18 Weeks of Free Bodyweight Workouts (54 Workouts!)

 

Breaking Muscle HQ

Real Athletes. Real Coaches. Real Knowledge.

Looking for workouts you can do anywhere? Or maybe you're just really into bodyweight exercise? Here are eighteen weeks (54 workouts) that need no equipment, and are totally free!

These workouts were designed by Breaking Muscle co-founder Mindith Rahmat. Mindith has trained extensively in yoga, kettlebells, and CrossFit. She is the definition of a fitness enthusiast and is always studying the experts. She has pulled all her knowledge and findings together into these bodyweight workouts.

Just click on the cycle name to download a PDF containing a 6-week program.

Bodyweight Workout: Cycle 1

Don't let lack of exercise equipment stop you from getting strong. These bodyweight workouts require minimal equipment and the space of a yoga mat.

Bodyweight Workout: Cycle 2

No fancy gym equipment? No problem. The bodyweight workouts require only the space of a yoga mat. This is the first of two cycles focusing on building up to a one-arm push up.

Bodyweight Workout: Cycle 3

No equipment and no excuses. The third cycle continues to focus on building up to a one-arm push up.

Get started on the workouts by clicking here!

The Kettlebell Swing: Why It's the Perfect Exercise

 

Andrew Read

Contributor - Master RKC, Endurance Training

Thomas Edison once said, "The doctor of the future will give no medicine; instead he will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, nutrition and the cause and prevention of disease.”

If you were looking for a single exercise to care for the human frame you’d probably look for an exercise that helped us regain our posture from one of sitting hunched over to one that was upright, extended, and open. You’d probably also look for an exercise that worked the posterior chain to overcome all the negative effects of sitting and, if you could find one exercise that could do both of those, you’d probably also wonder if you could find one super exercise that could strengthen your heart and help you lose weight, too.

It’s called the kettlebell swing.

Here are the reasons why it’s become the number one exercise most people should be doing:

Reason #1 – It’s Better for Your Back

Firstly, and perhaps most significantly, Dr. Stuart McGill found kettlebell swings show a reversed polarity of posterior shear at L4 and L5 when compared to traditional posterior chain exercises.¹ This is important because for those with lower back issues traditional posterior chain exercises such as deadlifts, good mornings, etc. may exacerbate the condition, while swings may not. For those looking to strengthen the lower back and unable to use these traditional exercises the swing may be just the thing they’re looking for.

Reason #2 – Lower Loads are Safer

Because of the dynamic nature of the swing the opportunity to overload or injure the body is quite low. A well-performed swing is ballistic in nature. A swing should be punched forward by the hips, not pushed slowly into place. For those wondering what I’m speaking about picture the difference between a bullet and a missile. In the RKC we speak of ballistics and grinds. A ballistic is a bullet – one moment of acceleration then it is coasting after being fired. A grind is like a missile – constantly being pushed along, no matter how fast or slow it moves.

The swing is as ballistic as a standing jump. And because of that, and the lower loads that are necessitated by it, the lower back simply can’t be overloaded the way it could be via deadlifts or power cleans.

Between lower loads and the reversal of negative forces on the spine, those two factors alone may be why many with problem lower backs credit the swing as the secret to rehabilitation of their injuries. In addition, the lower loads allow for many, may reps to be done in a workout. This results in a muscle flushing that McGill wrote about, quoting Jay’s 2010 research:

The rapid acceleration of the bell via the motion of the hips and knees is accompanied by substantial activation of muscles in both the posterior chain and the abdominals. The rapid contraction-relaxation cycles of some muscles occurring over half-second periods, specifically from inactive to 100% activation back to almost complete relaxation, have also been recognized by Jay et al. as a mechanism for flushing muscle of metabolites. Interestingly, Jay et al. also found pain reduction and incorporated kettlebell training 3 times per week over 8 weeks in a group of workers who performed demanding work. They proposed the muscle flushing mechanism as an explanation for the reports of lower pain.²

Make It Even Safer with Breath

One of the least used tools for power generation or lifting safety is our breath. Try this simple experiment – put your hands over your stomach and exhale like a sigh. Now, sniff air into your belly through your nose and then exhale short and sharp like you’re trying to blow out a candle far away.

