Swinging Kettlebells 

The kettlebell is a very unique piece of training equipment.  They can be used for both linear and circular training patterns. Training circular movement patterns offers tremendous benefits for athletic performance. If you think about it, almost every athletic movement comes from a circular moving pattern. From throwing a punch, a ball, swinging a racket, kicking a ball or just hoisting something over your shoulder.  So, training circular movements makes sense if you want to improve your athletic movements. Here are some potential benefits:

• Enhanced Agility: Circular movements require quick changes in direction and shifts in body position. By training circular patterns, athletes can improve their agility, coordination, and proprioception, allowing them to react faster and more efficiently during sports-specific movements.

• Improved Balance and Stability: Circular movements often engage multiple muscle groups and challenge the body's balance and stability. Regular training in circular patterns can help athletes develop stronger core muscles, improve their overall balance, and maintain stability in dynamic situations.

• Increased Body Awareness: Circular movements require athletes to have a heightened sense of body awareness and control. By practicing circular patterns, athletes can improve their kinesthetic awareness, fine-tune their movement precision, and develop a better understanding of their body's positioning in space.

• Enhanced Flexibility and Range of Motion: Circular movements often involve a wide range of motion across multiple joints. Engaging in circular pattern training can help athletes improve their flexibility, joint mobility, and muscular elasticity, which can be beneficial for executing fluid and powerful movements in various sports.

• Strength: Because many muscles are used in the kettlebell swing, for example.  Those muscles will get stronger.  A common trap than many weightlifters fall into is overworking specific muscles as well as the nervous system.  Kettlebell swings are working grip, back, shoulders, traps, spinal erectors, glutes, hamstrings, quads and the whole set of abdominal muscles with hip extension muscles.  This functional exercise is usually higher in reps, but not so high that will cause a lactic acid response. The typical workload would be something like 10 sets of 10 reps for a total of 100 reps. One can literally train them daily and not have to worry about overtraining.  You will not overly tax these groups of muscles.  This means being able to train them more frequently.  Muscles that can be trained more frequently, without overtraining them will adapt and get stronger faster and without the delayed onset muscle soreness.

• Power: Basically, power is defined as moving a heavy weight a certain distance in a period of time.  I like the way CrossFit defines it. Load x Distance divided by time.  Swinging a heavy Kettlebell employing extreme force to the load for a certain number of low reps is a great way to train one's ability to generate power!  Power needs strength, coordination, balance and speed to develop fully.  Because these abilities tend to diminish as we age, this one exercise is actually a fountain of youth!

• Cardiovascular Endurance: The old saying of, "What do you do to get stronger? Of course, I lift weights.  So, what do you do for cardio?  I lift weights faster" Experimenting with heavy, light, high reps, low reps, duration of a set and durations of rest can all be utilized to create cardiovascular endurance.

• Injury Prevention: Training circular movement patterns can help address muscle imbalances and improve joint stability, reducing the risk of injuries. By incorporating multidirectional movements into their training routine, athletes can strengthen muscles that are often neglected in linear training and enhance overall muscular symmetry and functional strength.

Exercises that we will be exploring in future discussions: Double Hand vs Single Hand vs Alternate Hand swings.  How to effectively incorporate other Kettlebell exercises into your routines.