say stronglifts in the title but starting strength in the post, they are actually different. I presume your doing stronglifts 5x5 because starting strength is not 5x5 and there are already powercleans as part of the program.

I'd say just do starting strength instead.

@ dartstothesea don't go to failure with powercleans, you'll do them wrong and get little benefit. If your getting sloppy reps, either go lighter or leave them at that.

d'Oracle

g'em wrote: »

With your question about putting powercleans in the program above - the honest answer is I don't know. Are power cleans not already a part of Starting Strength or am I getting mixed up with another program?

He is doing Stronglifts5x5 which uses inverted rows instead of Power Cleans.
There are also versions of Starting Strength which do not use power cleans.

A catchy name is a powerful thing.

g'em

d'Oracle wrote: »

He is doing Stronglifts5x5 which uses inverted rows instead of Power Cleans.

Ah ok. Well there's the answer then

BuyingorSelling

Thanks for reply all, Doing Strong lifts alright sorry fo confusion.

Gonna swap rows for power clean and aim for 5 sets of 3

Mellor

g'em wrote: »

No, we try and avoid failure as much as possible with the olympic lifts - training to max has its place, but it's more useful for competition prep than for strength gains. The thing about these lifts is that not only do you have muscular fatigue to worry about but neural fatigue as well, and the latter will kick in quicker than the former usually because the lifts are so full-body in nature. With olympic lifts the absolute max number of reps that we (when I say we I meant weightlifters i.e. we train this lifts exclusively) would do is 5 but normally we work in the 1-3 rep, 3 - 5 set range, and at that only during a very high volume phase. The guys in the gym who are using the olympic lifts for S&C would do 3 rep sets at 80 - 95% for max strength gain - anything more that that and you'll just annihilate your CNS unnecessarily.

With your question about putting powercleans in the program above - the honest answer is I don't know. Are power cleans not already a part of Starting Strength or am I getting mixed up with another program?

Now that reps and sets are sorted,

How do I get any reasonable weight off the ground. Or rather, getting back under the bar, which is my issue.

g'em

Mellor wrote: »

How do I get any reasonable weight off the ground. Or rather, getting back under the bar, which is my issue.

99% of the time the one thing that stops people getting big powercleans is problems in their extension. Hanley described the difference between deadlifting and powercleans really well on this thread and it's those differences that are the hardest things to learn:

- the first pull is slow and controlled (to the knee), the second pull is fast and explosive (all about the hips)
- you need to keep your shoulders over the bar until it's mid-thing (midway through second pull)
- your hips, and not your arms do all the hard work - the hips should provide the power to drive the bar up high enough that you can duck underneath it.

Hang power cleans will help:
- from the waist to isolate the hip drive;
- from the knee to help you keep the bar close (the bar should skim your things all the way to them);
- from below the knee to help train yourself to stay over the bar

If you want to take a video of yourself doing power cleans I'll give you a hand improving ti - I just need to see where things are going wrong first