Notice the difference in how hard your stomach works? And do you know when your stomach is strong and switched on your spine is better protected?

Imagine your spine as a flagpole. On it’s own, with no bracing it just kind of flops around in the breeze. But when you use forceful exhalation, known in RKC circles as power breathing, you are essentially creating a stiff wall around that flagpole to keep it stiffer. When the brain registers the spine is stable it allows you to create more power. In essence, your abdomen is like the volume control for your strength. The more tension you create there, the stiffer the spine, the more force you can generate.

In addition, chiropractor Dr. John Sullivan says that:

Using the Valsava maneuver creates a dynamic internal pressure that I believe supercharges the cerebral-spinal fluid flow. The interthecal pressure is greatly increased when you add movement to the Valsava maneuver. Cerebral-spinal fluid is pumped or controlled by respiration that causes movement in the sacrum and cranial bones. Now add to this the weight of a Kettlebell and you substantially amplify all these factors. I am not surprised people feel so great after a swing workout.³

Getting back to Edison, he adds:

Edison, being an expert on electricity knew that the body functions by electrical impulses and he must have further realized that the flow of electricity could be impeded by the spinal structure. I believe that the spinal curves must be correctly maintained or the flow of information in the nervous system is compromised. In Chiropractic we call that a Subluxation. In order to do the Kettlebell swing correctly I really had to work on my form and this had an incredible influence on establishing the proper lordotic and kyphotic curvatures of my spine.⁴

Getting Started

By this stage, you’re probably itching to get swinging, so here’s some tips from Master RKC Mark Reifkind⁵ who recommends starting to swing with a version called the Power Swing:

1. Set up as if you were doing a conventional two hand swing: hips back shoulders down, lats engaged, connected and linked to the bell.
2. Hike the bell into the back swing hard, you’re only doing one rep.
3. Stand up into a single rep swing.
4. Let the bell back swing as if you were parking the bell at the end of a set, placing it on the deck in front of you in the perfect position to start the next rep.
5. Keep your hands on the bell and reset for the next rep DO NOT STAND UP BETWEEN REPS.
6. Continue doing single reps for between 5 and 10 reps.
7. Do between 5 and 10 total sets.

Each and every rep requires you to get back into the perfect starting position over and over. It’s the kettlebell equivalent to the barbell box squat, which also takes all the momentum out of the squat, forcing the trainee to generate all the power from their posterior chain. Just like the power swing.

The power swing emphasizes the key components of the perfect swing - sitting back and loading the hips, connecting with the kettlebell, and combining centers of gravity, as a strong hike pass and perfect control are essential after the initial swing.

The key principle of Hardstyle Kettlebell training is that, to quote Pavel, "We choose power over efficiency, choosing maximal acceleration in the quick lifts and maximum tension in the grinds."

Why Only Chest Height?

If we’re looking to the swing to be our one size fits all solution to back care then we must recognize that, for many, swinging the bell overhead is impossible without hyper extending the lower back or jamming the neck or shoulders due to limitations in their thoracic mobility.

The swing is an expression of forward force projection such as found in boxing or martial arts, like a straight punch. If you’re an athlete with a vertical component to your sport such as in Olympic weightlifting, Highland Games, or even swimming, then try the snatch.

Picking the right tool for the job will go a long way to ensuring your back stays healthy and strong for years to come!

How To Do The Perfect Kettlebell Snatch

 

Andrew Read

Contributor - Master RKC, Endurance Training

Here we are at the end of my series - the final movement of the six basic kettlebell exercises. The snatch.

The snatch is one of those exercises that seem shrouded in myth. Perhaps the most common misperception is that it is difficult to learn. Thankfully, that isn’t the case. In fact, I believe the snatch to be possibly the easiest exercise to get right and I usually can get most of my clients performing smooth, pain-free snatches in about five minutes flat.

There is a secret to this, though – you need to spend adequate time on the swing, get up, clean, and press. Let me explain:

The swing grooves the hip movement. Until that movement is second nature your focus will be split on performing the hip hinge, which is powering the entire thing, and controlling the bell as it travels upwards. Until you can perform many one-hand swings without losing form you’re not ready to snatch.

