Kettlebell Decrease impact during the clean

[jHuppi]

I've been trying to decrease the amount of impact from the kettlebell in the rack position of the clean. It doesn't hurt, but when I compare my training footage to official StrongFirst videos or youtube videos of StrongFirst instructors I can tell there is a difference. I've tried practicing the "roll" from Jason Pak's Tall Muscle Clean and pointing my thumb backwards as suggesting by Brett Jones in Kettlebell Basics for Strength Coaches. Any other suggestions or is this something that will come with more experience?

 

[Anna C]

It comes with experience to some degree, but one thing I've learned to emphasize for new students that continue to have that trouble is the grip. As Jason Pak's article describes it, "focus on the path of the kettlebell and prevent the hands from vice gripping the handle."

This became a lot clearer to me from this video from SFG II Brian Myers. Maybe that or some other tips in the video will help.

 

[JeffC]

Double bell cleans was the best teaching exercise for me. I did at least 5 X 5 double cleans every training session as part of my warmup, and racked carries to strengthen and practice the front rack position. I use two different sized bells, and two of the same weight.

 

[Steve Freides]

Another cue to try - thinking about cleaning the bell to your hip, not your chest.

-S-

 

[MattM]

The mid pull drill really worked for me. The "punch your hand" cue like in the snatch never worked for me.

 

[North Coast Miller]

One way I present it to new folks, and this is quickly becoming the primary method I use -

Grip the KB palm up as if to curl it. Wrap the opposite hand over the top, so the fingers are gripping the knuckles of the holding hand. Keep the upper arm tight to the body. Using both hands, slowly curl the KB up to your shoulder, rolling the hand so the KB comes to rest in a solid racked position - again, slowly. Rinse and repeat until the movement is second nature. The movement is similar to what you see when people rack multiple KBs stacked in one hand.

The big key is to keep the elbow and upper arm in tight contact with the ribcage the entire time, only the forearm moves relative to the ribcage.

If its a heavier bell, be ready to give at the knees a little and sway somewhat to keep the bell supported by the hips.

The biggest issues for most that I see is they are too rigid in their posture and don't get under the bell as they bring it up (if a heavier KB), they don't keep solid contact to the body from shoulder to elbow (numero uno), and they don't land with it in a real tight rack.

 

[Mirek]

Advice from M. Mahler: "... getting your hand around the bell rather than letting the bell flip over and smack you".

 

[Steve W.]

Advice from M. Mahler: "... getting your hand around the bell rather than letting the bell flip over and smack you".

+1.

The bell never has to actually flip over. It's more of a horizontal rotation as hand shifts from gripping over the top of the handle to inserting underneath. The video in the Jason Pak article show the motion well. The bell is below the hand the whole time from floor to rack and never flips over. The Brett Jones video uses the internal rotation on the back swing to set up the rotation of the bell on the upswing (kind of "unwinding").

It IS possible to do a low/no impact over the top rotation, where you move your hand under the bell as it "floats," so the bell is actually stationary in space while it rotates. Again, it's not a flip (rotation around the hand), but rotation around an axis through the middle of the bell. However, I think this is a lower margin for error, less smooth way of doing it. A lot of people do the hardstyle snatch this way, but I don't recommend it for the clean.

I also agree with @Geoff Chafe that double cleans are actually easier to learn to do smoothly than single cleans.

 

[Deleted member 5559]

I've used the cue to pull like you're zipping a jacket which has worked for me.

 

[Mark Limbaga]

Can you upload a vid for us to analyze?

 

[Maq]

It comes with experience to some degree, but one thing I've learned to emphasize for new students that continue to have that trouble is the grip. As Jason Pak's article describes it, "focus on the path of the kettlebell and prevent the hands from vice gripping the handle."

This became a lot clearer to me from this video from SFG II Brian Myers. Maybe that or some other tips in the video will help.

I've watched this twice before yesterdays training, did 5 sets of 5 cleans on each hand during the training and the difference was astounding. Half of my cleans were with no impact on the arm at all, just like Brian shows in the video, the other half was not perfect, but still better than anything I did before. I need to admit that before yesterday, I have never, absolutely never, performed a clean clean

Thanks a lot for this!

