Kettlebell Alternating Hang Clean: Sculpt Your Full Body Strength

The kettlebell alternating hang clean is a functional exercise that adds an interesting element in that you have to be a little coordinated to do it. Additionally, it involves the core muscles, is a good calorie-burner, and is based on a weightlifting technique.

In this guide, we’ve included the muscles involved, how to do it, tips, benefits, variations, and more.  

Muscles Worked

The kettlebell hang clean works several muscle groups. We included brief descriptions of each one below. 

Biceps brachii

Kettlebell hang clean aren’t a biceps exercise per se, however, when you curl the weight up to the shoulders the biceps have to help. Formed by two heads and crossing both the elbow and shoulder joint, biceps move the forearm and bend the arm at the elbow.

Brachialis

When you perform a curl the brachialis is the strongest elbow flexor allow you to pull the forearm up toward the shoulder. Most people cannot see it however it’s partially hidden behind the outer biceps extending down through the elbow. 

Brachioradialis

When you turn the palms to a face down position, the brachioradialis forearm muscles is stronger than the biceps. It’s a significant forearm muscles.  

Deltoid Anterior

The three deltoid muscles have independent functions. We use the anterior head located above the biceps on the anterior arm to flex the arm up and our in front of us. 

Pectoralis Major Clavicular Head

Did you know the chest isn’t a single muscle but rather it’s shaped by upper and lower fibers. The upper chest shifts the arms overhead and inward toward each other while the lower fibers lever the arms down. So even though overhead presses are known to be a shoulder builder you’ll no doubt stimulate the pectoralis major clavicular head. 

Core muscles

The core muscles get an incredible workout from kettlebell training because it poses more instability to the body. Your abdominals, obliques, and spinal erector muscles have to engage and stiffen the trunk to support lifting activities to prevent energy leaks or collapsing under the weight. 

How To The Kettlebell Alternating Hang Clean

This exercise isn’t the simplest to get down, however, it’s certainly not the most difficult. There’s certainly a right and not so correct way to do it and that’s why we’ve included step-by-step instructions and a video demonstration.

Step 1

Choose two kettlebells that will challenge you for this exercise but that are not too heavy.

Practice gripping the kettlebells so that the handle is at a 45-degree angle in your palms. Also, remember to have a somewhat loose grip so that the kettlebells can move around your wrists.

But you still want to keep your wrists straight or flexed, and not bent backward. 

Here’s a video demonstration. 

Step 2

Start by holding one kettlebell between your legs and bring the other kettlebell up to your shoulder by rotating it around your wrist. Make sure to keep your back flat. 

Note: When holding the kettlebells between your legs, your wrists should be rotated inward so your thumbs are pointing behind you and your pinkies in front. 

This will ensure you’re rotating the kettlebells around your wrists and not flipping them over onto your forearms. 

Step 3

Bring the top kettlebell down while simultaneously lifting the other one to your shoulder. As you bring the kettlebell down and in between your legs, rotate your wrist inward as explained above.

Note: Keep the kettlebells close to the center of your body as you pull them up. After you pull the kettlebell up to your shoulder and rotate it around your wrist, make sure to push your elbow forward to keep it stable and in place. 

Step 4

Continue this movement pattern by alternating as shown and develop a rhythm until your set is done.

Rest for 45 seconds or so and do another set. 

Check out the video demonstration below…

Kettlebell Alternating Hang Clean Tips

• Avoid flipping the kettlebell over your wrists. Rather, rotate it to prevent smashing into your arm and potentially causing injury. 
• Maintain a somewhat loose grip to enable the kettlebell to spin around your wrists. You could use a hook grip if it makes it easier.
• Using very heavy weights for this exercise is not recommended, especially for beginner and intermediate trainees. You could really bang up your wrists and injure your shoulders.
• While pulling the kettlebells up, a helpful tip is to sort of pretend that you’re zipping up a jacket. This will ensure you don’t flip the kettlebell over your wrists. 

Benefits

Let’s talk about the benefits of this exercise. 

Builds muscles

You won’t get massive muscles as a result of doing this exercise. However, if you use challenging weights, it can certainly give your upper body muscles a good workout and break down muscle tissue. 

Trains functional movement

The clean is a weightlifting-based lift. Weightlifting utilizes a different technique as opposed to basic weight training and even powerlifting. 

Related guide: Olympic Weightlifting Guide and Beginner’s Program

It does improve explosive power and is great for getting stronger at different portions of certain lifts. 

The hang clean, for example, can teach you to develop upper body explosiveness without as much involvement of the legs, as opposed to a full clean. The basic clean involves deadlifting the weight from the floor. The hang clean starts from a standing position. 