The get up teaches you where your lockout position is and how to maintain a straight wrist at the top. If you can’t reach a vertical arm position at the top of your get up then you aren’t ready to snatch.

Like the swing, the clean has that vital hip hinge in it. The major difference is that we are guiding the bell to a different position, steering it into place, as opposed to the swing, where we keep it at arm’s length. The clean teaches us to be comfortable with the bell moving around at a safe height while maintaining our hip hinge movement as the power action, not a yank on the arm to get it into place. If you can’t do this you’re not ready to snatch.

The press, like the get up, teaches us where lockout is and how to reach it from a bent-arm position. During the snatch the arm isn’t held straight and learning how to get to lockout instantly at the top of the movement is vital. If you can’t achieve a good vertical lockout with a straight wrist during the press you’re not ready to snatch.

The biggest problem most people have is that the snatch is so beguiling and sexy they want to get to it as fast as possible. Looking at what I’ve written above, the take away lesson is simple – the longer you wait until you try to snatch the better off you’ll be, the easier you’ll learn it, and the better your snatch will be as a result. In fact, in Enter the Kettlebell Pavel Tsatsouline recommends not snatching at all for the first year of your kettlebell training.

Like the clean the best way to learn the snatch is from the top down. Begin by clean and pressing a kettlebell overhead. From here we’re going to practice the drop. To do this you need to be on a matted surface or outside. Have the palm of your hand facing forward, gripping the kettlebell lightly with your knuckles pointing towards the sky. Pull the kettlebell down slightly allowing the bell to flip over the top of your hand. Let the bell drop once you’ve initiated the movement. As the bell passes the bottom of your ribcage you’ll be able to pull it backwards, to actively hike pass it behind you. At the point where your arm goes completely straight you will be in the bottom of your swing position. Release the bell and allow it to drop behind you, holding your position. If you get pulled off balance here you are not rooted to the ground well enough. Practice this movement several times on each side, making sure to hold your bottom position and get used to the speed the bell travels down at.

You’re probably not going to believe it, but once you’ve got this engrained the next step is to snatch. Yes, it’s that easy. Simply reverse what you did on the drop to get the bell back up overhead. Don’t overthink it. The snatch is fluid and smooth, so just try a couple and see how you do.

Check out this video for an example. That's now Master RKC Max Shank on the right.

Here are some tips to clear up the bit between the drop and reaching lockout again:

The snatch is not a big swing. If you try to get the bell overhead with a straight arm you’re going to hurt yourself. At the top of its arc the bell will be traveling at its highest speed and it is at that point that it will whip around your hand and smash into your forearm. Next thing you know you’ll have bruised yourself and be thinking that snatches hurt you. The key is that you need to realize the bell has three different arcs – one for the swing, one for the snatch, and another for the clean. Each one gets closer and closer to the body.

The arm position for much of the snatch is a broken arm, with the elbow leading on the way up. At the point where the bell needs to go around the hand you actually have a choice whether to allow the bell to go around your hand, or push your hand around the bell. The way to do this is to punch your hand through the handle of the bell. If your arm is straight you simply can’t extend your arm to punch through. Having that slight bend in your arm allows that to happen and the result is you will place your forearm against the back of the bell rather than allow the bell to slam into the back of your arm.

Also keep in mind that the hand stays in the same position the whole time relative to the arm. At the top of the snatch the palm of the hand would be facing forward and you are pronated. On the way down this stays the same with zero rotation at all (please note this is for RKC/Hardstyle snatches not Girevoy Sport techniques designed to increase efficiency and spare the grip). At its midpoint, roughly level with the bottom of your ribcage, the hand is still in this same position facing down. At the bottom position it may be slightly internally rotated, but still pronated and facing behind you.

Kettlebells are good for some things and not so good for others. High repetition ballistics is one of the things they’re really good for. Even a moderate weight adds up to a significant workload very quickly. Twenty snatches on the minute with a 24kg bell adds up to 2400kg of load overhead in five minutes. There are not many activities you can do that will allow you to work so hard. This makes the kettlebell snatch a great choice for adding conditioning while simultaneously strengthening the body.

