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What do power cleans work out?

Author

Daniel Moore

Published Jan 12, 2026

The power clean is a high intensity, full body exercise that works your hamstrings, glutes, quads, calves, back, biceps, shoulders, and abdominals.

What does the power clean workout?

The power clean primarily works the posterior chain, meaning the glutes, hamstrings, and calves, says Gahan. It also works your traps, arms, abs, and lats. “The power clean is as dynamic and powerful as a plyometric exercise, like squat jumps, but without the impact of jumping.

What are the benefits of power cleans?

Power cleans build muscle throughout your upper and lower body, including in your quadriceps, deltoids, core, and triceps—as well as posterior chain muscles like the hamstrings, glutes, lower back muscles, and the trapezius in your upper back. Power cleans increase your explosive power.

Is the power clean a good exercise?

The power clean strengthens a great many more muscles than nearly any other exercise. When you pull the bar from the floor to your waist, you work your legs, hips and lower back very directly. Then the middle and upper back and shoulders and arms come into play as you finish the movement.

Do power cleans build muscle?

Muscle Development.

Power cleans are technically considered a shoulder exercise, but they do more than build up your deltoids. They hit your posterior chain hard, giving you well-developed muscles in the legs including the calves, glutes, and hamstrings.

30 related questions found

Is power clean a leg workout?

Is power clean a leg workout? As a compound movement, yes and no. Power cleans stimulate your glutes, hamstrings, quads and posterior chain, as well as your traps and shoulders, during the pull. Simply put: this exercise works the entire body.

Do power cleans work hips?

Power cleans come with a ton of badass benefits.

The move uses tons of muscles to give you a true full-body workout. Power cleans work it all, majorly firing up your abs, hip flexors, glutes, and legs while simultaneously involving your shoulders and upper back, says St. Gerard.

Do power cleans make you jump higher?

In a 2014 study, it was also found that the Power Clean movement produced forces that were five times greater than those generated during a vertical jump.

Are cleans better than deadlifts?

Strength and Power

The power clean improves explosive power and force; you move a heavy weight at an accelerated speed. The deadlift improves strength and raw power; you move a heavy weight at a slow, controlled speed. The deadlift is a more basic movement than the power clean.

Do power cleans work traps?

The power clean primarily works the posterior chain, meaning the glutes, hamstrings, and calves, says Gahan. It also works your traps, arms, abs, and lats. “The power clean is as dynamic and powerful as a plyometric exercise, like squat jumps, but without the impact of jumping.

When should I do power cleans?

Do it, when you are most fresh! That is usually the first strength exercise after the warm-up. Do Power Cleans as the first strength exercise after the warm-up. The Power Clean technique requires high skill levels and in most cases a state of non-fatigue (or at least very little fatigue).

What is the difference between a Power Clean and a clean?

A power clean is when you catch the barbell not in a full squat (CrossFit defines this as hip crease above parallel). A clean is when you catch the barbell in the bottom of your squat, taking into account individual differences. Same with snatch.

Are cleans push or pull?

The clean pull has you starting off in a position very close to a deadlift, and you're “pulling” the weight up off the floor, using your hamstrings and glutes to power you.

Should athletes do power cleans?

The power clean when done correctly has many benefits to athletic populations; the power clean mimics triple extension found in jumping and sprinting movements. It also improves the athletes rate of force development (RFD) or speed that a muscle can develop force.

Are cleans or power cleans harder?

Power cleans tend to require the use of lighter weights than cleans, making them overall less stressful on your body. Power cleans are also less technically demanding, as you don't have to change direction quite so much, or catch the bar quite so deep.

What is the most explosive lift?

1 – Hang Snatch

Sorry to disappoint if you did, but the hang snatch wins out for the best explosive power movement.

Do Olympic lifters do deadlifts?

Very few Olympic lifters did deadlifts back then. We focused more on pulls because pulls were more similar to the Olympic lifts themselves. With pulls, you pull the bar up as high as you can, without dropping under the bar–as you would with the actual lifts, the snatch and clean & jerk.

What are the main Olympic lifts?

In the sport of Olympic lifting, the two official lifts are the snatch and the clean and jerk.

Do power cleans burn fat?

The power clean develops power, which will make you run faster, jump further and higher and lift more weight, faster. The movement also improves coordination and burn loads of energy. So it's no surprise that the power clean is extensively used by athletes, but it also has applications for fitness and fat loss.

How many sets of power cleans should I do?

Power cleans should generally be programmed with 1-3 reps. They can be performed at maximal effort for training or testing at this rep range. Even at maximal weight, the power clean can serve as a lighter exercise for lighter training days between full heavy clean days.

Can you Power Clean everyday?

The ideal training frequency for strength endurance sessions is 2 – 3 strength endurance sessions per week, if you chose to perform the Power Clean or a derivative of the Power Clean you can add it 2 – 3 times per week.

Should I squat clean more than Power Clean?

First and foremost, make sure you're squatting enough—both in terms of frequency and weight. If your best front squat is only a few kilos over your best power clean, guess what—you're not going to be cleaning more than you power clean anytime soon.

Do you have to squat in a Power Clean?

A power clean is essentially a squat clean without the squat. The barbell is pulled off the floor explosively, but instead of dropping underneath it into a full squat, the knees only dip to allow you to catch and stabilize the bar.

Are power cleans safe?

The power clean is an exercise adopted from the first half of the clean-and-jerk. It's an exercise that has become the mainstay of many strength-building programs but it's also an extremely dangerous exercise. Explosive training is also dangerous.