maratoolOne-Arm Kettlebell Clean and Jerk
How to do the one-arm kettlebell clean and jerk
- Hold a kettlebell by the handle.
- Clean the kettlebell to your shoulder by extending through the legs and hips as you pull the kettlebell towards your shoulder. Rotate your wrist as you do so, so that the palm faces forward.
- Dip your body by bending the knees, keeping your torso upright.
- Immediately reverse direction, driving through the heels, in essence jumping to create momentum. As you do so, press the kettlebell overhead to lockout by extending the arms, using your body's momentum to move the weight.
- Receive the weight overhead by returning to a squat position underneath the weight.
- Keeping the weight overhead, return to a standing position. Lower the weight to the floor to perform the next repetition.
Muscles worked
The prime movers are the deltoids, which raise and rotate the upper arm at the shoulder joint.
Every exercise for:Shoulders
How this movement works
The working muscles shorten as they drive the load away from you, and more than one joint changes angle to do it. Load spreads down a chain instead of sitting on one muscle, which is why a compound push handles more weight than any single-joint alternative — and why joint position, not the muscle, is usually what fails first.
It is filed under strength: produce force against resistance for a countable number of repetitions, and progress the resistance over time.
What you need
A kettlebell's mass hangs below and outside the handle, so it pulls away from the grip and the wrist has to stay packed. That offset is why racked and swinging variations feel nothing like the dumbbell version.
Every exercise using:Kettlebell
These train the shoulders too, using equipment this one does not:
- One-Arm Side Lateralsdumbbell
- Pullover On Stability Ball With Weightexercise ball + dumbbell
- Push Press - Behind the Neckbarbell
- Return Push from Stancemedicine ball
- Reverse Machine Flyesmachine
Difficulty
Listed at intermediate level. It assumes you already own the underlying pattern and can hold position under load — if the position breaks before the target muscle tires, drop back to a beginner variation until it does not.
Of the 141 shoulders exercises in this database, 46 are listed at intermediate level.
Photos: free-exercise-db — public domain (Unlicense) Full attribution →
ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.