Kettlebell Decrease impact during the clean

[Keep Lifting]

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.

one of the best videos i have seen giving complete teaching points for the clean and fundamentally strict, sound examples - really well done - definitely worth watching a few times - thanks for posting

 

[jHuppi]

Thanks for the suggestions. After watching the video by Brian Myers, I reviewed my training footage and it became clear that I keep my elbows tight enough to change the direction of the bell vertically, but not tight enough to keep them glued to my rib cage. I also noticed that I cast the bell too much on the way back down, because my grip is too tight. Today I practiced patterning the tall muscle clean with a looser grip as well as the towel/paper drill. I saw some improvement so even though I don't have two bells of the same weight (that's next on my wishlist) I decided to try some double cleans. During the first rep of the set, the lighter bell would flip, but the heavier bell would roll. The remaining sets, both bells would roll as intended. I don't know if I was producing too much force or just needed more patterning.
My cleans aren't perfect, but they are becoming cleaner.

 

[Steve Freides]

@jHuppi, to be clear on one point that can cause a bit of confusion:

You cannot literally pin your elbows to your sides - if you do, you will violate the overriding rule of the kettlebell taking the shortest route to the rack position and you'll likely bang your forearms as well. That's why I recommend using the piece of paper under your arm - it gets this detail correct for you while still allowing the elbow, quickly and briefly, to move back to tame the arc and then move forward to the final resting position of the rack. You can confirm all this if you watch Brian's elbows - they do move, but not much, just enough to get the job done properly.

-S-