How to do Kettlebell Swings:
- Stand tall, still gripping the ‘bell. Keep arms long and loose while squeezing shoulders blades together and engaging your core. Soften knees, shift bodyweight into heels, and lower butt back and down toward the wall behind you.
Driving through heels, explode through hips to send weight swinging upward from quads. Aim for chest height, with arms extended. Achieving this finish position requires you to snap your hips through, contracting your core while squeezing glutes.
3. As the kettlebell begins to descend, let the weight do the work as you ready your body for the next rep. Shift weight back into heels while hinging at the hips and loading both the hamstrings and glutes. Receive the weight, allowing the kettlebell to ride back between legs.
4. As it makes the transition from backward to forward, drive through the heels and hips to repeat.
Kettlebell swings are an example of a complete exercise, targeting more than one muscle group, and making you pay for it the next day. The best thing about these is that all you need is a kettlebell and that’s it!
The Kettlebell swing is a basic ballistic exercise used to train the posterior chain in a manner similar to broad jumping. It involves moving the bell in a pendulum motion from between the knees to anywhere between eye level to fully overhead and can be performed either two-handed or using one hand. I usually perform it using both hands and go fully overhead, but it is completely up to you on how you perform the exercise.
I know that reading how to do something isn’t exactly the same as seeing how to do something. Check out our video below to see how to do kettlebell swings.
To see this workout in action, refer to our workouts of the day page!
