Many people think that blistered hands and bruised wrists are just a part of kettlebell training, but this doesn’t have to be the case. Developing proper technique with your hands and throughout the various movements can go a long way to minimizing or eliminating this problem, as well as balancing the exercises you are perfroming in your training.
This is a video on the three primary kettlebell movements in slow motion. I have always used slow motion to demonstrate the power phase movements to my clients and also had many requests for it from subscribers as well. I will show you a few different angles so that you can see how they should look.
Getting Started with Kettlebells Workout:
Thank you for joining us here at Kettlebell Movement. One of the most common questions people ask me is “where do I get started?” Today I am going to take you through a workout of basic kettlebell exercises that is great for beginners or people who want to perfect their technique. The idea here is to progress you through the basic kettlebell moves one at a time. Don’t progress each exercise until you feel completely ready to do so. I am going to show you today how to progress your way through the various kettlebell specific lifts, the kettlebell swing, kettlebell clean and jerk, and the kettlebell snatch. I am also going to take a few minutes to warm you up and build some reliable motor patterns before we enter the power phase kettlebell lifts. Getting started with kettlebells will start with weight selection, I have three different weights available to me today.
While I will be teaching technique to a degree, I encourage you to watch the lesson for each exercise before training with me today. Every exercise that I am demonstrating has in depth instruction to help you prepare. My main goal is to help you see the order of progressions that you will want to take when you get started with kettlebells. You may take weeks or months to progress on to some of the exercises I am teaching today, you must listen to your body and do only what feels right.
Todays workout:
Deadlift
Ten “regular” deadlifts
Ten Stiff leg deadlift
Ten one leg deadlift (five per leg)
Swing
Twelve Two handed Swing
Eight one handed Swings per hand
Twelve Alternating Swings
Clean
Five cleans from dead per hand
Five ballistic cleans per hand
Clean & Press
Five clean & Press per hand
Five Clean and push-press per hand
Five clean & jerk per hand
Snatch
Five snatches from dead per hand
Five ballistic snatches per hand
These are the three primary kettlebell exercises, your foundation that are the reason kettlebells are so widely respected. You will learn from here that there is an infinite world ahead of you as you progress to newer and more challenging variations and exercises. The turkish get up is one of those exercises that you will see me implementing a lot in our practice because it will improve your ability with every other lift.
You may notice that these exercises make you sore all over your body, but hopefully not excessively. You may also notice that the muscles you feel the most sore in are not the ones that felt the most fatigued in the moment. Often your grip, mid-back and shoulders feel fatigue while the upper back, glutes and hamstrings feel more sore. Practice all of these lifts until the motor patterns are hard wired into your head. As your ability increases, your confidence builds and learning becomes easier and a lot of fun. The changes you will see in your body from this training will be immediate and obvious.
Thanks for joining me,
Peter Hirsh
Getting Started with Kettlebells:
Today I am going to take you through a step by step progression of kettlebell basics. This video is meant to help you learn kettlebell basics from the ground up and show you how to practice and progress each exercise. I recommend beginning with weight selection, a crucial part of your practice. Many people tend to use weights that are far too light for them so make sure to view my kettlebell weight chart. Remember, kettlebell training is about using your whole body to make the weight feel as light as possible, not muscle isolation. If you are using a weight that is too light, you may end up using improper lifting patterns and you won’t get the full benefit.
Before you begin your kettlebell progressions you should learn the deadlift. This movement teaches the very important concept of “lift with your legs, not with your back.” The main goal here is to develop reliable motor patterns for lifting anything heavy up from the ground with maximum safety and efficiency. While many people are able to develop a safe movement they may not be lifting in the most efficient way possible. This causes the weight to feel heavier than it needs to and limits your potential.
The progressions for learning kettlebell basics go in the following order:
Swing
The kettlebell swing uses the same movement as the deadlift, but in the power phase with the driving muscles the glutes and hamstrings. This exercise will engage far more of your core and require more focus and practice than the deadlift. The benefits of the kettlebell swing are immediate and obvious, nothing builds overall strength faster.
Clean
The exercise known as the kettlebell clean gets it’s name from the simple fact that the idea is to lift the weight from the ground to shoulder level in as clean of a movement as possible. Again, your goal here is to keep the weight feeling as light as possible. Similar to the swing this is also a power phase movement in the hips. Taking the weight off the upper body, which merely controls the movement of the bell.
