Sometimes even people who are veteran workout girls and guys have trouble with the swing at first.
I still get this question all of the time, and I really realize that we often take for granted how big a difference it makes as a trainer to be able to sit next to someone, coach them, and put your hands on them. It doesn't surprise me that people have trouble getting the swing from videos and pictures sometimes.
Look, it's not your fault – you've probably never done any explosive movement before, you've probably never done a movement that went from tight to loose to tight again, and lets get real, most people have no idea how to use their butt to actually lift weight.
Fortunately, most people make the same mistakes, and we have drills to fix those mistakes.
When we fix the mistakes, then swings stop hurting your low back!
It's a matter of putting the stress on the low back instead of your butt. It's usually one of these three things:
- Not flexing the butt,
- Pulling with the arms
- Or going over too far (even with a flat back this isn't recommended if your back is hurting)
Fortunately we have a drill to fix each of those
- Kettlebell deadlifts, focusing on flexing the butt and pushing the hips forward, NOT pulling the weight up. These are a slower, safer way to re-pattern the movement. For most people, flexing their glut max and driving forward with their glut is not natural, and needs to be re-learned. We'll do all of the the "work" sets in the workouts, for the next three weeks, with deadlifts instead of swings.
- Low Towel Swings, focus on making the arms completely loose, just like the towel. You are going to practice these for the next three weeks, before each workout.
- Doing a set of face the wall squats before each set of swings.
So when ever your workout program calls for swings – The "swings" in your workout will look like this:
1.) Warmup
- 20 lunges (10L+10R, alternating)
- 20 (knee) pushups
- 10 lunges
- 10 (knee) pushups
2.) Three sets of face the wall squats, alternating with three sets of towel swings
- Face the walls squats x 5
- Towel swings x 5
- Face the wall squats x 5
- Towel Swings x 5
- Face the wall squats x 5
- Towel swings x 5
3.) The "work sets" listed in each workout. If it says 5 x 10 swings, you are going to do 5 x 10 deadlifts. The only thing you are going to focus on is flexing your butt as hard as you can, and pushing your hips forward.
Always remember deadlifts are a horizontal hip movement. The horizontal hip movement is what moves the weight vertically. All you need to worry about is the horizontal hip movement, and the kettlebell takes care of itself.
Face the wall squat and towel swing are both in my "Karate Kid" video
https://joshhillis.com/articles/2010/01/kettlebell-swing-video.html
Kettlebell Deadlifts (with a slightly long explanation) are in this video by Gray Cook, PT:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P02K_-OxwMs
You'll start with the two leg deadlift. When you feel really good about doing all of the work on those with your butt, then we'll try out the single leg deadlift. Besides re-patterning your body's hip extension, we'll also be building the core stability we need, and doing a really solid workout.
Josh Hillis, RKC, CPT, PES, ZMIS
P.S. This is the most common fixes to three of the most common problems. Now I teach the kettlebell swing with a "hike back" (at 1:05 in this video), and often that fixes the whole "pulling with the arms" thing. These three fixes take care of the problem when the hike back doesn't fix it, or when the hike back makes it worse.
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