High Pull Replacement

[Mountain_marc]

I don't think my shoulders like this exercises. Anyone know something that I could use as a replacement?

[Lisa~]

OK, I sure hope I don't ruffle any feathers with this answer, but here goes.

The high pull is a lift used to teach technique for the Olympic lifts. But the best Olympic lifting coaches prefer the jump shrug. The high pull, done poorly, ends up being more like an explosive upright row. You never want to pull with your arms in an O-lift, so the high pull can actually reinforce bad technique. So if you're shoulders don't like the high pull, then you're probably performing it more like an upright row. And many experts, Bill Hartman included, will say that the upright row is contraindicated for many lifters.

One suggestion then is to substitute a jump shrug. You can listen to one of the all time great Olympic lifting coaches, Gayle Hatch, tell you how to do it here:
http://www.aceathlete.com/hatch/video.htm
You'll need to choose "clean pull" from the video menu.

But maybe you don't really want to learn this lift for a hypertrophy program. How about substituting some type of lateral raise?

Lisa

[Steve-O-68]

Hang cleans
Jump shrug like Lisa said

[Lou Schuler]

I think the key here is technique. I have a history of shoulder problems, and I've never had a problem with the high pull. I learned it from Bill Starr for an article he did for me at Men's Fitness.

Bill preferred to use the power clean but acknowledged that it may be too technically complex a lift for MF readers. (My big fear with the power clean was that it couldn't be shown all the steps accurately in pictures on a magazine page. This was way before we could've put streaming video on a website -- in fact, I'm not sure we even had a website back then.)

Another advocate of the high pull is Charles Staley, who told me he believes the power clean is too tough on the wrists for most lifters.

In Book of Muscle, Ian King used the jump shrug instead of the high pull, but he also used some generally contraindicated exercises, such as the behind-the-neck barbell press.

My take, for what it's worth:

The force in a high pull should start at the feet and ankles and end in the scapulae (shoulder blades). The fact you raise your upper arms to parallel at the top doesn't make the exercise a higher-speed upright how. Shoulder flexion (raising your upper arms away from your torso) should be a consequence of the barbell rising, not a cause of the barbell's movement.

I think it's a natural movement, something your body was designed to do. Keeping your arms straight, as you would in a jump shrug, feels very unnatural to me, and I think it would ultimately be tougher on your trapezius. You're bottling up a lot of force in that one act of scapular elevation, without allowing the release that would come if you let your arms bend so the weight comes up higher on your torso.

When the weight rises, you allow more of the natural retraction and rotation in your scapulae, rather than stopping the movement unnaturally with your scapulae in full elevation, as happens in a jump shrug.

I mean, do you really want all that force to just stop right there at the base of your skull?