Why work with kettlebells? They have become popular, but their usefullness is not usually maximized.
Are Kettlebells Just Another Weight?
Kettlebells can be used as just another weight in the gym, but that is not really what they are good for. After all, if you can do it with a dumbell, why bother with a kettlebell? Their shape, with the weight on one end and handle on the other make them very easy to manipulate in the air. Dumbells, by contrast, get awkward very quickly. In other words, kettlebells are there to be tossed around!
Throwing Weight Around
Most of us these days, because of how our lives are structured, are very arm centric. We push and pull things, yank on them, reach for them, and so on. It works if they are light, but when things get heavy it can be a problem. In short, we have unlearned an important skill set, which is to use our bodies, rather than our extremities, to generate strength and power.
Here is a slow motion video of an olympic lifter getting 308 pounds off of the ground and on to her shoulders.
How did she do it?! She threw the weight with the central part of her body. You can see her drive her hips forward and then, when the weight reaches the peak of its upward motion and hangs in the air for a moment, she moves under it. She would never have been able to get the bar onto her shoulders using her arms – it’s 308 pounds! She threw it with her body and then moved around it.
Why Does This Matter For You?
This is a useful, and largely forgotten skillset. Our bodies are designed to have power at the center, not the extremeties and this is central to how we are designed to function. We may not be moving 308 pounds very often in our everyday lives, but the mechanics on how to do it are important. A basic understanding of how to ground ourselves and how to make a connection between the center of our bodies and our extremities can go a long way to saving our backs, shoulders, and necks from undue punishment.
This Is The Purpose Of Kettlebells
So that is what kettlebells should really be used for. They are a tool to learn how to get an object in motion using the central, and largest, muscles of the body and then, once the object is in motion, to manipulate its path. That’s a skill set that has value. Here is an example of one such move at a competition in Russia. These women are moving quite a bit of weight and they are doing it over 100 times. They can do it because they are using the centers of their bodies, not their arms.
Conclusion
Kettlebells are not just another weight to play around with at the gym. They are a tool that can be used to learn an extremely valuable skill set. If you would like to use them, I recommend getting yourself well educated on the subject. Work with a qualified trainer, take a certification course yourself, study up with some serious research, or all of the above. They are a great thing, but they won’t do you much good just as another toy at the gym.
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PHOTO: Victor, Kettlebell. License