The Kettlebell is King!

The popularity of kettlebell training has grown rapidly over the past 10 years and now this piece of kit can be seen in almost every gym across the UK. It is a very diverse training modality that can be manipulated to give you an extremely effective all over body workout with no additional equipment and minimal space requirements.

Many of the basic kettlebell movements revolve around swinging the bell between your legs. This simple movement alone is excellent for metabolic conditioning due to its repetitive nature. It is also loading often underused and neglected parts of the body: the gluts and hamstrings. The loading phase as the kettlebell passes through the legs is excellent for developing eccentric hamstring conditioning whilst the unloading phase as you drive the kettlebell back up will condition the gluts and hamstrings concentrically. The handle of the kettlebell acts like another joint and so the inertia of the bell will have the effect of the bell constantly pulling at you. This requires your body to produce a solid foundation and then stabilise the movement using the whole body. It is the fact that the kettlebell trains your whole body in one movement that makes it an excellent conditioning tool and one that you should strongly consider adding to your workout routine.

Two Handed Kettlebell Swing

Start Position/Set Up

• Feet shoulder width apart

• Neutral spine

• Place two hands on the handle of the kettlebell and hold in front of the hips

How to Execute the Exercise

• Push hips backwards, kettlebell between quads

• Drive feet into the ground ‘gripping’ floor with the toes

• Inhale and brace creating abdominal pressure

• Kettlebell should travel back behind the knees and bum

• Snap hips forward contracting the gluts

• Kettlebell is propelled forward to approximately shoulder height

• Arms should have a relaxed tension and the shoulders should be ‘sucked’ into the joint (down and back)

• Repeat hip hinge and snap forward to repeat for continuous repetitions

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