Just don’t rush into it. Take your time on the other moves – the longer you wait the easier it will be to learn the snatch and the better you will do it, meaning more productive training.

How To Do The Perfect Kettlebell Press

 

Andrew Read

Contributor - Master RKC, Endurance Training

To press a lot, you must press a lot. RKC proverb.

In the modern fitness world you’d be forgiven for thinking the only type of press that mattered is the bench press. But until about 1920 benches didn’t even exist. So how did the early fathers of strength - men like Sandow, Hackenschmidt, and Saxon - build such impressive upper bodies?

The answer is from various other forms of pressing. Pavel Tsatsouline wrote in Enter the Kettlebell that, “…if you work your overhead presses hard, you will hardly need to do anything else for your upper body.” Looking at the herculean torsos and shoulders of the strongmen of yesteryear it would seem to be correct.

The kettlebell press is unlike a normal barbell or dumbbell press. This is because of the offset nature of the kettlebell. With the weight of the bell resting against the back of your arm, a kettlebell is always trying to pull you out of your groove and into a potentially dangerous position.

I’ve always thought of this as a two-for-one bonus deal kind of thing because it means when I press a kettlebell I am getting a great shoulder stability workout as my rotator cuff has to work overtime to counteract these forces. The alternative to a healthy shoulder joint would be to add in extra work in the form of some rotator cuff work. I am always looking to minimize my time in the gym, so an exercise that gives me the same benefit in less time and with less volume is a blessing.

One of the keys of the RKC system is the use of tension to help with force production.The press begins with the clean. No matter how strong you are at pressing, if your clean delivers the weight to a poor rack position you are going to struggle to press it. So step one in a successful heavy press is a solid and consistent clean.

One of the biggest mistakes I see people make as they bell arrives in the rack is to let it knock some of the air out of them. This is a big mistake. Breath is an important part of both creating tension and relaxation. The key during the clean is to prepare the body for the impact of the bell, which should be minimal if your clean is well performed. Imagine someone trying to knock you over as they walk past – tense your body the exact same way. In this position – a standing plank – you will be tight with legs locked, abs and glutes switched on, and body rigid.

One of the best ways to practice this is with my favorite press drill – the bottoms up press. This drill teaches many things all at the same time – from whole body tension to keeping a straight wrist to keeping a vertical forearm. Letting your forearm go out of vertical increases the torque at the shoulder if it goes backwards or causes your arm to be caved in by the bell lying on top of it. Super freak Max Shank demonstrates this in this video:

The groove of the kettlebell press is a little different to that of a dumbbell or barbell press. Because of the need to keep the forearm vertical the upper arm needs to open out a bit to allow this to happen. From the rack position with the arm against the ribs to somewhere with the hand about level with the top of your head your arm needs to be opened out. How far this is will be dependent on how long your arms are. People will little short T-Rex arms will be able to press almost directly straight up, while those with condor-like wingspans will need to have their arms almost at ninety degrees to the body. To find your groove will take time. As the saying goes, “to press a lot you must press a lot.”

A great example of the press is in this video below from Phil Scarito:

A final tip is to keep the body as one unit. It’s always funny to me that people understand that swings are a whole body exercise. Get ups, too. But all of a sudden we get to the press and they revert back to their inner bodybuilder and think it’s a shoulder exercise. There is no RKC exercise that is not a whole body drill. The shoulder needs to stay packed down during the entire lift. Imagine trying to suck your shoulder blade on the working side down into the opposite hip pocket and keeping it there during the duration of the press. When the shoulder comes up it’s possible to impinge the shoulder joint and I’ve seen many people who tell me that their shoulders hurt when they press be instantly “cured” just by remembering this simple tip.

When trying to get my groove, particularly with a new bell, bigger than one I’ve been used to training with, I like to perform a bottoms up press with an appropriate sized bell that makes a single rep difficult. I find this reminds me of good mechanics and how to develop tension. After a short break I go straight to my new bell and try to get that same feeling of tension and alignment. This is a simple application of a workout that Ian King used to use for both CNS and metabolic overload during training – the 5/1 workout. The single rep gives you a high level of neural activation and actually makes completing a set of five immediately after easier, allowing you to use a heavier weight which in turn leads to more strength and muscle gain.

