The Kraken is a combination of a Romanian Deadlift, a Clean and a Thruster. It is a demanding, total body exercise.
How To Do It
1. Begin with the Romanian Deadlift portion of the movement. Stand with feet close to one another, narrower than shoulder width. Grasp dumbbells to sides. Slightly bend your knees.
2. Keeping your back neutral (or, if it’s easier to execute, arch your back – meaning spine toward your stomach) and your knees at the same bent angle, lower the dumbbells by bending your hips and engaging your hamstrings, until you feel a mild stretch in your hamstrings.
3. Once you feel a mild stretch, lift the dumbbells by engaging your hamstrings and straightening your hips until standing upright.
4. Squeeze your gluteals to complete the motion.
5. Now the Clean begins. Standing erect with dumbbells at your sides and palms facing inward and arms straight, quickly DIP your knees and hips until dumbbells are just above knees.
6. Without hesitating, JUMP upward, extending your body.
7. Simultaneously SHRUG your shoulders and pull dumbbells upward with arms.
8. Keep dumbbells close to your body.
9. Aggressively DROP/PULL your body under dumbbells.
10. CATCH dumbbells on shoulders while moving into squat position.
11. Now you move into the Thruster portion of the exercise. Driving upward with your hips and thighs, stand up immediately.
12. An instant before your knees straighten completely, press the dumbbell overhead.
13. You should finish standing, back neutral, arms straight overhead with the dumbbells above your shoulders.
14. Hold for an instant before lowering the dumbbells to the starting position and beginning the next repetition.
Online Personal Trainer Tips
1. Romanian Deadlift portion: Start with light weight (or no weight) and allow your lower back to adapt to the motion before raising weight.
2. Romanian Deadlift portion: Throughout the RDL, keep your arms straight, with the dumbbells close to your legs.
3. Romanian Deadlift portion: While straightening your hips, it can help focus the exercise if you imagine rolling a tennis ball up your hamstrings and gluteals along with your progression.
4. Romanian Deadlift portion: Keep your back neutral throughout the exercise. This will diminish how “low” you can go with your stretch. Your range of motion will increase as you increase your flexibility.
5. Clean: keep your arms straight as long as possible. Don’t bend them until after your feet have left the ground. A wise man once said, “When your arms bend, the power ends.” Keeping your arms straight as long as possible enables maximum transfer of your leg power.
6. Clean: The more you squat during the “catch” phase of the exercise, the more you’ll work your lower body.
7. Clean: Keep your lower back neutral and straight up and down the entire exercise. DO NOT bend forward. Bending forward diminishes power and puts your lower back at risk.
8. Clean & Thruster: Keep your eyes forward and back neutral.
9. Clean & Thruster: Keep your abdominals tight.
10. Thruster: Focus on making the exercise an explosive leg exercise, not a shoulder exercise. You’ll find this will improve your performance of the movement.
