Open Palm Kettlebell Clean
Also works: Glutes · Lower Back · Quadriceps · Shoulders
The two-handed open-palm clean: one bell driven up by the hips, released mid-flight, flipped, and caught ball-down across both open palms, then tossed forward and re-caught by the handle. Catching with two hands sounds safer than the one-arm version and is not — it demands the bell rise dead centre, with no arm free to save a crooked pull.
Own the movement
Set up first, then execute. Every cue below is something you can check on your next set.
Before the first rep
- Choose the surface first: rubber matting, a lifting platform you do not mind marking, or grass. Never a hard indoor floor.
- Clear two metres of space in front of you and check behind you as well — a bad toss does not always go forward.
- Wear closed, firm shoes and stand with your feet slightly wider than the bell so a drop lands between them, not on them.
- Set the bell between your feet with the handle square across your body so both hands can meet it evenly.
- Use a bell you can clean for twenty easy reps; the ceiling here is your wrists, not your hips.
Every rep
Breathing & tempo — Exhale sharply as the hips snap and the bell leaves your hands, inhale on the backswing. Stay loose through the catch — bracing hard makes you stiff exactly when the elbows need to absorb.
Before you load it
- Rubber matting or grass, closed shoes, two metres of clear space, and nobody in the flight path. Assume you will drop it.
- Step back and abandon any rep that turns crooked. Reaching for a falling kettlebell is the most reliable way to break a finger.
- Do not attempt this with any existing wrist, thumb or forearm tendon problem — the open-palm catch gives the joint nothing to hide behind.
Sets, reps & load
Where to start, and what to change when it stops being hard.
Start at 12-16 kg regardless of your normal clean, and stay there far longer than feels necessary. The marker for good is five unbroken reps where the bell lands centred, silently, without your feet moving. Progress by shortening the pause between catch and toss, not by extending the set; add weight only in single bell sizes and only when your wrists show no ache the next day.
What goes wrong
The errors that show up most often, and the cue that fixes each one.
Go back to two-hand cleans with the handle held and watch where the bell finishes. A drift means one hip is finishing harder than the other; square the feet, brace evenly, and fix the pull before releasing again.
Set the elbows against your ribs before the bell arrives and let them sink slightly on contact. Think of catching an egg, not blocking a punch.
Spend a few weeks on the single-arm catch until ten in a row land silently on each side. The two-hand version removes your ability to adjust and punishes the same errors harder.
Practise stepping back and letting it fall. Make that the reflex early, on a light bell, so it is automatic before the day you need it.
Why bother
With one hand you can drift sideways under a wandering bell. With two you cannot: your hands are locked into one platform, so the bell has to arrive exactly where you put your palms. That makes the drill an unforgiving audit of whether your hip drive sends the bell straight up your midline or slightly off to one side.
The catch itself is a shared-load wrist problem. A 16 kg bell settling ball-down across two flat palms loads both wrists in neutral with no grip to help, and the forward toss then asks the fingers to decelerate it on the way back. That combination of open-hand support and catch deceleration is not produced by any conventional lift.
Where it fits
Skill practice at the front of a session, five to ten minutes, on a bell that feels light. It is listed as expert-level for a reason: attempt it only once your one-arm open-palm catch is reliable. It replaces nothing in a strength program — do it because you want the skill, and do your loading work separately.
If this one isn't it
No kit, too hard, or too easy — here's where to go instead.
Asked and answered
Is the two-handed version easier than the one-arm open-palm clean?
No, despite appearances. Two hands share the load, which helps the wrists, but they also fix your catching platform in one place. With one hand you can move under a bell that is drifting; with two you either put it up the centre line or you miss. Learn the one-arm catch first.
Do I need a specific kind of kettlebell?
A cast-iron competition-style bell with a smooth, uniform ball is far kinder to open palms than a cheap bell with a casting seam or a painted, tacky finish. Handle width matters less here than the ball surface, since the ball is what sits on your hands. Check the ball for burrs before you catch anything on it.
Will this build my forearms?
It loads them in a way little else does — open-hand support plus catch deceleration — but the volume is too low and the bell too light for it to be a serious forearm builder. Do it for the wrist tolerance and the skill. If forearm size is the goal, heavy carries and thick-handle holds will get you there faster and with nothing airborne.
How long before I can do this consistently?
Expect several weeks of short, frequent sessions rather than one heroic afternoon. Five minutes at the start of two or three sessions a week, on a light bell, over about a month is a realistic path to ten clean reps in a row. Trying to compress that is exactly how people end up with a bruised forearm and a dented floor.