Kettlebell Dead Clean

How to do it

1. Set a kettlebell on the floor between your feet, stance about hip-width.
2. Hinge down with a flat back and take the handle in one hand.
3. Drive up through the legs and hips, keeping the bell close to your body.
4. As it rises, pull your hand around it and let it settle on the back of your forearm in the rack position.
5. Stand tall with the bell racked and the wrist straight.
6. Lower it back to the floor and let it settle before the next repetition.

Common mistakes

• Letting the bell bang onto the forearm. Punching the hand around it as it rises is what makes it settle rather than flip over; a bell that lands hard is one that was thrown.
• Treating it as a swing clean. Dead means each repetition starts from the floor with the bell still — that is the whole distinction, and it removes the momentum a hang clean carries.
• Curling the bell up with the arm. The hips send it; the arm guides it into the rack.
• Letting the bell drift away from the body. Close in, the rack is a short trip; out in front, the bell has to be pulled back before it can be caught.

Muscles worked

Primary

• Hamstrings

Secondary

• Calves
• Glutes
• Spinal Erectors
• Quads
• Traps