Make haste slowly with your press weights. Kettlebells come in reasonably big jumps in load. Going from a 16kg bell to a 20kg bell may only seem like 4kg but it’s a jump of 20%. Be patient and take your time at each new weight and own your form before looking to go up. If you follow the drills above and take your time you’ll build a strong press and an upper body to make Sandow jealous.

How To Do The Perfect Kettlebell Clean

 

Andrew Read

Contributor - Master RKC, Endurance Training

As far as kettlebell training goes I don’t think there’s a more misunderstood exercise than the kettlebell clean. I’ve written previously about it here in terms of why it’s such a useful exercise. Now it’s time to learn how to do it right.

If you look at the clean, it is the central link in many cases to get the bell from the floor to a position where we can squat, press, or jerk it. Regardless of whether you’re a Hardstyle or Girevoy Sport fan you’re going to need to make sure your clean is good. The saying “your press is only as good as your clean” can also be applied to your jerk and squat, too.

The first thing to keep in mind with the kettlebell clean is that it is a swing that just ends up with the bell going to a different location. I think about the swing as the driving force behind my clean and snatch. I find when I focus on keeping the elements of the swing in those moves they are much more fluid and powerful. So, always keep in mind all the things we spoke about when we were doing swings.

The fastest way to learn the clean is actually backwards. To begin, grip the kettlebell in one hand and grasp over the top of your first hand with your other hand. Now curl the bell to your chest. Remove the non-working hand and get comfortable in this position. Your elbow should be tucked in against your side, as if trying to hold a newspaper between your upper arm and your ribs. Your forearm should be mostly vertical, but angled slightly across your chest. The thumb should be pointing back toward you. It is important to make sure the wrist is straight at all times. Position the handle of the bell parallel to the callus line for now as we’re only concerned about the clean, not setting up for pressing or jerks.

This rack position needs to be strong and firmly imprinted in your head so you’ll be able to direct the kettlebell there during your work sets. A good drill at this point is to go for a walk in the rack position working on keeping the elbow in and maintaining good posture – you’ll find it’s far harder than you think.

If you had to find an exercise to mimic this position, one I like to use is a single arm plank. If you drop down into a plank on both elbows, then remove one you’ll be in the same position as if for the clean. You’ll need to tense the whole body – glutes, abs, legs, and the lat on the side of your working arm to keep your alignment. Wedge yourself between the floor and your feet. Get up and shake it off and cheat curl the bell back to the rack position as before and try to get that same feeling now in your rack position. Get everything nice and tight - squeeze the legs, glutes, and abs.

Next we need to develop a strong bottom position. Standing on mats or being outside is best for this drill. Starting from the rack, we need to get confident hike passing the bell back behind us. The best way to do this is to drop the bell from the rack. Do this by hinging at the hips, turning the hand slightly, as if pouring water, and allowing the kettlebell to trace an arc down between your legs and behind you. Then let it go. Once you’ve released your bell stay in your bottom position. You should be able to stay here with no movement. Your lower arm should be pressed into the thigh of the same leg, not in the center of your body.

This last bit is quite important. If you imagine where your hands would go if you had two bells – into either thigh – the only difference now should be we’ve removed a bell. The working side should be in the exact same spot it was when you had both arms working, not in the center of your body. If it comes into the midline you will rotate your trunk. One of the benefits of single bell training is that it forces the body to work hard against those rotational forces – don’t give in to them.

When you drop the kettlebell make sure the arm goes completely straight. Trying to keep a slight bend in the arm will likely cause damage, the same as trying to deadlift with bent arms. The thumb will end up slightly turned behind you in the bottom position thanks to your “water pouring” at the start of the drop.

Once you’ve done a few drops on each side – I like 5 x 5 – it’s time to move on.

The only thing left to do is to reverse the drop. Many people overthink this step but there’s no need to. All the action of getting the bell into the rack is taken care of by the power of your clean. Simply swing the bell hard as if doing swings and guide the bell into place in the rack.

