Intermediate · Movement lesson
Double Kettlebell Exercises
Learn how double kettlebell movements differ from single-kettlebell work and when to use them.
Trevor · Founder & head coach · 6 min read
Full video · 2:45 · Trevor
Key takeaways
- The patterns are familiar.
- The weight demand is higher.
- Coordination can feel easier because both sides move together.
What it is
Double kettlebell training uses the same movements you already know — cleans, presses, squats, thrusters, swings, snatches — with a bell in each hand. It is heavier, but often easier to coordinate because both sides move together.
How to do it — step by step
- Set both bells between your feet, slightly staggered back.
- Clean them exactly like a single bell — hike back, drive through legs, hips, and core, and pull them into you at belly-button height. Do not curl them up at your sides.
- From the double rack you can press, squat, thruster, clean, swing, high pull, or snatch.
- Keep every cue you learned with one bell — loose arms on ballistics, braced body on grinds.
- Set them down the same controlled way you picked them up.
Common mistakes
- Picking the bells up from your sides like dumbbells instead of cleaning them.
- Jumping to doubles before your single-bell technique is repeatable.
- Assuming the technique changes — it is the same movements, just heavier.
Muscles worked
- Full body — the same muscles as the single-bell versions, under more load
- Legs, hips, and core — driving and bracing double the weight
- Shoulders and back — pressing and racking two bells
- Grip and forearms — managing both bells
Variations and alternatives
- Double clean, press, front squat, thruster, swing, and snatch.
- Mix single and double work in complexes.
How to program it
Reach for doubles when you want more total load for strength or complexes. In the app they appear once your single-bell technique is solid, as a strength progression.
Frequently asked questions
Are double kettlebell exercises harder than single?
Heavier, but often easier technically — both sides move together the way your body is used to. The coordination-heavy part is single-bell work; doubles are more about raw power and strength.
How do I pick up two kettlebells for double work?
Clean them the same way you would clean one — hike them back between your legs and drive through your hips, pulling them into you. Do not deadlift them up at your sides.
Video transcript
Read the video transcript
All right, guys, let's go over just double kettlebells, all right, all the movements, right? Because guess what? They're the same as the single kettlebells. So all the stuff that we've learned with the single kettlebell how-to's is the same thing with the double kettlebells. The only thing is it's double the weight. So obviously that's something to adjust to. But movement-wise, it's the same thing. And actually, technique-wise, technically, it's a lot easier than single kettlebells, ironically.
So yes, it's heavier, but it's a lot easier coordination-wise because we're using both sides of our body at the same time, which is what we're typically used to doing when we do workout, when we lift weights and things like that. So we're very rarely doing explosive actions with just one side of our body while we're sort of like juggling this heavy weight around. So that's why single kettlebell stuff is hard and takes a lot more technique and sort of practice.
But the double kettlebell stuff is a lot more just power and strength and less technique, right? So everything that we learn technique-wise, you apply to this. But I just want to go over a few things that I noticed people still do wrong with double kettlebells. So a lot of the time, people will start their double kettlebell stuff like this just because they don't know how to get the bells off. So they'll just double clean both of them like that.
Wrong. No. You want to just clean them the same way you would clean a single bell. How would you clean one bell? How did we learn how to do it? Just like that, right? Snap the legs, hips and core, loose arm, float the kettlebell up, keep it tight to the body. Boom. All we're doing is we're adding another kettlebell to that. So same thing. Right? So we're going to hike-pass these kettlebells back and snap our legs, hips and core, pulling those kettlebells up and into us at that belly button level, just like we learned with the single kettlebell, right?
Now we're in the rack position. Now we can do our presses. Same thing as a single press. Now we can do our squats. We can do our thrusters. We can do cleans. We can do swings. We can do high pulls. We can do snatches. We can do everything we did. Well, not everything. But we can do most of those same movements that we just do with the single bell, with the double bell.
It's the same thing. The only thing, more power. That's it. And make sure when you pick up the bell, as you do it like I just showed you, not picking up at your sides like a knucklehead. All right? Hope that helps. Peace.
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