Do bent over rows allow more weight to be used or power cleans?

[andishehhank]

Title

[Alex24455]

Title

I would say yes and no.
The bent over rows train your lats, traps, lower back and core. The powerclean uses all of those muscles (traps for pulling the bar up to catch it, lats to pull slack out of bar, lowerback for the bottom portion of the lift and core for the duration of the lift). As for it allowing you to add more weight on specifically for powerclean, I would say that's iffy. It does train your back more for keeping it straight and strong for the duration of the lift. Doing upright rows, shrugs, squats and deadlift would probably do a bit more specifically for you.

Disclaimer: I'm just a guy who loves lifting. I may be getting a concentration in exercise science along with my bachelors in design engineering, so I am not totally uneducated, but do not have any education in this field currently. Take this with a grain of salt.

[jonglo]

depends which one you train more. For average gymgoers I'd say rows, because the two movements have different learning curves. But there are people out there who can clean a hell of a lot of weight. Row strength is ultimately limited by what you can pull with lats/arms, maybe lower back if you are going to cheat. Cleans utilize the bigger muscles of glutes, quads, traps, basically a whole body movement.

I don't have the info but I'd guess the world record clean is way higher than the world record strict row. Although I doubt anyone actually trains to go to a maximum on bent over rows.

[RVAPump]

I've coached 30+ guys with 300 lbs. cleans, some as high as 470 lbs. and I've seen maybe 5 people ever do a barbell row with 300+ lbs. and strict form

[Monty522]

There's so many row variations that this can become meaningless.

Pendlay rows are done closest in terms of it being an explosive pull.

Even then, power cleans will probably be heavier for most people when they get proficient enough in the clean to not suck at it. This is a very slim portion of people that actually do them, though.

[ChecksandGiggles]

I can do terrible form rows with way more than I can clean.