Is this a flexibility issue?

[Progress]

I'm trying to perfect my form on the clean and I realized it's total crap. I'm not muscling the weight up or anything but I have noticed that I'm not getting my elbows up and out enough. I understand that at least when you receive the weight your elbows should be extended with your upper arms nearly perpendicular to your body. But that your elbows should also in fact get around fast as possible when cleaning.

I'm not sure what my problem is but I can't even really front squat without crossing my arms in front. If I try to hold the bar as if I had cleaned it and squat I either hold it in my hands or let it drop on my delts (both mutually exclusive since I can't touch my hands to my delts either due to flexibility or dare I say that my biceps are getting in the way).

Not sure what I can do and if I'm not making this clear let me know.

[redFury]

Its something you definitely should be able to work on... the bar should sit in your fingertips from what I know. Just practicing this with light weight in addition to stretching should really help.

[Anthony]

Practise.

A couple of pointers you can try out ...

You don't have to death grip the bar. In fact, you shouldn't. That's why hook grip is so popular. It gives you awesome grip strength AND keeps the forearms relatively loose so you can whip those elbows around faster.

You don't have to have all fingers around the bar when receiving the clean or doing front squats. The shoulders are carrying the weight, the fingers are just babysitting.

Put a bar in a rack with a crap load of weight on it. Get under it in a front squat/rack position and just press up into it to help stretch out. Works like a charm after awhile.

And just keep practising.

[Sensei]

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[Progress]

Thank you guys for the advice. Thanks, Sensei for the vid. When I front squat I do the cross over so I'm going to try to stretch and do the exercises to be able to switch into the clean grip.

Another question: I tried thrusters last week and I tried to just hold the weight in as much of a clean grip as possible but for some reason my right delt gave me some serious pain. I wonder if maybe if it was the way I was holding it that caused that or my lack of flexibility.