Press, push press and jerk,
When you have practiced and become reasonably competent at the clean, the three variations, the press, push press and jerk, of lifting the weight from shoulder level to overhead come next. In order to lift weight overhead safely you must already have a certain degree of shoulder flexibility. With that said, lifting weight overhead can also help to improve shoulder flexibility and strength if you already possess a basic ability. Each of the three progressions here will teach you how to make the weight feel lighter than the last by using your legs to move the weight. These movements will also teach you how to hold the weight in the overhead loaded lat position, an essential skill to have especially as you progress. Make sure you progress into overhead lifting with a heightened degree of awareness for anything your body is telling you.
Snatch
The kettlebell snatch is the final progression within kettlebell basics. The snatch is a power phase lift, accelerating the weight from the ground to the overhead loaded lat position in one move. By the time you start practicing this exercise your ability should be quite considerable with all of your progressions thus far. Make sure you pay extremely close attention to your body and the instructions I provide.
The turkish get up is another exercise that has become an integral part of this fitness culture. However, like the deadlift the turkish get up isn’t a kettlebell specific exercise so it isn’t listed as a progression. I do highly encourage using this exercise every step of the way in your training, starting with your first deadlift practice. The turkish getup will improve every lift and give obvious and immediate benefits.
Once you have learned these progressions, you are ready to begin a whole world of functional physical culture. In your future are such exercises as the overhead squat and windmill, the figure eights, goblet squats and even kettlebell juggling. After you have developed the basics, the possibilities become endless. Get ready to have some fun and learn how to use your body better than ever before!
Peter Hirsh
I have been teaching kettlebell training for over ten years and in that time I have seen just about everything. I have had people ask me the most bizarre questions to the most observant ones and none of it ceases to amaze me. Most of the time when I see someone doing something ineffective or borderline unsafe, I figure they just need a few pointers. When I see another trainer using kettlebells with their clients in a manner that is ineffective or unsafe however, I feel total despair. Demonstrating unsafe or ineffective kettlebell training not only injures people and kills their motivation but it also gives the wrong impression of this kind of training.
Today, I want to talk about common kettlebell mistakes people make in their training, especially when just getting started.
The biggest mistake I see people making is using the bell for muscle isolation exercises. These are exercises such as the bicep curl and chest press that bodybuilders use. Kettlebell training uses three primary lifts; the swing, clean & press and snatch, it also has many other fully kinetic lifts that are within the spirit of the teaching. Some of them can be performed with other types of weights, whereas others are almost certainly kettlebell specific. Do you want to look like a kettlebell pro? Simply perfect the three primary lifts and a few of the various strong person lifts that complement the training such as the turkish get-up, goblet squat, cossack squat, overhead squat and windmill, and refrain from trying to make up your own muscle isolation exercises.
Another common mistake people make is using too light of a kettlebell. This is another carryover from our muscle isolation exercises. If you are going to lift a weight with one muscle, you might find it is much harder to do than using your whole body properly to lift a weight. Generally, when a person uses a kettlebell that is too light, it causes them to use the wrong muscles. In order to get the hips to move the weight properly, people use the smaller muscles of their arms and shoulders to lift it. For this reason, I often see big improvements in someones technique when they move up in weight! That said, always work with what feels right for you at the time. As you learn the fine points of the art, you will know when it is time to move up in weight. Please refer to my kettlebell weight selection material to help you determine the weight that is right for you!
Kettlebell Mistakes
The last mistake I want to talk about is sloppy technique. Even if you know what the other lifts are, that doesn’t mean you are doing them properly. Kettlebell training is not to be taken lightly, if your technique is sloppy you will not only miss out on the benefit, you could injure yourself. Lifting kettlebells improperly will cause improper motor patterns and posture in every day life. Don’t let this deter you from training. Properly training with a kettlebell will create the kind of strength that will prevent you from ever getting injured in your work or play. Take your time and pay attention, the benefit of kettlebell training is as much mental as physical!
