Barbell Clean and Press

How to do the Barbell Clean and Press

1. 1Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and the barbell on the floor in front of you.
2. 2Bend your knees and hinge at the hips to lower down and grip the barbell with an overhand grip, hands slightly wider than shoulder-width apart.
3. 3Drive through your heels and extend your hips and knees to lift the barbell off the floor, keeping it close to your body.
4. 4As the barbell reaches your thighs, explosively extend your hips, shrug your shoulders, and pull the barbell up towards your chest.
5. 5As the barbell reaches chest height, quickly drop under it and catch it at shoulder level, with your elbows pointing forward and your palms facing up.
6. 6From the catch position, press the barbell overhead by extending your arms and pushing the barbell straight up.
7. 7Lower the barbell back down to the starting position and repeat for the desired number of repetitions.

Tip: Keep the bar close, extend the hips fully and let the legs, not the arms, generate the speed.

Muscles worked

Common mistakes

• Pulling with the arms early — the arms are just hooks until the hips have fully extended; if the elbows bend before the bar reaches the thighs, you have lost the power.
• Catching with a soft rack — on a clean the elbows should come through fast and the bar should sit on the shoulders, not in the hands; if the wrists take the weight, work on elbow speed.
• Rushing the first pull — the bar should leave the floor at a controlled speed with the back set, and the speed comes in the second pull from the hips.
• Looping the bar — the bar should travel straight up and stay close; if it swings out and back you are muscling it with the arms.

Where it fits in a workout

Olympic lifts go first in a session, before squats or deadlifts, while you are fresh and explosive. Pair a clean with a front squat to make a complex.

How many sets, how heavy and how hard: see what the ACSM position stands support.

Variations and alternatives

When to talk to someone

• Chest discomfort, feeling faint or lightheaded, or trouble breathing during or after exercise can be signs of a heart attack. In the US, call 911 right away; elsewhere, call your local emergency number.
• Heart, metabolic or kidney disease, or symptoms like these when you are active: talk to your doctor before you start or step up training.
• Pregnant: ask your obstetric care provider which exercise suits you.

More exercises

• All legs exercises
• All quads exercises
• All barbell exercises
• Barbell quads exercises
• Double Kettlebell Clean
• Alternating Double Kettlebell Hang Clean
• Double Kettlebell Jerk
• Dumbbell Clean
• Kettlebell Bottoms Up Hang Clean
• Single Arm Kettlebell Clean and Jerk

Sources

1. ACSM position stand on exercise quantity and quality (Garber et al., 2011)
2. ACSM preparticipation health screening (Riebe et al., 2015)
3. ACOG Committee Opinion No. 804 on exercise in pregnancy (2020)
4. CDC: About Heart Attack Symptoms, Risk, and Recovery (2024)

Sources checked on October 17, 2026. Full citations are in the exercise library.