Rows vs. Power Cleans: The Difference

by Carl Raghavan, SSC | April 15, 2025

The difference between these two lifts is like the difference between
snowboarding and skiing – stick with me here. I’ve spent years
training both, and this comparison reminds me of something you’ll
often hear on the slopes:

“Snowboarding
is easy to learn, hard to master. Skiing is hard to learn, easy to
master.”

And
honestly? That’s spot on. I picked snowboarding – no surprise
there, considering I always thought the Silver Surfer was the coolest
comic book character. Naturally, I wanted to glide down the mountain
just as smoothly.

The first day was
brutal – slam after slam. But after a week? I could make it down
most runs without looking like a human avalanche. Maybe not
gracefully, but at least I was moving.

Skiing,
though? First off, the boots – whoever designed those things must
have had a direct hotline to Satan. Just putting them on felt like
punishment. And then there was my first (and last) crash. When you
fall, your skis are supposed to eject. Mine didn’t. That was the
exact moment I learned where my right ACL was. That tiny tug was
enough to convince me to swear off skiing forever. Snowboarding it
was.

And that’s
exactly how most lifters feel when they first try power cleans. One
session, and they’re out. “Nope, not for me. Back to rows.”

In your
first week of rows, you can load real weight on the bar and feel like
you’re getting somewhere. Heavy weight, plates rattling, feeling
strong. What’s not to like?

Power
cleans? Different story. The learning phase can last anywhere from
six months to a year before you start moving respectable weights.
That’s a long time to suck at something, and most people don’t
have the patience for it.

That’s
where I am now – finally starting to see the light at the end of
the tunnel. It took me much longer than a year to get my power clean
up to where it should be. My best power clean was 120 kg in August
2023, when my best deadlift at the time was 272.5 kg—about 45%. If
you’ve read my article Setting Goals 102,
you know that keeping the power clean within 40–45% of your
deadlift is a solid benchmark (when possible).

But this
learning curve doesn’t just apply to rows and power cleans – it’s
the same gap that separates powerlifting and Olympic weightlifting.
Powerlifting is like snowboarding. You can load heavy weight quickly.
Refining your squat, bench, and deadlift takes time, but the barrier
to entry is low. You get stronger, put more weight on the bar, and
see results fast.

Weightlifting?
Like skiing, it forces you to endure a long, humbling phase of
sucking before things finally click. The snatch and clean & jerk
require precision, timing, and coordination – things that don’t
come overnight. Strength alone won’t cut it. You need it, sure, but
acquiring skill takes far longer than simply grinding out heavier
squats and deadlifts.

The more I
train the Olympic lifts, the more I see them as an extension of basic
strength training. At its core, Starting Strength revolves around a
few fundamental actions:

• Bending the knees
  (squat)
• Pressing something overhead (press)
• Picking
  something off the floor (deadlift)
• Pushing something away
  from you (bench press)
• Pulling yourself up to something
  (chins)

The Olympic
lifts? They’re just faster versions of the same thing:

• Taking a weight
  from the floor to overhead in one motion (snatch)
• Taking a
  weight from the floor to the shoulders, then overhead (clean &
  jerk)

They fit
within the same framework – they just demand more speed, skill, and
precision to execute. And that’s the real difference.

If you’re
easily discouraged by hard things, power cleans – and by extension,
Olympic weightlifting – probably aren’t for you. But we already
know that easy never works as well as hard does.

So, the
real question is: which one are you? Are you looking for the easy
route, or are you willing to put in the work and walk down the harder
path? Only time will tell if you made the right choice.