Using proper hand position in kettlebell training will not only make your lifts stronger, it will also help save your wrists
Sometimes when it comes to teaching proper use of kettlebells, or health in general, I find myself talking about the tiniest details. I often feel like I talked for an entire hour and never touched the same topic twice. Without a solid foundation of the basics you will never be able to advance your training. Today’s detail is hand position in the various lifts and holds of kettlebell training.
Dead Position
In the dead position the kettlebell will start side to side for deadlifts, usually performed with two hands, but can be progressed to one hand and even one leg. Snatches will also start with the handle side to side and be performed with one hand. When performing a clean, put the handle of the bell front and back and grip the bell thumb pointed back. This will put a “corkscrew” on the bell that will help it float to the rack position more smoothly. Make sure that your hand isn’t gripping so far under the bell that it causes a kink in the chain, usually at the wrist or elbow.
Rack Position
The rack position is where the bell ends after a clean. The fist should be under the chin, women can move it slightly to the side and shift the hip slightly to the side of the bell. In this position, keep your hand straight up and down, don’t let the wrist fall backward under the weight of the bell. You do not need to over grip the bell in this static position either. Increase the grip as you press or jerk the bell, or control it back to dead. In the rack, your fingers can be straight up, barely even contacting the bell, or folded over on top of the handle. The handle of the bell should sit low in your palm, right on the lines in your hand that go from your wrist to the web of your thumb.
Overhead Loaded Lat Position
The overhead loaded lat position is located in the most neutral place you can find, the balance spot right over the plumb line of your body. It is the position you will find yourself in after you have successfully cleaned, pressed, or snatched a kettlebell. People with tight shoulders and lats have a hard time keeping the bell there and as a result it always feels heavier than it should. Your hand doesn’t have to be holding on for dear life in the overhead position, just increase your grip as you move the bell up or down. Let the bell hang off your hand, fist straight up and down without death gripping with your fingers.
Using proper hand position will not only make your lifts stronger, it will also help save your wrists from the banging that can occur when you are first learning proper technique. You may find that your hands get blisters or calluses, improving your hand placement on the bell can help with that too. If you find blisters on your hands are getting painful, remember that snatches and cleans from dead will have less effect on your hands than ballistic or circular versions of the same lifts. Personally, I don’t use much chalk because I have dry hands, but I know a lot of people who do benefit from using it. I do not recommend gloves, as they they will diminish your capacity to grip. However, if it is a choice to wear gloves or not train at all, then do what you have to do!
Thank you for reading and whatever you do, love your practice!
Pro Style VS. Hard Style Kettlebells:
Today in the blog I want to talk about hard style vs. pro style kettlebell training and the differences between them. I also want to cover how the two different styles apply to the average person that train with kettlebells for their own health. Here’s a quick breakdown of the differences between the two in terms of teaching and the equipment.
Hardstyle
Hard style is about inefficiency, through exact and real world lifting patterns. It is the razors edge between making the bell feel as light as possible without giving in to the momentum of the weight.
Hard style bells are better for progressions to the basic three lifts. You will find it much easier to palm the bell of a hard style bell than a prostyle . When you begin learning goblet squats, figure eights, and any lift that requires you to lift the bell bottom up, you will want a hard style bell.
Hard style handles sit lower as the weight diminishes, making it difficult for people with tight hips to use safely from the dead position.
The center of mass is smaller on hard style bells making them easier to hold in the rack position especially for people that lack the ability to hip extend (tight hip flexors).
Prostyle / Girevoy Sport
Pro style is about maximum efficiency in a given motor pattern, allowing the practitioner to last as long as possible in endurance events. The girevik will follow the bell down with their chest in the back swing of any ballistic lift and the plank position at the top is much softer.
Pro style kettlebells are designed only for use with the three primary kettlebell lifts in mind. Not to say you can’t do different movements with them but they aren’t designed specifically for versatility. Pro style bells are meant for endurance competition for highly trained athletes.
Prostyle bells are often more expensive, but they have smoother handles and tend not to bang and bruise as much, especially when you are first developing the various techniques.
So what is the conclusion?
Personally, I don’t believe that extremely high rep endurance training with free weights is healthy for the average person. That said, if you want to dedicate your life, going through hours of coaching, practicing and lifestyle discipline, then I do believe it can be done safely and Girevoy sport is for you. If you have pro style bells already, they will be fine for the vast majority of what we do. You will see that I use them often even with hard style lifts.