 

[coachnathanwhite]

The Clean takes hours and hours of practice so keep it going. Here are some guidlines that have assisted my students over the years:

1) Practice your 2H swings as heavy as possible. The resulting increase in hip power will smooth out your clean by reducing the tendency to jerk the bell up with your traps and biceps.

2) Visualize pointing your thumb back behind you over the shoulder on each attempt. At the bottom of your swing your thumb should already be pointed back. The act of pointing the thumb back when rising up will rotate the bell around your hand and smoooth out your clean.

3) "Unzipping your jacket" with your thumb from the rack position is a great external cue that reduces "casting" the bell away from the body.

 

[Rambro1*]

Upper arms glued to rib cage throughout entire movement.

 

[Bandersd]

What are the pointers / tips for the drop from the rack in the clean to park the bell or prep for a second clean? Going up is working well and guidelines are helping to improve my clean, but I'm wobbly and unclear on how best to control dropping the kettlebell.

 

[Anna C]

What are the pointers / tips for the drop from the rack in the clean to park the bell or prep for a second clean? Going up is working well and guidelines are helping to improve my clean, but I'm wobbly and unclear on how best to control dropping the kettlebell.

Just like a swing. Drop down and back into a hinge, then let the bell(s) pendulum forward to park them as you slightly lower your hips for the landing.

Think of it like a "J" (drop down, then back). Then pendulum forward and land it/them in front of you.

 

[coachnathanwhite]

What are the pointers / tips for the drop from the rack in the clean to park the bell or prep for a second clean? Going up is working well and guidelines are helping to improve my clean, but I'm wobbly and unclear on how best to control dropping the kettlebell.

"Unzip your jacket" with both thumbs when releasing or dropping the bells from the rack position.

This will reduce the "casting" effect of the bells, which results from pushing them off your chest to create inertia instead of just letting them drop.

 

[Rambro1*]

Keep the upper arms glued to the rib cage. The drop from the clean is tamed with this cue, and once you learn it, I have found it teaches you to pull into the hinge much better with the hip flexors creating the j arc. I had problems with kb's early on, and had pretty much written them off till I learned this cue. Changed everything for me. I have found it is the key to all of the ballistics. Keeping the bell close and tight to the body.

 

[Steve Freides]

@jHuppi, welcome to StrongFirst!

My favorite, simple drill for this is to hold a piece of paper under your arm, kind of in your armpit - if you can perform a clean without dropping the paper, you've gotten the right idea about what your upper arm should be doing and not doing.

-S-

 

[MattM]

Like @Steve Freides said, the paper/towel drill works great. @Brett Jones taught us at the SFG throw the bell through our stomach/groin on the way down

 

[Steve W.]

Two keys that I focus on for the drop (in addition to all the previous admonitions about keeping the upper arm connected):

--"Hands above bells." Don't flip the bells out of the rack or pull the hands under the bells. "Unwind" the wrists/forearms, keeping the bells below the hands.

--"Make space" and "counterbalance." Keeping the bell close to the body is good but, IMO, not the whole story. Just dropping the bell(s) straight down as close to the body as possible makes it very difficult to get a good back swing. You can get away with it okay with lighter bells, especially singles, but with heavier bells and doubles it leads to an overly abrupt catch at the bottom, putting an excessive strain on the back, shoulder and grip, and making it hard to change the trajectory of the bell from straight down to back into the hinge. The bell needs SOME space away from the body to create an arc and allow for a nice back swing. So you have to find a balance between enough space and too much. One way to do this is to keep the upper arm in tight so the radius of the arc is from the elbow to the bell instead of from the shoulder to the bell as in a swing.

With heavier bells, and especially heavier double, this still leaves the bell too far in front. If your body is vertical, all the space between you and the bell is in front of the plane of your body. So an additional technique is to counterbalance the drop by leaning back against the force of the bell. This allows you to keep the drop closer the the base of support, but still create space between the bell and the body. Another mental cue I use for counterbalancing is "get the slack out." The idea of this is too create some tension between you and the bell (like leaning back against a tug o'war rope) before the bottom of the drop. This gives you better leverage to guide the bells into the back swing and helps to absorb the force of the drop and transfer it to the hips. You don't want the bells just dropping vertically with loose, noodly arms and then have to abruptly absorb the full force of the drop at the bottom.