Pulling the weight with the arm(s)

Common Mistake

Pulling the weight up with the arm(s) rather than the muscles in the legs that are supposed to power the kettlebell clean.

Solution

Let the muscles in the legs pull the pelvis up. Upon the pelvis is the spine which should be a rigid structure that follows along as the hips and knees extend. During a clean powered by a swing, the weight is either pulled out when using a hip hinge or squat, or the weight is swinging out (or pushed out) when using the Pendulum.

Description

To identify this issue, you can go by feeling, i.e. if you feel that you are biceps curling the weight up then this issue applies. You can also visually see if the arm is already bending when still hinged forward.

A cause for this mistake can be that the weight is too heavy, not enough force generated with the legs, too many reps, or simply not just accustomed to the legs heaving to do the work paired with the right timing.

Here’s a photo of what this looks like. In this photo, the arms should still be straight.

Here’s a photo of what it should look like.

Here’s another photo of what this looks like performed incorrectly.

The weight(s) then need to be muscled up and a good hand insertion can’t be achieved. Another thing that can be noted here is that the torso is leaning forward and the legs are no longer pulling. In contrast to the following photo where the torso leans back and the weight(s) entered the ballistic flight.

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