Muscles principally dont push unless you consider it as a result of their swelling, e.g. tense the lat can lift the elbow at the start of the press.
(Or a worm burrowing)
Muscles pull or contract and the push is a result of the lever mechanics.
I think the clean action may be enough stimulation on the back muscles prior to the press to inhibit them during press thereby resulting in less antagonistic force and more agonist force.
Yeah, I realize that.... I guess I was trying to think of how our system could store more or less potential energy in the topic at hand. That's just where my brain went..
I think - I am also not a physics person - your thinking goes awry here. (Physics was required for me in the 11th grade but that was a long time ago. It's not a required course in music school.)
-S-
maybe springs was not the best analogy. . . but I think the reason my brain went there is that springs store
elastic potential energy, I think muscles (maybe tendons moreso) do too.
Elastic potential energy is proportional to both the distance something is stretched or compressed,
and to the degree of stiffness it exhibits (how much it
resists being stretched or compressed). If you try to do plyometric movements (e.g. jumping on feet or plyo pushups) it is clearly easier to achieve greater height when you use a longer range of motion (greater distance of stretch). So to achieve the same jump height from a 90 degree knee (jumping) or elbow (plyo pushup) angle, you would need a
greater degree of stiffness or contractibility.
Muscles do naturally tend to contract/tense as they are stretched, especially under high load/speeds (like a clean). The kinetic energy of the cleaned kettlebell has to go somewhere. With my limited exposure to the prinicples of physics in biomechanics I will make the conjecture that the kinetic energy of the bell is stored
briefly as potential energy in the muscles. So my (perhaps flawed) train of thought is that a muscle that maintains higher tension can thus better release that potential energy as kinetic energy. If you stretch a tendon or muscle, you are putting elastic potential energy into it. I think the kicker is that if your muscle cannot maintain the same amount of elastisity (stiffness, "tension") then the potential energy will dissipate through the rest of your body, making the press more difficult.
I think the stretch reflex might be a good example of this. If you hit the bottom of a bench press and immediately rebound, the stretch reflex makes pressing back up easier. If you pause for too long, it's harder. There are biological mechanisms at work too, but there is also the physics part. Perhaps the kettlebell clean and press is a shortened, "micro" example of this.
Just being a nerd over here.......