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.