Even those of you who are more endurance oriented than the average weightlifter (eg. those of you who take the stairs not the elevator) will find a 3 rep hang clean to be quite a conditioning challenge. Hang cleans done in one right after the other tend to send people straight to the ground, sucking for air. Go try it for yourself if you don’t believe me.

The second way to support your wrists is to use a pre-made wrap. These come in all shapes and sizes. Usually a lighter weight, thinner, wrap is preferred for Olympic weightlifting. The heavier and wider wraps are often used for bench pressing.

The reason for this difference is the level of flexibility required for these movements. The Olympic lifts require quite a bit of wrist flexibility and therefore a thicker wrap would limit a lifters ability to complete the lifts. The bench press requires almost no wrist flexibility and therefore it is best for a lifter to have a very sturdy and inflexible wrap to provide the most support possible.

My personal preference for tape stems from my need to have a wrap that is quite flexible and provides some, relatively little, support. If I were a powerlifter I would probably use a much thicker wrap for bench pressing.

Both tape and wraps are pretty inexpensive. If you chose the tape route, you should probably buy a large “trainers” box of tape as that will give you the best price/roll. Wraps should be chosen based on their size and the level of support that they offer. I can’t personally recommend any brand in particular, stick to the major weightlifting or powerlifting brands and you should be fine.

One final point about tape, don’t use Kinesio (or similar style) tape, to tape your wrists! Kinesio tape is great at what it does, but you don’t need a stretch type tape to effectively tape wrists. I stick with a standard ½ inch type of tape that is more than enough to get the job done. Save your money and use your Kinesio tape where you really need it.

See Clean
Often Abbreviated PC

See Clean, See Jerk
Often abbreviated CJ, C&J, Cln+jrk

Find a technical style, find a coach, and practice as hard as you can until you master that style. The more time you spend talking about how great your style is, the less time you spend training.

See Clean and Jerk
May also be referred to as a Split Jerk
Often Abbreviated J or Jrk

A jerk is typically completed after the clean as part of the clean and jerk.

See Clean and Jerk
Often Abbreviated C

There are two ways that I know this workout can be completed; however there are probably many more ways these movements can be put together. The first way that these movements, what I’ll call the classic bear, can be done is to do 7 of each exercise before going on to the next. I have used this type of complex to gain muscular endurance in a longer time domain. I was definitely well conditioned after doing this complex; however I did not use this rep scheme when I was in a strength gaining phase.

My favorite way to do the bear, let’s call it the heavy bear, is to do each part of the complex once for maximum weight. Instead of using a fixed weight like the classic bear, the heavy bear is done for maximum load for the 5 reps. This complex was very helpful for me when I was training for strength in weightlifting because it provides a good general strength workout with just enough conditioning for someone training to lift a max single.

The heavy bear trains a small amount of conditioning, while staying under the 20s rough time frame for the ATP/CP energy system (more on that in later posts). It helped me to stay conditioned and tolerate longer workouts without ruining my maximal effort strength.

What kinds of weight should you be using on this? If you don’t know, you should ask a coach. I’m not even going to tell you what weights I used because if you don’t know what you can do for these exercises you should ask someone and if do you what weights to use you probably don’t care what I have to say about the issue.