Kettlebell Clean And Press Workout – Full Body Complexes
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One of my favorite kettlebell exercises is cleans. They hit pretty much every muscle group, can be done to build strength, muscle, and endurance, and can be done anywhere. Plus they’re great for building your biceps, forearms, and grip.
I add kettlebell cleans to my workouts all the time. Sometimes I do 10 or more sets of double kettlebell cleans for 2-3 reps a set. Other times I’ll do higher reps with light weights for endurance.
But my favorite workout that uses cleans is this one. It’s a full body kettlebell program that uses them as the primary exercise. By adding in overhead presses and lunges you hit every major muscle group from multiple angles.
Below are the details that show you how to get the best results from this workout. Make sure you click the button on the upper right hand side of this page labeled ‘Get This Workout For Free’ to have a copy of it and a free workout tracker sent to you.
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Click on the orange button that says “Get Your Free Copy Now” that’s on the right hand side at the top of the page.
Kettlebell Clean Full Body Workout Plan
This workout uses a format called complexes. Made popular by Istvan Javorek, a Romanian-American strength coach who used them with athletes to build muscle and get into great shape fast. In this section are 2 bulleted lists which tell you everything you need to do the workout.
There’s also a screenshot so you see how you’ll do this kettlebell complex.
How To Do This Kettlebell Clean Complex
Workout Info
- Exercises in this workout: kettlebell clean, kettlebell press, kettlebell lunge
- What you’ll need: 1 or 2 kettlebells and enough space to do the exercises.
- Muscles trained: pretty much every major (and minor) muscle on your body. Especially, hamstrings, quads, glutes, abs, lower back, shoulders, upper back, and arms. Cleans are great for building biceps. Even your calves and forearms get a good workout.
- Rest for 1-3 minutes between complexes. If you need more, take it. Work to decrease your rest between complexes over time. This will help you build endurance and improve how quickly you recover during a workout.
- Use weight you can press overhead 8-10 times with moderate effort if your goal is to build muscle and increase your endurance. If your main goal is to get stronger, select a weight you can press overhead for 3-5 reps.
- Reps: do 3-6 reps per exercise if your goal is to gain strength, do 7-10 reps to build muscle and endurance.
- Start with 3-5 complexes per workout. Then add more as you become more fit. Once you can do 10 complexes with 10 reps per exercise/complex you can make it more challenging by using heavier kettlebells, using more challenging versions of the exercises, or adding 2-3 additional kettlebell exercises.
- You can do this workout anywhere from 1-6 times a week. If you’re doing it more than 3 times a week you may want to change up the order of the exercises from one workout to another. This will keep things interesting and help you get stronger at every exercise equally.
It’s super simple. Starting with kettlebell clean and press you do one rep of each exercise and without rest move onto the next exercise in the complex. In this case that’s kettlebell cleans. Repeat with kettlebell lunges.
Repeat the process of doing 1 kettlebell clean and press, 1 kettlebell clean, and 1 kettlebell lunge until you’ve done the prescribed amount of reps for the complex. Then rest for 1-3 minutes and repeat.
Continue until you’ve done all 3 exercises for the total number of complexes you want to do.
If you’re using 1 kettlebell, do 1 rep for each side of your body for all 3 exercises. When you do this workout with 2 kettlebells you’ll only have to do this with lunges.
Kettlebell Clean Complex – Warm Up And Cool Down
Warm-Up
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Instructions |
| Bodyweight Lunges | 3 | 10-12 | Stand with feet shoulder-width apart. Lower your body by bending the knees and hips, then push back up to the starting position. |
| Arm Circles | 3 | 10-12 each direction | Stand with feet shoulder-width apart and extend your arms out at shoulder level. Start making small circles and gradually increase the size. Perform in both directions. |
| Hip Circles | 3 | 10-12 each direction | Stand with feet hip-width apart, hands on hips. Move your hips in a circular motion, performing the circles in both directions. |
Cool-Down
| Exercise | Sets | Reps/Hold Time | Instructions |
| Child’s Pose | 3 | 30-45 seconds | Start in a kneeling position, sit back onto your heels, extend arms forward, and lower your head towards the ground. Helps to stretch and relax the back and shoulder muscles. |
| Kettlebell Windmill | 3 | 5-8 each side | Hold a kettlebell in one hand and press it overhead. With feet wide apart, hinge at the hips and lower the other hand towards the ground, keeping the kettlebell overhead. |
| Lying Hip Flexor Stretch | 3 | 30-45 seconds each side | Lie on your back and bring one knee towards your chest, keeping the other leg straight on the ground. Hold to stretch the hip flexors, intensively used during the kettlebell lunges. |
This Kettlebell Complex Will Get You Stronger & Fit Fast
If you haven’t done them before, you’re in for a big surprise. You won’t be able to believe how challenging this workout is. On paper it looks simple, 5 reps of 3 exercises.
But, these aren’t any exercises.
Each of them is pretty much a full body workout. When done one after the other without any rest they become a kettlebell cardio, strength, and muscle building workout all in one. I’ve been doing this kettlebell complex and dozens of others over the years and they never get easier. That’s okay. These workouts also produce noticeable results very fast. This makes the muscle burning, heart pounding effort required worthwhile.
One last thing. If you haven’t already downloaded your copy of this workout do it now. All you have to do is scroll to the top of the page and click on the orange button that says ‘Get Your Free Copy Now’. You’ll be sent a detailed spreadsheet template that gives you every exercise, set, rep, weight to use, and rest period and a workout tracker for you to measure your progress.