Keira Newton, RKC Team Leader, has once again been super cool and produced a video on the one arm swing for the Lose Stubborn Fat! blog.
This video does two really killer things:
1.) It introduces you to the one arm swing, for those of you who have only been doing two arm swings.
2.) Keira demonstrates a brand new RKC learning tool to fix your timing on swings, snatches and cleans.
Fixing the timing of the swing is the #1 thing you need to get maximum power, results and safety from your kettlebell swings.
Up until now, almost every kettlebell video (including good ones, like mine) mostly focus on the front side of the swing – the snap and after the snap.
What the RKC kettlebell community has recently discovered, is that by fixing the back side of the swing, everything else takes care of itself.
If you have a great hike back, you're going to have a pretty good swing.
At the bottom of the swing, don't just yeild to gravity. Actively "hike" the kettlbell back behind you.
You want to pin your forearm to your inner thigh.
You want to pin your upper arm to ribs.
You want to snap your hips forward hard, and flex your butt as hard as you can…
…and keep your upper arm pinned to your ribs until you've snapped your hips all the way through.
Let me repeat:
You want full extension of your hips (drive your hips all the way through) before your arm pops off your ribs.
If you are new to kettlebells, you might not notice how profound this is, but for kettlebell instructors everywhere, this fixes the number one mistake people make, and it fixes it instantly.
In fact, I've been looking for this trick to add my arsenal of "wax on, wax off" drills for about six years.
I almost lost it when Keira showed me this. It's totally the awesomeness.
If you've been wondering if your kettlebell swing was off, or you feel like you've been having trouble learning the kettlebell swing, this will change your life:
1.) Hike the kettlebell back behind you
2.) Pin your forearm to your inner thigh, and your upper arm to your ribs, as you are hiking the kettlebell back behind you.
3.) Don't let your upper arm lose contact with your ribs until you've snapped your hips all of the way through.
On one arm swings you really want to make sure you keep your shoulders/upper body square. You don't want to let the kettlebell pull you into rotation.
Why One Arm Swings Make You Rockstar Hot
I'm a big fan of two arm swings, they're the best ever. They are one of the biggest, fastest, most intense, full body fat loss movements there is.
Everything you would ever want in a fat loss movement, you get in the kettlebell swing. It's the best fat loss movement there is.
One arm swings are even better than that: You get 40% more core and glute activation!
In other words, it works your butt harder, it builds that kind of core strength we want for a healthy back, and it's more intense (more work), so it's even better for fat loss.
It's really awesome if you have a kettlebell that you've been using for two hand swings, and it's gotten easy. You can actually use one kettlebell size and adjust the movement for a large range of difficulties:
Kettlebell Deadlift -> Single Leg Deadlift -> Low Two Hand Swing -> Two Hand Swing -> Over-speed Two Hand Swing -> One Arm Swing -> Kettlebell Snatch
At this point you should have already mastered the two hand swing and the one arm swing.
We'll be working our way up to the kettlebell snatch in the next few weeks.
Enjoy!
Josh Hillis is a Level 2 RKC Kettlebell Instructor
and fat loss expert in Denver, Colorado.
Keira Newton is an RKC Team Leader
and owns Dynamic Kettlebell Fitness in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
This is a really good post. I am going to link this one, and the previous one on the advanced kettlebell swing up on my blog. Kettlebells are starting to become just mainstream enough that everyone is screwing them up.
Keira by the way, looks awesome. Great body.