If you really struggle with this part one drill, what I like doing is using a sequence from the rack that goes – drop, swing, hammer curl, clean. The hammer curl is like a halfway move for the clean. Your lower arm will be parallel to the ground, elbow at roughly ninety degrees, upper arm against your side, and thumb up. From the rack the drill is simple – we drop the bell and turn that into a swing as in the video above. Then we add a step with the hammer curl – don’t yank on the bell with your arm but use your swing to get it into the hammer curl position. Your arm should be loose, as it is the hips doing the work, not your arm. The next step occurs at the same point as the hammer curl position. Now, instead of stopping halfway, drive the handle around the bell to rest the body of the bell against your forearm. The power of your swing will drive it into place.

For a final look at the clean from a Girevoy Sport perspective, world champion Ivan Denisov shows that the clean is still more similar to the swing than different – legs straight at the top, wrists straight, elbows in, and driven into place by the swing.

Practice the clean – trust me. A good clean makes a strong starting point for all of the most important kettlebell exercises like the jerk and press.

How To Do The Perfect Get Up

 

Andrew Read

Contributor - Master RKC, Endurance Training

Welcome to part two of our six-part guide to performing the RKC basic six exercises.Last week’s installment was on the swing, considered the central lift to RKC training as it also forms the basis for the clean and snatch. In the current RKC curriculum the next lift taught after the swing is the clean. You need to keep in mind, though, that the students at the RKC aren’t beginners, rather experienced kettlebell lifters now learning how to teach others. Because the other central lift to the RKC is the press, we need to make sure the clean is nailed down so that we can deliver the bell to the rack for the press.

But, in the HKC the get up comes next and is usually the next lift you’d teach a client.Here’s why:

1. It teaches them to link the upper and lower body together through the midsection – essential for any athletic feat.
2. It will show you whether they have enough thoracic mobility to allow them to press or snatch overhead safely.
3. It will develop the lockout position at a variety of joint angles building stability for faster movements such as the snatch.

I’m a big fan of the get up and it’s probably my favorite exercise. I can remember the first time I did one on my front lawn, wobbling and shaking with a 16kg and wondering how on earth anyone could possibly be strong enough to do it with anything heavy. I’d seen a few people on YouTube doing it with as much as 48kg.

One of the biggest problems with getting people to do a get up well is that there are so many moving parts. The swing is quite simple with its rhythmic nature and two positions – either you’re in the bottom position or a plank. The get up has six positions in each direction. Here they are:

1. Roll to press
2. 1/4 to elbow
3. 1/2 to hand
4. Knee to hand
5. Lunge position
6. Stand

Now let’s do a get up. Put the bell on your right hand side so it is in line with the bottom of your ribcage. The handle should be parallel to the body. You should be lying completely on your right hand side in an almost fetal position.

Drive your right hand deep into the handle so that it rests on the palm of your hand, not in your fingers or along the callus line. The handle should be running straight across the palm of your hand, not diagonally as you see many do. Running the handle diagonally across your hand misses some of the important mechanoreceptor “buttons” in your hand that activate various muscles and will actually decrease your ability to do a heavy get up safely.

Making sure your right wrist stays completely straight grasp over the top of it with your left hand and pull the bell to your stomach. In this position your right arm will be bent at ninety degrees. From here roll to your back and use both arms to press the bell to arm's length.In this position both legs will be straight, spread out roughly the same distance as they would be if you were using your swing width stance, so about shoulder width. This is called the firing range position, as it resembles a shooting stance.

(Note: Current RKC standard says to press the bell to arm's length one-handed and I’m just going to say that I flat out disagree with that on safety grounds – please send all hate mail toeditor@Icanthinkformyself.com)

The next thing we need to do is bend the right leg. The easy way to remember which leg is bent/up and which is straight/down is that the leg that is up is the same as the arm that is up. The knee should be bent about ninety degrees with the foot flat on the ground (which is how it remains throughout – the heel never comes off the ground on this leg during the entire move). The left hand should be on the ground about forty-five degrees from the body, roughly parallel with the left leg.  You’ll notice this places the left hand roughly in line with the hip.

All of that gets us to our first position, the roll to press.

