KettleBells NZ

By Mike Mahler, RKC

One of the most effective exercises for losing fat and gaining quality muscle is the high repetition clean and jerk. This exercise sends your growth hormone through the roof, which is critical for losing fat and preserving lean muscle. However, be warned this exercise is not for the faint of heart. If you are afraid of hard work and don't want your heart rate to go through the roof, then leave this exercise for the real tough men and women and join the next spinning class at your gym. However, if you want to compress time, lose fat, or gain muscle than take the challenge!

How To Perform The Clean And Jerk

You can use two dumbbells for this exercise or two kettlebells as in the picture below. Another option is to use a sandbag, which is especially useful for grapplers. Squat down in front of the weights and make sure to keep your back flat and face forward. Keep the weights inside of your legs for more power and smoother technique. Really squeeze the weights and keep your body as tight as possible.

Bring the weights up slowly for the first few inches and then clean the weights as fast as possible to your shoulder. Breathe in as you bring the weights up. Breathing out will make you dizzy and you will not be tight at the pressing position. This will make you much weaker and put you in a dangerous position for jerking the weights overhead.

Now that the weights are at your shoulders, keep your body really tight, squat down a few inches and jerk them overhead. Hold your breath as you jerk the weights overhead. Use your legs to drive the weights overhead and dip under the weights to absorb the shock.

Hold the lockout position for a second, breath out, and lower the weights back down to your shoulders. From there, lower the weights back down to the starting position.

Structuring your workouts to achieve your goals

If you want to lose weight, try doing three sets of 15-20 repetitions with 90- second breaks between sets. Do this three times a week. Be conservative with your starting weight and keep your calories in check. If you want to gain weight, up the calories and do one set of twenty with as much weight as you can handle three times a week. In the beginning, you might want to do this exercise exclusively for a few weeks. However, once you get the hang of it, feel free to place it at the end of your weight workouts as a finisher.

Next week, I will go over the one arm high repetition snatch for high intensity cardio