Barbell Tall Clean
A step-by-step form guide from the Ægir Iron exercise library: how to do the lift, what to watch for, and the muscles it trains.
- Equipment
- Barbell
This is a technical lift, best learned under a coach’s eye before loading heavy.
HOW TO PERFORM
- Stand tall with the bar at arm's length against the thighs and the feet already in the receiving position.
- WITHOUT dipping or bending the knees at all, shrug and pull the elbows up and around.
- Drop straight down under the bar and receive it in the front rack at the bottom of a squat.
- Stand up, lower the bar and reset.
FORM TIPS
- No pull from the floor and no leg drive, so the bar barely rises. The speed of getting under it is the whole drill and it stays very light.
- The mirror of a muscle clean, which pulls all the way up with no drop under at all. Running the pair together is how a slow turnover gets fixed.
TARGET MUSCLES
Primary
- Traps
Secondary
- Quads
- Shoulders
- Forearms
- Glutes
Log it in Ægir Iron to track your PRs and estimated 1RM, and to see the sets each muscle gets every week. Free for individual lifters.