Burns calories

While it’s not the best option for burning lots of calories, it will burn more calories than many basic exercises. That’s because you are moving your entire body at a moderate pace. 

Although, you could do it slower or faster. But the idea is to alternate lifting and dropping the kettlebells.

Increase muscular endurance 

Muscular endurance is also important and we don’t mean cardio. If you compete in sports or simply want to be more of a beast when it comes to doing functional fitness workouts, you need to improve your muscular endurance.

What Is Muscular Endurance and Exercises To Improve It

You can do this by pushing yourself when performing resistance-based exercises. You don’t have to be lifting very heavy and actually, that wouldn’t be ideal. 

The kettlebell alternating hang clean is a great example. It’s not a max lift exercise. However, it should still be challenging and you can really push yourself to complete lots of reps. 

Variations and Alternatives

While the kettlebell alternating hang clean is a heck of an exercise for the reasons mentioned above, variations keep things interesting and train your muscles in different ways too. 

But you may not have a kettlebell and that’s where alternatives are good options too. 

Single-arm kettlebell clean 

Before you try the more complex kettlebell alternating hang clean using two kettlebells, it’s probably a good idea to learn how to do the single kettlebell clean first. 

It’s easy to do it incorrectly and this teaches bad lifting habits and can injure your forearms and shoulders. 

To do it:

1. Grip the kettlebell and stand upright. 
2. Bend your knees, hinge forward, and hang the kettlebell between your legs. Keep your back flat.
3. Extend your hips and legs, shrug your shoulder, and pull the kettlebell up while keeping it close to your midline. 
4. Spin the kettlebell around your wrist and push your elbow forward to catch it at the shoulder. 
5. Drop the kettlebell back down while bending your knees and hinging at the hips, then repeat steps 3 and 4. 

Here’s an excellent video that explains how to properly perform the kettlebell clean. While this example is the kettlebell clean, it’s still useful for proper hang clean form.

Single kettlebell alternating hang clean

While two kettlebells are great, one can work just fine. And actually, this variation is a good way to improve your coordination, engage your core even more, and improve your physical fitness. 

You’ll simply alternate changing the kettlebell from one hand to the other during a single set.

Dumbbell hang clean

If you don’t have a kettlebell, dumbbells are the next best thing. Of course, the technique isn’t exactly the same as the kettlebell and dumbbell are different in design and function. 

For example, you won’t be able to rotate your hand around a dumbbell unlike with a kettlebell. Additionally, you’ll go into a full squat which isn’t the case when performing the kettlebell alternating hang clean. 

To do it:

1. Grip both dumbbells tightly in the center and stand with feet about hip-width. 
2. Keeping your back straight and core tight, bend your knees and lower the dumbbells to the mid-thigh or knees.
3. Explosively extend your hips and legs, shrug your shoulders, and pull the dumbells up. Keep your heels on the floor until both your hips and knees are extended. 
4. Push your elbows forward, flip the dumbbells over at your shoulders and drop down into a squat. 
5. Stand up to return to the starting position. 

Barbell hang clean 

Using a barbell will undoubtedly allow you to use more weight, which will carry over to better strength gains, and if you do Olympic weightlifting, it’s the better option. 

Learn about the barbell hang clean in this guide. 

How To Incorporate The Kettlebell Alternating Hang Clean Into Your Training Routine

There are so many different ways that you can include this exercise in your workouts. 

Circuit training

Add the kettlebell alternating hang clean in your circuit training workouts. It makes for an excellent functional strength-building component and covers some of the cardio aspect as well. 

HIIT 

HIIT stands for high-intensity interval training which is essentially alternating bouts of fast-paced activity with short rest periods. 

You could set a timer and do the kettlebell alternating hang clean as quickly as possible, rest for an equal duration, and repeat.

HIIT vs. LISS Cardio: Which One Is Best for Fitness and Fat Loss?

Complexes

Complexes are an awesome way to develop your overall fitness. You pretty much do several different exercises one after the other with no rest in between.

But here’s the thing, you have to use the same tool to do all exercises. 

There are so many different movements that you can do using a kettlebell. But with complexes, each move should flow into the next. So, you may have to get a little creative. 

But here’s an article on complexes that includes different workout examples. 

Also try The One Kettlebell Workout

Kick Some Butt!

We hope this guide was a helpful resource for the kettlebell alternating hang clean exercise. It’s a beneficial movement that challenges different components of fitness and can help to condition your muscles as well. 

We recommend knowing how to do the basic single kettlebell clean before progressing to this more advanced variation, to ensure you get the most from it and avoid injury. 

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