Get Explosive: How to Master the Dumbbell Clean for Power and Speed

Brutal but effective, this full-body lift trains your legs and glutes while teaching your muscles to fire fast.

Chasing muscle and strength in the gym is a great goal, but you can’t ignore power. Your ability to generate force quickly makes you virtually faster at everything—swinging a golf club, passing a ball, sprinting downfield. 

And you won’t find many exercises that are better at making you more powerful than the dumbbell clean. It’s brutal to do, but it locks in what’s called triple extension—the simultaneous extension of your ankles, knees, and hips—a key driver in almost every athletic movement. Do it right, and you’ll be more explosive in months.

We tapped Adam Salvatore, a CSCS and TPI Level 1 trainer, who works with golf athletes at Rotational Power Strength golf gym, to break down common mistakes, programming tips, and more, all about the dumbbell clean. 

What is a Dumbbell Clean?

It’s probably not a coincidence that an exercise named after a chore is laborious to perform. To do it, you “clean” two heavy dumbbells from the floor, catch them on your shoulders, descend into a deep squat, and then explode back up to standing. That’s just one rep.

But as arduous as the dumbbell clean can be, it’s effective at building lower-body strength and engaging most of the major muscles in your body. Lift heavy (say, four to six reps) to increase leg strength. Or lighten the load and eke out as many reps as possible to push your muscular endurance to new levels.

Read More: How to Do Dumbbell Pullovers

How to Do It

For the purpose of this article, these coaching cues are for a dumbbell hang clean. You can perform this movement as a traditional clean (aka starting from the floor, like you would with a bar) but it's a bit awkward and can put your low back at risk if you have limited range of motion.

• Stand with feet hip-width apart with a dumbbell—ideally a hex-shaped dumbbell to prevent rolling—on either side of you. (You can also use adjustable dumbbells or  kettlebells if you prefer.)

• Grab a dumbbell in each hand, palms facing your body in a hammer grip. Set your feet about hip-distance apart.

• Push your butt back as if you were closing a door behind you (just like you would with an RDL). When the dumbbells reach about mid-shin, explosively snap your hips forward to stand up tall. Shrug your shoulders and use this momentum to swing the dumbbells up into a catch.

• To perform the catch, quickly drop under the weight with a slight bend in the knees until the dumbbells are securely resting on your shoulders. You can also do a squat catch for a more advanced option.
  
  

• Stand tall with the bottom of your arms parallel to the floor, your elbows pointing straight out, your chest up, and your feet in a hip-width, stable base. 

• Reverse the movement by hinging at the hips and lowering the dumbbells back to your sides.

Common Dumbbell Clean Mistakes

Be on the lookout for what Salvatore says are the three most common form blunders he sees people make with the dumbbell clean.

Not Mastering the Basics

Before you clean, you’ve got to jump. The vertical jump, says Salvatore, cues the same hip drive and extension as the dumbbell clean—that’s the triple extension we mentioned earlier—so learning to do this movement first will set you up for a more successful and natural-feeling dumbbell clean.

“The vertical jump teaches you to drive through the ground while rapidly extending your hips and knees to propel yourself off the floor and into the air,” Salvatore explains. “The power production and mechanics of the vertical jump will translate to lifting the dumbbells explosively during a clean.”

Not Being Explosive Enough

An effective dumbbell clean is about speed, not constant muscle tension. The hardest part of this lift is moving from the initial pull to the front rack position. Since you’re lifting weights that challenge you in the squatting phase, they’ll feel heavy if you try to lift them with just your arms. The key is to simultaneously pull the weights and drop into a squat to get under the dumbbells to shorten the distance they need to travel.

“Getting under the bar fast is a skill the best Olympic weightlifters always have,” says Salvatore. “[With cleans], you need to get under the [weight] fast and commit to it.”

Incorrect Sequencing

Because you have to perform it at maximum speed, it’s easy to start one phase of the movement before another. Specifically, “there are separate phases to the pulling portion of the exercise alone,” says Salvatore. When you do the dumbbell clean, think about these cues in order:

• Start in a hinged position and snap your hips through to initiate the movement.

• Once the dumbbells start moving away from your hips, pull the dumbbells up with your shoulders and upper back muscles to start lifting them toward your chin.

• Now you’ll drop into the catch to get the dumbbells to your shoulders more quickly. 

• Once you’ve caught the dumbbells, settle into the front rack position and stand back up. 
  

Read More: How to Do Dumbbell Rows

How to Program the Dumbbell Clean

The dumbbell clean is a versatile exercise that fits almost any program, but Salvatore thinks it's best suited as a power-building movement. No matter your goal, we recommend it early in your workout. It’s a compound movement that engages multiple muscles in both your lower and upper body. Since it’s complex and physically demanding, doing it when you're already fatigued can compromise your form and increase the risk of injury.

