maratoolTwo-Arm Kettlebell Jerk
How to do the two-arm kettlebell jerk
- Clean two kettlebells to your shoulders. Clean the kettlebells to your shoulders by extending through the legs and hips as you swing the kettlebells towards your shoulders. Rotate your wrists as you do so, so that the palms face forward. Squat down a few inches and reverse the motion rapidly driving both kettlebells overhead. Immediately after the initial push, squat down again and get under the kettlebells. Once the kettlebells are locked out, stand upright to complete the exercise.
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 calves control the ankle and hold the heel position; the quadriceps straighten the knee and take load on the descent; the triceps straighten the elbow to finish the movement.
Every exercise for:ShouldersCalvesQuadricepsTriceps
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:
- Upright Barbell Rowbarbell
- Upright Cable Rowcable
- Alternating Deltoid Raisedumbbell
- Back Flyes - With Bandsband
- Backward Medicine Ball Throwmedicine ball
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.