Coach D and Coach Trent are back (finally) with a new episode, broadcasting from THE Wichita Falls Athletic Club, the home of Mark Rippetoe and the birthplace of the Starting Strength model. Today they discuss the role of the power clean for the Masters lifter -- should you be doing it? Should you skip it? What's the point anyway?

While the power clean is a very useful tool for the young athlete, especially in power-based sports such as football, hockey, or track and field sports, it's application to real life for the older lifter is less obvious. Basically, the clean is a fairly simple tool for the lifter to train power, which is a derivative of force production (strength). By training for power, a Masters lifter can not only improve his performance in sport, he can also improve and preserve his coordination, speed, and agility. These other physical skills tend to decline drastically with age unless you do something. Sports may not be in the cards for these lifters, so controlled gym movements such as the power clean can be a useful way of addressing these physical skills without the unpredictable nature of doing explosive sports.

Andy Baker, a fellow SSC, co-author of Practical Programming and The Barbell Prescription, has also spoken at length about dynamic effort training -- adapted from Westside's conjugate method -- can be effectively used to increase power using the basic compound lifts.

Baker Barbell Podcast on Dynamic Effort training: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/baker-barbell-podcast/id1607570442?i=1000555789213

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