maratoolOne-Arm Kettlebell Split Jerk
How to do the one-arm kettlebell split 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. This will be your starting position.
- 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, positioning one leg in front of you and one leg behind you.
- Keeping the weight overhead, return to a standing position and bring your feet together. Lower the weight to perform the next repetition.
Muscles worked
The prime movers are the deltoids, which raise and rotate the upper arm at the shoulder joint.
Because more than one joint is moving, the work does not stay in one place: the glutes finish hip extension; the hamstrings assist hip extension and slow the knee down; the quadriceps straighten the knee and take load on the descent.
The triceps take a share of the work as well.
Every exercise for:ShouldersGlutesHamstringsQuadricepsTriceps
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.