Pulls

When I speak of pulling power, I am basically referring to strength of the back. While it is true that the legs do a good portion of the work in any pulling motion, it is the back that is most involved, so pulling exercises are considered back exercises.

My basic pulling lift, the power clean, will be the first to plateau in the basic program. Ironically, the gains also come the quickest in the power clean for a number of reasons. The muscles involved in the pull are generally not used in day-to-day activity, so once they become stimulated they develop rapidly. Then too, the power clean requires the most athletic ability. As soon as the trainee’s technique develops, then the poundage goes up in direct proportion to his athletic ability. But when these two factors begin to level off, the gains come more begrudgingly.

The “Athlete’s Exercise”

If your program only allowed you to do one exercise, the power clean would be the best. The muscles involved are: upper and lower leg, hip girdle, lower, middle and upper back, the upper arm and the forearms. In fact, there are so many muscles involved in this movement that if they were listed this section would read like an anatomy chart. Suffice it to say that the power clean is a most complete single exercise.

Step up to the loaded barbell so that your legs are just about touching the bar. Push your chest out, look straight ahead and reach down and grip the barbell. Your grip will naturally fall at about shoulder width. Keep your lower back very flat and your arms perfectly straight. Ease the bar off the floor slowly. Do not try to pull it off the floor quickly as this will make you break the proper position. As the bar passes your knees, bring the hips forward very rapidly. Almost at the same time, perhaps merely a fraction of a second later, pull with the muscles of the upper back (trapezius) and the arms (biceps and brachioradialis). This will bring the bar to shoulder level. Now bring the elbows under the bar and let it rack on your pectorals and frontal deltoids. Lower the bar cautiously, making sure that you keep the same flat back on the downward route. Stop. Reset your body position and repeat the movement.

Breathe both at the start and finish of the power clean but hold your breath during the exertion. On lighter warmup weights, you will be able to do complete reps on a single breath.

You will quickly discover just how important the factor of speed is once you begin this exercise. You must move the bar quickly once it clears the floor. The hips snap towards the bar, the traps contract violently and the arms finish the motion – all in a flash. A loaded barbell does not stay suspended in the air for very long.

The bar needs to be pulled close to the body in order to achieve maximum performance. The mechanics of the body levers favor the bar being next to the body on its complete route. It should be against the shins at the start, pass just over the knees, brush the stomach and chest as it passes them. If the bar hangs too far from the body, even so much as an inch or two, the big muscles of the upper back are not in as favorable a position to contract completely and this, naturally, limits the amount of weight that can be used in the exercise.

As the bar passes the hips and you are about to give the final lift with your arms do not let your elbows float backward. The elbows should lift directly to the sides and be pointed upward at the conclusion of the lift. If you begin pulling backward you will limit the poundage used once again because you are not using the best possible body leverage. If you find the bar knocking you slightly backward at the end of the lift, you can rest assured that you are pulling back rather than up on the bar.

Another by-product of the power clean is the terrific cardiovascular work it gives your body. A few, quick sets with a heavy weight (relatively speaking) leaves even the most conditioned athlete sucking for oxygen. When used in a circuit, this exercise can do wonders for an overall conditioning program. It has, in short, great fitness value along with being a most excellent strength building exercise.

Many trainees, when they start handling quite heavy weights, have a tendency to hook the bar over in an arch at the top of the pull. As the weight strikes the chest it forces the upper body backward to stop the motion of the loaded barbell. The shock is taken up by the lower back and since the lower back is not constructed to bend backward resisting heavy weights, lower back trouble may result. A few changes are in order when this happens.

Power Pulls

The power pull is the name given to an adaptation of the power clean. It is referred to as the HI-PULL in the sport of weightlifting. The power pull is an ideal movement for anyone who: 1) has leveled off on his program on the power clean, 2) has wrist trouble when he racks the weight on his chest in the power clean, or 3) allows the weight to force his upper body backward when the bar racks at his chest.

Straps will come in handy. The straps allow the trainee to hold more weight than he would be able to grip otherwise and since this movement is concluded with a snappy motion, it is rather critical to have a gripping aid. Keep the chalk handy and use it before each set. Gripping the bar becomes very important when you begin overloading the pulling muscles.

The power pull is done exactly the same as the power clean except you do not rack the barbell on your chest. Rather, you pull it to chest level and put it back to the platform. The advantages are obvious. Since you do not have to rack the bar at your chest, there is no stress placed on the wrists or lower back. More weight can be used so you can overload the pulling muscles more than in the power clean.

The disadvantages are more subtle. Since you do not rack the bar, the tendency is to move slower at the top part of the pull. If this happens you are defeating part of your purpose because it’s that final snap that really involves the trapezius. A full, quick contraction will enable you to use more weight than if you merely pull slowly as in an upright row.

The Strength Coach has to constantly pound this fact into the trainee. The bar comes off the floor slowly, as in a deadlift. Then, as the bar passes the trainee’s knees it begins to accelerate. The hips come into towards the bar in a snappy motion, the traps contract and the arms bend. The bar should be at top speed at chest height. The trainee should be up on his toes with his head up, his body straight, and his elbows pointed upward – rather than backward. I teach a beginner to imagine that he is lifting the barbell to place it on a high shelf. He has to keep pulling up and up and up, fully extending his body. Lower the bar slowly, making certain that the same correct flat-back position is maintained. The aware coach must remember that there is just as much weight being lowered by the trainee as there is being lifted, so breaking the form while lowering the weight is just as hazardous as it is while elevating the barbell.

Let the weight come back to the platform. Reset your body to assure proper positioning with the hips low, the lower back flat, the shoulders back, and the head straight ahead or slightly upward. Now repeat the lift until you do the required repetitions. You should eventually be able to handle 50-100 more pounds in the power pull than you do in the power clean, that is if you have been doing power cleans regularly. This is assumed as the power pulls are a more advanced exercise and should not be done before you have spent sufficient time learning the power clean and developing the necessary muscles for the power pull to be effective.

Warm up in the same manner as you do in the power clean. Most trainees find it very advantageous to power clean the first couple of sets so as to get the “feel” of pulling completely through at the top. I believe this is a good idea and definitely recommend it. Your third set should find you very close to your best power clean for five repetitions. The add 10 or 20 more pounds for your fourth set and, depending on the degree of difficulty of that fourth set, add 10 or 20 more for your final set. Assuming that you are doing 225 for five in the power clean, your beginning power pull routine might look like this:

135x5 (power clean)

175x5 (power clean)

225x5 (power pull)

245x5 (power pull)

265x5 (power pull)

The power pull can fit into your program very nicely. Insert it on your heavy and medium days and continue to power clean of your light days. This way, you will be able to keep the power clean form which you have developed and still be able to overload the pulling muscles safely.

FATIGUE IN THE PULLING MUSCLES

It is very difficult to identify fatigue in the pulling muscles (primarily those of the back). When the legs are fatigued they generally exude some soreness and you can feel the tiredness when you walk or try to run or jump. Likewise, the muscles of the shoulder girdle give you plenty of clues as to when they are overtrained. But the back muscles, after the first few weeks of hard training, feel very much the same all the time. As a result, it becomes quite difficult to determine when they are fatigued. The only way to do so is to observe the speed of movement of the pulling exercises. If the trainee is moving slower than usual on the power clean, for example, it is a fairly certain indication that his back muscles are fatigued and appropriate steps should be taken. When the fatigue is evident, take a day off from pulling or go extremely light for that day. A bit of rest will often be the perfect prescription.