Sets & Reps

• For Power: Perform 3 to 5 sets of 2 to 6 reps, using lighter weights (about 50% of your one-rep max). Focus on explosive execution with each rep. Salvatore says not to increase the weights by more than 5% week to week.

• For Endurance: Try an EMOM (Every Minute on the Minute) protocol. Set a timer for, say, 8 minutes and perform 10 reps at the top of each minute, resting for the remainder of the minute. As the workout continues, your rest time will get shorter as you fatigue.

Rest Time

• For Power: Rest around 1:30 minutes between sets. Though you’re lifting lighter weights, you’ll still need enough rest to exert maximum force.

• For Endurance: In endurance work, you’ll likely be performing the clean as part of a circuit or superset, so aim to minimize rest as much as possible between sets.

Frequency

How often you perform the dumbbell clean depends on your overall training schedule and goals. We recommend not performing it more than three times per week, as it can lead to significant muscle fatigue due to its intensity.

If you plan to train it multiple times a week, vary your sets and reps to target different goals. For example, you could have:

• One heavier power session 

• One lighter power session

• One endurance session with minimal rest or circuit training

By mixing up the training modalities, you can target different stimuli and reduce the risk of overtraining.

What About Muscle Growth?

“I’m not sure I’d suggest the dumbbell clean for bodybuilders or anyone whose priority is muscle growth,” says Salvatore. “The clean is mechanically complex and energy intensive, so your time is better spent on exercises that better align with your goals.”

To maximize muscle growth, you want to train exercises that engage one muscle group at a time and create tension in a stretched position. A great example of this is the bottom position of the incline dumbbell curl. The clean primarily targets the legs, but it also relies on the shoulders and back to finish the movement. And because it's an explosive exercise, it doesn’t provide the sustained time under tension necessary for muscle development.

Another limitation of the dumbbell clean is that the weight you can lift is often constrained by what your arms can handle, not what your legs are capable of. While your legs could lift more, your arms become the limiting factor in the movement. It can be a difficult movement to progress.

If you want more muscle in specific areas, consider more targeted exercises: for quads and glutes, go with goblet squats, leg presses, or high-bar back squats. Exercises like dumbbell lateral raises or dumbbell shoulder press are more effective for the shoulders.

Muscles Worked

Primary Muscles

• Quads

• Glutes

• Hamstrings

• Lower back (erector spinae)

Secondary Muscles

• Biceps (biceps brachii and biceps femoris)

• Deltoids

• Upper back (trapezius and rhomboids)

So what muscles do cleans work? The dumbbell clean is technically a full-body lift since it engages muscles in your upper and lower body. That said, your legs—mostly your quads and glutes—are going to work hardest due to all the squatting. 

If you’re thinking about where to place the dumbbell clean in your routine, sub it in or add it to your leg/lower body workouts. While your back, biceps, and shoulders get some play, it’s not nearly enough to justify counting those sets toward your weekly training volume. 

Variations and Modifications

DB Kneeling Cleans

• Start in a kneeling position, your hamstrings touching your calves, with one dumbbell in each hand, arms straight and dumbbells hanging in front of your shoulders.

• Drive your hips forward and explode upward, pulling the dumbbells close to your body.

• As the dumbbells rise, rotate your wrists to rack them on your shoulders, keeping your elbows high.

• Lower the dumbbells back to the starting position and your hamstrings back to your calves, keeping your core tight and spine neutral.

• Repeat the movement for desired reps, maintaining control through each phase.

DB High Pulls

• Stand with feet hip-width apart, dumbbells in front of your thighs, palms facing your body.

• Hinge at the hips and slightly bend your knees to lower the dumbbells to the tops of your knees. 

• Explosively extend your hips and knees to propel the dumbbells off your hips and then pull them toward your chin.

• Drive your elbows up and out, leading the movement with your elbows while keeping the dumbbells close to your body.

• Let the dumbbells fall back to the starting position under control, and get ready for your next rep. 

DB High Pulls w/ Catch and Release

• Begin standing with dumbbells in front of you, palms facing your body.

• Hinge at the hips, slightly bend your knees, and explode upward to pull the dumbbells toward your chin.

• Toward the apex of the movement, briefly let go of the dumbbells (“release”) and then re-grip them as quickly as possible. 

• Reset and repeat, focusing on the fluidity of the catch and release.

DB Clean and Press

• Stand with dumbbells in front of you, feet shoulder-width apart.

• Hinge at the hips, bend your knees slightly, and grab the dumbbells with an overhand grip.
  Explode upward, pulling the dumbbells to shoulder height and rotating your wrists to rack them on your shoulders.

• Once the dumbbells are in the rack position, press them overhead with a strong push from your legs and arms.

• Lower the dumbbells back to your shoulders and then back to the starting position.

DB Snatch

• Stand shoulder-width apart with a single dumbbell set between your legs. 

