Teaching the kettlebell snatch

1 Simple Snatch Adjustment And Stop Banging Your Wrists And Ripping Your Hands!

Did you know that you can snatch a kettlebell without banging the wrists/forearms? Did you know that you can do high volume reps without ripping your hands? Yes, it’s possible!

Most people let the kettlebell flip over their fist or hold on too tight to the handle. If you get really good at timing and technique the banging can be fine-tuned to extremely low impact. But most people give up before they get the technique down, or before they do so, they start using wrist padding and/or gloves. Don’t!

So for clarity and reference, lets call this doorknock the ‘Flipping Technique’ and for simplicity call the technique that will provide less impact on your wrists/forearms, the ‘Corkscrew Technique‘. The following video shows the corkscrew technique.

The most damaging part of the flipping technique is on the down phase (drop from overhead), this is where we can even see the most seasoned kettlebell trainers rip their hands when doing high reps of 100, 200 or more. And yes, it’s cool to take a photo of that —I’ve done it— it’s almost like a rite of passage. But, it’s not that cool when you’re a kettlebell trainer for a living and need several weeks off because your hands need to heal, or even worse when you get an infection.

You don’t need to rip your hands when doing high volume, it’s possible to do 500 to 1,000 snatches in one session and not have one problem. The key points to learn are grip transition from hook into the loose grip, and getting that kettlebell into its ballistic flight so that you can let go and let the handle bypass the skin when transitioning the grip.

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