The Kettlebell Squat Jump is one of my favorite exercises due to the number of muscles it works, the energy it expends per rep, and the explosive and sport-specific benefits it has. It gave me fantastic results for improving my vertical jump and definitely helps burn a ton of calories and tone the entire lower body along with the core and stabilizer muscles.

The movement is essentially the first part of the Kettlebell Squat exercise, except instead of slowly rising back up to starting position, you engage your legs to explode upwards in a jump with the kettlebell.

You start with holding the kettlebell in a “goblet” hold, or where the handle and ball of the kettlebell meet. Your hands will look like you are holding, well… a goblet. You keep your shoulders by your side and your legs a little more than shoulder-width apart. You slowly descend and while keeping your back straight, you bring your hips back and keep going down until your upper leg is parallel to the ground. Note that typically you want to make sure that your knees don’t go past your toes. This is always the case when you are doing bodyweight squats or barbell squats, but It becomes a little more difficult in this scenario where you are holding the weight in that manner, so do your best and don’t a heavy kettlebell the first few times you do this exercise (after graduating from the squat jump). Once you are at the bottom of the movement, explode upwards and make sure that when you land back on your feet, you don’t land with your legs completely locked out and have a slight bend at the knees so that your quads and other leg muscles are absorbing the shock, and not your knees.

The Kettlebell Squat jump mainly focuses on creating explosive strength with the quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes, and calves. There is also some spillover into the abdominals as far as stabilization, but this movement mainly focuses on lower body.