I believe that you are far more likely to remain safe while snatching a heavy kettlebell for low reps than a medium-sized weight for ten minutes. Safety is all about focus and motor pattern awareness, that is much easier to maintain with fewer reps of heavier weight. Therefore, if your goal is to stay healthy and strong in your own way and not necessarily to compete, then hard style is probably the best choice for you.
What Kettlebell Weight Is Right For Me?
Today I am going to talk about the most important thing to know before learning how to train with kettlebells, kettlebell weight selection. As my teaching progresses and I share my years of training experience with you, I want to provide workouts that require very little equipment on your behalf. I want to teach you to do more with less, that said, investment in more than one kettlebell may be necessary. You can start with just one bell, and purchase new ones only when needed, or you could start with a set of three or four bells of varying weight dependent upon your lean muscle mass and prior athletic experience. Use this guide to help you select the right equipment for you:
Female
- 9lb/4kg - Beginner, no athletic history, used only to get basic movements down. Will have to move up quickly
- 18lb/8kg - Beginner, little to no athletic experience, sedentary
- 26lb/12kg -Beginner, average strength level, decent overall posture, some athletic history
- 35lb/16kg -Beginner but strong or advanced in motor pattern awareness and flexibility from athletic training
- 44lb/20kg -Prior kettlebell specific experience, strong, flexible and smart
- 53lb/24kg -High level kettlebell practitioner, using this weight primarily for low rep lifts
Male
- 26lb/12kg - Small build, beginner, little to no athletic experience, highly sedentary
- 35lb/16kg - Beginner, little to no athletic experience, highly sedentary
- 44lb/20kg - Beginner, average strength level, decent overall posture, some athletic history
- 53lb/24kg - Beginner but strong or advanced in motor pattern awareness and flexibility from athletic training
- 62lb/28kg - Prior kettlebell specific experience, strong, flexible and smart.
- 70/32kg - Experienced practitioner, Flexibility is the key to moving beyond this two point.
- 106lb/48kg -High level kettlebell practitioner, using this weight primarily for low rep lifts.
Take notice that the increments are all 4kg (8.8lb). I am aware that there are many in-between kettlebell weights available these days. I only use the increments of true Russian kettlebells. I am not much of a traditionalist, but I think some things should be left alone. A part of the reason for the big jumps in weight is that it promotes the use of the correct muscles to lift the weight. Most people tend to use too light of a kettlebell at first. Remember when selecting your kettlebell weight, this isn’t muscle isolation. When your whole body works together as one it is far more capable of lifting heavier!
Cheap kettlebells will give you blisters because of rough handles and the coating will come off leading to rust. You may also notice there is such a thing as Girevoy Sport (GS) style and hard style kettlebells. At this point in your practice it is matter of personal preference. There are benefits to both, either one will work great for our practice. As we move into more complex movements later on the hardstyle bell will prove more versatile because of your ability to grip the bell portion more easily. I am going to go into the differences between these two philosophies in training, girevoy sport vs. hardstyle in another blog. In the meantime, may your practice be both safe and effective!
Thank you so much for reading and best of luck finding the kettlebell that is right for you!
Kettlebell training is about learning how to use your body and developing motor patterns that will empower you to work to your bodies true potential. It is an art form for the thinking person that wishes to develop strength on the level of the mind and body as well as reshape their body at the same time.
As we go through our teaching, we will learn the kettlebell basics, clean&press, snatch, and swing. However, before we start lifting the bell in this way I’m going to help you feel comfortable manipulating it in the various ending positions of the clean, press and snatch. I will show you how to control the bell from the overhead loaded lat position, down to the rack, and back to the dead position. You can practice this with very little weight, even a water bottle is fine. Once it feels consistent and comfortable, you will be ready to learn the three primary kettlebell lifts. Remember, the essence of the kettlebell clean&press and the kettlebell snatch is keeping the weight as close to your body as possible, where it is the lightest and easiest to manipulate. When these movements are performed properly it gives your nervous system an awareness of what neutral posture is. This will make it easier to maintain good posture throughout the day. By combining reprogramming of the central nervous system with increased flexibility and tension in the muscle, you will see immediate and long lasting changes to your posture when you train and develop these movements properly. The better the movement becomes, the heavier you will find yourself wanting to go. As you use heavier weight your nervous system and muscle flexibility become even more powerful, just remember to never sacrifice form to lift heavier. I will get to the very specifics of lifting heavy at a later date, for now, let’s just focus on consistency by making every rep look the same as the last. Using a light weight here, lets learn how to control from the top down.