To come to our elbow we need to initiate the move from the right foot. The body should be linked together as one piece so that when you drive your right foot into the ground both the right hip and right shoulder are rolled off the ground. Do not move the left arm at all. Drive the right foot into the ground to initiate the slight roll and then imagine dragging the left elbow through the ground towards you, activating your lat. If you pause for a second you’ll see that you’ve used the same cross body pattern we use with crawling – the foot starts the move but the action is from the hip, linked through the midsection and crossing over into the opposing lat. In this position, and all others, make sure the shoulders are down and back and the chest up.

To get from here to the half-get up position we simply drive the left hand into the floor as if doing a triceps pressdown. As the arm straightens screw the hand into the ground with a little external rotation to tighten up the shoulder and help pack it down. (On a trip to Australia, Master RKC Dave Whitley described this as “squishing the spider.” I had to inform him that no one here touches spiders because they’ll kill you, but the image is still a good one.) At this point you should be sitting tall, chest up, with shoulders down and back.The left leg will be straight still not having moved at all, and the right leg will still be bent at ninety degrees with the shin vertical and the foot flat on the floor. Don’t allow the foot to roll in or the shin to collapse.

The next step is the most difficult for most people. With all your weight on the left hand and right foot you need to lift your hips up high enough to create space to bring the left leg back underneath you. Roughly, the left hand will be in line with your hips still, even though they’re off the ground. The fingers of that hand will be pointing at right angles to you, away to the left. As you bring your leg back you are going to line up the shin of that leg so that it is on the same line as your fingers, making your front and back legs roughly perpendicular to each other. At this point the bell is pretty much directly over the base of support that is your left hand – imagine a building and think about where they put the foundations. Do they put them directly under the building or somewhere off to the side?

To get to the lunge position you are going to perform a hip hinge similar to that of the swing, just on an angle. Push the hips back at a forty-five degree angle to unweight the left hand and get all your weight aligned with your feet. As you do this you are going to take your hand off the ground and come to a kneeling lunge position. At this point the weight will be vertical, the bicep of your right arm in line with your ear, shoulders down and back, chest up. The final adjustment is to windshield wiper the left leg to get us into our lunge position.

To stand dig in the toes of the back foot and drive forward and up. Once standing get the feet about hip width apart, make sure the wrist is straight still on the right hand and that the arm is vertical with the bicep in line with your ear. If you can see the bell in your vision here you are either not upright yourself and are likely leant backwards or your arm is not vertical and is instead held out in front of you. From the lunge position up you should be looking straight ahead.

To get back down reverse the process – step back on your left foot, touching the knee to the deck softly. Windshield wiper the leg again and place your left hand on the ground near your left knee (note: not behind, but in line with). Put all your weight on your left hand and right foot. Extend the left leg in front of the body. Place your hips back down on the ground roughly in line with your left hand (if your hand is behind you it is going to be hard to finish the move as your arm will be in the way). Unsquish the spider and lower your elbow to the ground before finally lowering back to your back. Grab the bell with both hands and lower to your chest before rolling to the side and releasing it.

How To Do The Perfect Kettlebell Swing

 

Andrew Read

Contributor - Master RKC, Endurance Training

Internet forums are funny things. They remind me of the zoo. Often they’re fascinating to watch and you can get a rare insight into some hidden facet on a subject, as if you’d just found out cheetahs use roller skates. Other times it’s like being at the monkey cage and watching them fling poo at each other.  

Recently one of the little gems I found was a fairly serious powerlifter (600+lb competition deadlift) saying how he used kettlebell swings at the end of his workout. Nothing heavy and not trying to use them as assistance work, but instead using them to loosen up his back after heavy deadlifting. It was also in an Internet forum that I found the research paper for this article I wrote on swings improving vertical jump. I spoke with the original researcher, in particular asking him about the research from another genius, Brandon Hetzler, which I then used for this article on swings increasing strength and speed.

All this got me to thinking there sure seems to be a lot of information starting to gather out there for this one simple exercise. The RKC has long been a champion of the swing, and Master RKC Mark Reifkind has produced many great articles on the swing as well as a DVD (Mastering the Hardstyle Swing). In my own training, with my time and energy severely limited from the hours I’m spending on Ironman training, I’ve been looking to simplify my training and I’ve also turned to the swing, following the recommendationsoutlined in this article.

In other words – the swing is a great exercise, so let’s get it right and make sure we can really benefit from it. The following is a four-step primer for how to perform the perfect swing.

