Why The Kettlebell ?

By Author: Nash Davis
Total Articles: 1
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Simplicity
The kettlebell is a very simple piece of equipment, it is basically a cannon ball with a handle. This simple design is part of the reason that it is such a powerful tool! The more choices that your brain has to process the harder it is to make a decision, the simplicity of the kettlebell means that your brain has less to process and will allow you to get going quicker. There is not much to the kettlebell, this allows you to focus on your movements instead of the kettlebell.

Movement Focus
Your body is the engine that powers the kettlebell. There are a lot of the movements that you can do but they are all just that … Movements. They are not just exercises that can only be done with a kettlebell but are universal movement principles that can be applied to all the different exercise tools and activities out there. By focusing on the movements you increase your body awareness which will help you to lower your chances of injury and increase your performance.
The simplicity of the kettlebell combined with the movement focus gives you a fantastic foundation to help you move powerfully and ...
... confidently in the other physical pursuits that you enjoy.

Multi-Purpose
The kettlebell has two types of lifts, grinds and ballistics. Grinds are slow, high tension lifts that focus on strength. Ballistics are fast, high speed lifts that will result in greater levels of conditioning. There are also many drills and exercises that can be done with the kettlebell to improve mobility, motor control and to tie your body together as one unit. This will help to keep you out of pain and to perform better than ever before.
Weight and reps are not the only two things you can adjust to make exercises easier or harder. The orientation of the kettlebell can either increase or decrease the amount of leverage you have. By increasing the leverage it allows you to have greater control over the kettlebell which is very helpful to learn the movements. As you improve you can change the orientation of the kettlebell, such as bottoms up, to increase the difficulty of the lift which will also make you stronger without having to get a heavier kettlebell. The advantage of this is you don’t have to buy lots of different size kettlebells to get the same outcome, this helps you improve your health and fitness on a budget.
All the different outcomes you can achieve with the kettlebell makes it a one-stop shop for your health and fitness goals.

Core, Glute and Back Health
The most distinguishing kettlebell exercises are the kettlebell ballistics, which are the swing, clean, and snatch. These exercises, when performed correctly, are extremely powerful exercises that focus on the hip hinge, which primarily targets the core and glutes. The core and glutes are the main stabilisation structures for the back. The core is not just your abs but all the muscles of the torso, these core muscles work together to hold the spine in a neutral position. Modern society has a lot of excessive sitting, which causes the glutes and core to be a bit sleepy. 80% of people in Australia will experience back pain at some point in their life. Back problems generally start to occur when we lose motion in the hips and start to use the motion of the spine to lift objects. A properly executed hip hinge will have your spine held in a neutral position by the core while the glutes power your hip movement. Using the hips as they should be used takes the load off the spine and will increase your spine health.

Time Efficient
Traditional training methods have you do a few sets and reps with some weight machines or free weights, followed by some interval sprints on the treadmill, cross trainer or rower. The advantage of the kettlebell training methods is that you can pair the grind and ballistic movements together into a couple of super sets, or put them together into a circuit. By grouping them together this will cut down your rest time, as well as your transition time between exercises, which will shorten the time to do the session, saving you time.
The way in which the you can tie the kettlebell exercises together creates a flow that is hard to replicate with any other tool. Without needing to put the kettlebell down because of the flow of the exercises, mixed with the fatigue you will get means that you don’t need to have many kettlebells. The compact nature of the kettlebell and without needing to have many kettlebells means that you can have a couple in your garage or the corner of a room. This allows you to save even more time on your training because you don’t need to travel to the gym to get a session in, you only need to walk into the other room.

Despite the kettlebell’s very simple design it has so many facets that make it such a valuable tool for your health, fitness and wellbeing. It is compact, can make you stronger and better conditioned, move better, decrease your chances of injury and improve your movement patterns so you are more efficient in any other physical pursuit that you enjoy.