• Hinge at the hips and bend your knees to grab the dumbbell with one hand.

• Explosively extend your hips and knees, pulling the dumbbell up in a straight line, keeping it close to your body.

• As the dumbbell reaches your hips, bring it overhead by propelling your arm up and letting your elbow and wrist rotate outward until your arm is extended.

• Reverse the movement and lower the dumbbell back to the floor in a controlled manner, and repeat on the other side.

DB Squat Clean

• Stand with feet hip-width apart, dumbbells at your sides.

• Hinge at the hips to grab the dumbbells with an overhand grip.

• Explode upward, pulling the dumbbells close to your body while squatting down to catch them in a low squat position.

• Rotate your wrists to rack the dumbbells on your shoulders as you stand tall.

• Reverse the movement by lowering the dumbbells back to the floor in a controlled manner.

DB Thruster

• Start with feet shoulder-width apart, holding dumbbells in the front rack position

• Lower into a squat, keeping your chest up and knees tracking over your toes.

• Explode up out of the squat, pressing the dumbbells overhead as you stand.

• Lower the dumbbells back to your shoulders as you descend into the next squat.

• Maintain a smooth, continuous motion throughout.
  

Devil Press

• Begin in a standing position, holding dumbbells in front of you.

• Drop into a squat and place the dumbbells on the floor.

• Jump back into a push-up position, performing a push-up with hands on the dumbbells.

• Jump or step forward, grabbing the dumbbells and explosively bringing them overhead in one fluid motion.

• Lower the dumbbells back down to the floor and repeat.

Benefits

• Leg Strength & Power: The dumbbell clean is unique in that it builds both lower-body strength and power. The initial pull requires you to drive your hips forward explosively to lift the weights off the ground, enhancing your glutes and hamstrings’ ability to produce force. As you drop into a deep squat, your quads take over to drive you back up. 

• All the Endurance: The dumbbell clean is essentially three exercises in one: a hip thrust, high pull, and deep squat. The multiple movements make it tiring to perform, especially when done for higher reps. Lighten the load and increase reps to boost muscular endurance while breaking a sweat.

• Improved Coordination: To complete this hinge-pull-squat combo, you need to maintain balance and engagement throughout. While beginners may struggle with the mechanics, starting with light weights and focusing on control can make the dumbbell clean an excellent movement for learning how to combine different exercises while staying stable.

• Grip Strength: You’ll need to maintain a strong grip throughout the entire lift. Lifting straps aren’t an option, as they’d limit wrist mobility. This constant grip challenge can help improve your ability to lift heavier weights and support other lifts.

DB Clean vs. Barbell Clean

The primary difference between the dumbbell clean and the barbell clean is the equipment used—dumbbells versus a barbell.

With any barbell variation, you can typically lift more weight because you’re stabilizing and lifting one tool with both hands. However, the barbell can feel more restrictive, especially when lifting and racking it. You’re somewhat "locked in," limiting freedom of movement compared to using dumbbells. If you plan on competing in Olympic weightlifting, you'll need to train with a barbell, as the two competition lifts—the snatch and clean & jerk—are performed with it.

While dumbbells won’t allow you to lift as much weight, they offer more mobility. For instance, when lifting dumbbells, your elbows can flare out, or you can pull the weights at a 45-degree angle instead of directly in front of you. These slight adjustments are natural and may not even register until you switch to a barbell and realize that flexibility is gone.

Wrapping Up

If you’re chasing more power and athletic explosiveness, swap the dumbbell clean into your program. It’s got a learning curve and isn’t a mass-builder, but it teaches you to drive your hips fast and boosts coordination like few other moves.

FAQs

Is the dumbbell clean beginner-friendly?

Yes, beginners can perform the dumbbell clean, but it’s best to start with lighter weights and focus on mastering the hip drive, pull, and front rack mechanics before increasing load. And, per Salvatore, it’s good to first master the vertical jump before moving into the dumbbell clean.

How heavy should dumbbells be for cleans?

Choose a weight that challenges you but allows you to maintain proper form and move as quickly as possible. Light to moderate dumbbells are ideal for beginners, while experienced lifters can gradually increase the load.

Can I do dumbbell cleans every day?

It’s not recommended to do dumbbell cleans daily, as they are demanding on the hips, legs, and shoulders. Two to three sessions per week is sufficient, allowing your body to recover and reducing the risk of overuse injuries.

Andrew Gutman is a NASM-CPT and health and fitness journalist with bylines in Men’s Health, Gear Patrol, Men’s Journal, and Insider Health. He’s the former Training Editor of Muscle & Fitness and FLEX, and the former Editor-in-Chief of BarBend.com. When he’s not writing, he’s lifting, rolling on the mats (he’s a BJJ purple belt), or reading to his son.

This article was reviewed by Ashley Boyer, ACE-CPT, for accuracy.