1. Wall Touch

• Stand with your feet shoulder width apart facing away from a wall. Make sure you are about half the length of your thigh away from the wall.
• Take the blades of your hands - the part you’d karate chop someone with – and place them on the creases in your groin where your underpants sit.
• Push back your hips with the blades of your hands until your butt touches the wall.
• Now, this next bit is important – do not put any weight on the wall. Your butt should touch the wall but all the weight should be on your feet – not leaning against the wall.
• Perform ten reps of this wall touch.
• Once you can do that, edge your feet away from the wall by about the length of your big toe and repeat the drill. You’ll notice you probably need to bend your knees a little to actually touch the wall – that’s okay. But make sure the first body part that bends is your hips and not your knees.
• Perform another ten reps.
• Edge away from the wall a bit more – probably about half the length of your big toe by now and repeat. You’ll have to really work hard to push back from the hips and not squat into it. Hips bend first, knees bend incidentally but they do bend. The hips need to travel down and back, as I explain with Senior RKC Shaun Cairns in this video.

Important reminder: Make sure the first thing that moves as you straighten up are the hips, too. For a visual reference see how Shaun drives forward from his hips and, as in the initial backwards motion, the knees just come along for the ride.

2. Deadlift

The next step is to add a kettlebell, but perform this same action slowly. We used to say on the racetrack, “If you can’t do it slow, you’ll never do it fast.” It applies here, too. You need to be able to keep that same hips-down-and-back position and maintain a flat back while you deadlift.

• Stand with feet shoulder width apart again and place the kettlebell between your feet with the handle running across you and in line with the knuckles of your big toes.
• Do the exact same thing you did with the wall touch, reaching down and back with the hips until you get to the kettlebell. Don’t just bend over and reach for it. Make the movement at the hips get you to the point where your hands can grab the kettlebell handle.
• When you take hold of the kettlebell, you need to take the slack out of your body. To do this hold the kettlebell and pull yourself slightly towards it, deliberately trying to shorten the space between the joints and compress yourself.
• Reverse the motion making sure to stand tall at the top. Shoulders should be down and back, making a big chest (as if you are proud to be working with kettlebells, and you should be). Tense the glutes firmly, imagine drawing up the kneecaps to the groin while simultaneously pushing down into the ground as hard as you can through the feet.

This TPI video from Gray Cook has the added benefit of Gray’s immense knowledge, speaking about the benefits of the deadlift as an exercise as well as the single leg variation.

3. Power Swing

Now it’s time to get things swinging. But only a little to begin with. While the deadlift teaches you the mechanics of the swing it also creates in a way a false position, as you will never need to go that low when swinging.

• For the pendulum swing, set up like for the deadlift except the kettlebell will be just in front of you – about the length of one of your feet away.
• Once you have lowered yourself to the bell, positioning the hips down and back, grab hold of the kettlebell and again take the slack out of your body. Watch this video for an explanation by RKC Team Leader Andrea Chang.
• Now simply hike the bell back hard – force plate analysis of the swing shows far more force should be generated on the backswing than on the upswing so don’t be shy. Make sure to keep the alignment of the body and not crumple as the weight of the bell pulls you back.
• Perform a single swing and return the bell to its starting position.
• Perform ten single reps.

4. Continuous Swings

The only thing you need to do now is to continue swinging instead of stopping after each rep.You will find that sets of ten to twenty reps are about right. Anything more will likely lead to poor form and maybe a sore back.

Take your time during the learning phase and spend plenty of time on single rep power swings before even worrying about moving on to continuous swings. The more time you spend grooving the bottom position and developing a stable trunk on the downswing, the better off you are. There really should only be two movements in the swing – your hips move down and back, and then up and forward, finishing at lockout. The lockout should be exactly the same as during the deadlift – glutes tight, abs on, legs tight and kneecaps drawn up, shoulders down and back, and with a big chest and tall spine.

As always in learning movements, get the quality right before you worry about quantity.Ten good swings will do something for you. A hundred poor ones won’t do anything other than potentially injure you. Suggested starting weights for men would be a 16 kg/35 lb. bell and for women a 12 kg/26 lb. bell.