Kettlebell Clean - Training Tips

The kettlebell clean is a very technical lift and can take some time to get right.  It's important that you're cleaning the kettlebell with as little impact as possible and landing it in the correct position to avoid discomfort or injury.  The following training tips will give you some ideas about how to perform a safe and effective kettlebell clean.

1. Think of the Rack as a Target

First you need to find your ideal rack position.  Everyone's rack position will look slightly different, because everybody is slightly different and your build etc will influence the safest and most comfortable rack position for you.   There are, however, some features that should make up every individual's rack:

• The correct hand position – the handle sits diagonally across your palm so that the pressure is on the heel of your hand and your wrist is neutral.
• The kettlebell rests between the biceps and forearm.
• The hand is close to the centreline of the body.
• The elbow has contact with the hip or body.
• The legs are straight (knees extended).

You can find more information on finding your ideal rack position here.

Once you have found your ideal rack position, you want to think of this as the "target" for the clean - so you want to get the kettlebell to that position as directly and quickly as possible.

2. Zip Up Your Jacket

In order to hit that target rack position directly, you want your hand to trace up the midline of your body, like you are zipping up your jacket.  Part of "zipping up your jacket" is keeping your hand close to your body as you clean the kettlebell.  This is really important and will reduce the impact on your forearms and biceps (nothing worse than bashing your arms over and over when cleaning!).

The clean technique in the below video is terrible! You can see how her arm deviates out to the side when she cleans and she isn't using a good rack position as a target:

The clean on this is no good either, see how he swings it out then tries to pull it back in, it should be brought up a lot closer to the body.

Now here is what it should look like.  Notice how direct the movement is, how close she keeps the bell to her body and how little impact there is:

3. Aim For Your Biceps

This is actually very important as far as injury prevention goes, particularly if you're doing either heavy or high rep cleans.  Most people catch the clean on the back of their forearm, which is not a good idea because there is very little muscle on the forearm and the bones are small so if someone is catching the clean on their forearm they are basically letting the weakest part of their body to take the brunt of the force.  People have developed stress fractures in their forearms from cleaning this way.

If you watch any of the good kettlebell sport competitors (and these athletes do a lot of cleans so have to be cleaning in the safest most effective way possible) you'll notice that they catch the clean on their biceps then let the bell slide down into the rack position, therefore protecting their forearms.

4. Master Tension and Relaxation

You need to be able to relax your grip at the right moment and spear your hand through the kettlebell handle in order to be able to land the kettlebell in exactly the right spot on your hand.  Landing the bell in the right spot is really crucial because if the handle is too far up and lands across the middle of your palm it will pull your wrist backwards.  This might not feel bad for the first few reps, but this sort of repeated stress on the wrist will inevitably lead to pain and/or injury.

The position of the handle in these cleans is too high, largely because he isn't relaxing his grip at the right moment:

This video actually has a really good breakdown of the clean and how the bells should be pulled up close to the body and the grip relaxed to spear the hands through the handles:

Keeping Your Cleans Clean

It's really all about minimal fuss and maximum efficiency with the clean, so you want to take out any unnecessary movement and keep them really clean.  When I was searching for clips for this article one thing really struck me: most people are not cleaning their kettlebells properly, including a lot of so-called "experts".  The clean is a fundamental kettlebell lift and it's really important to get it right.  If you follow the tips above you should be well on your way to having safe, efficient and "clean" cleans.