The loaded lat
The overhead position. This requires flexibility in the lat and shoulder girdle to get the weight directly over it’s neutral balance point. Do not arch your back in this position to accommodate for lat or shoulder tightness! Drop the shoulder down (don’t shrug) sinking the shoulder blade into the lat and keep your arm straight.
Taking the bell from the loaded lat to the rack position
From the overhead loaded lat, push your hips forward, while “crunching” your abdomen, and slightly twist the bell to the outside. Pull the bell down with your lat to the rack. This may take a moment to get right. By putting the hips forward, it enables you to keep the bell in the neutral line of your body where it is lightest. The slight twist as the bell begins to descend allows you to get your fist under your chin when you “pull” the bell with your lat into the rack. Remember, practice light and develop the motor pattern before going heavier.
Rack Position
Keep the abdomen tight, hips slightly extended under the weight and your fist under your chin, elbow against the body. Your knees are straight but not locked.
Lowering the bell from the rack to the dead position
This will look virtually identical as the lift from the ground to the rack, it’s the reverse of the kettlebell clean. Once you’ve developed the motor patterns I’ve already discussed, you’re ready to learn the deadlift and then the clean. This final phase of movement, from the rack to the dead position, will then become apparent. Remember to keep the bell close and move in the hips. We will spend a lot of time developing this motor pattern so I won’t go too much more in depth here.
The Dead position
Lined up to your heels, directly in the middle of your body. This is where the weight will feel the lightest for any lift with a vertical trajectory such as the deadlift, clean&jerk or snatch. This is not the starting position of a kettlebell swing, as the swing is a front-to-back (horizontal) movement.
This isn’t the weightlifting you’re used to, people who train with kettlebells tend to be a special breed. I have my reasons for kettlebell training that go above and beyond what I could ever have expected and as a result I have trained consistently since the first day I picked one up.
This Is Why I Kettlebell
I have talked about the benefits of kettlebell training in previous blogs and shared the many different ways it can positively impact your health. I really try to emphasize how versatile they are to the point where virtually anyone can benefit from training with them. I want people to understand that they are far more beneficial than any of the muscle isolation exercise’s you see most people performing in the gym. Unless of course your only goal is to get big muscles at the cost of flexibility, body-unity, and real world strength, kettlebells are a much better option! Today I want to talk about why I personally chose the art of kettlebell training.
You’ve all heard the saying, “Give a man a fish he eats for a day, teach him to fish he eats for a lifetime”
Kettlebell training is the exercise version of this concept, it is liberation from the endless cycle of:
- Join a gym.
- Never go because it’s too far and too much hassle, or you don’t know how to use the machinery.
- Never seeing any benefit because most gyms are equipped primarily for bodybuilding or boring cardio.
- Regretting the cost.
- Feeling guilty for not achieving your goals, either quitting or choosing to keep paying.
- Wash, rinse, repeat.
Would you rather pay monthly for a membership to a gym that you have to drive to every time you wanted to use it, or pay one time for a gym that travels with you everywhere you go? For the price of even a small start up fee and first month at any gym, you could buy two or three kettlebells that will never bill you at the end of each month and don’t have a thirty day written cancellation policy. You can take them anywhere, they won’t wear out, break, or even get stolen (believe me). They will also provide you with more mental and physical benefit than all of the gym equipment put together, in much less time!
For me, kettlebell training is about claiming my independence. It is about being able to get the best benefits from my practice as possible, without having to rely on geographical proximity to $300,000 in gym equipment. The weight machines get so complex that you forget how to use your body and instead focus on adjusting the seat height and the pad position. The personal trainers are there to teach you to use the equipment that has no relevance to your goal of learning to use your body! If your goal is weight management or body reshaping, you will achieve that by learning your body and not by learning a machine. In fact, those machines require so little, you will see people reading Facebook and sending texts while using them! That isn’t exercise. Weight training, or any real practice begins with the mind and resonates through your physical self.
