How To STOP Having Low Back Pain With The Kettlebell Swing

One of the more frustrating things as a coach is when you know there is a good exercise you want to teach someone, but ever time they perform the movement it causes pain. Many people will tell you, “just do something different” and there isn’t anything inherently wrong with such advice. However, as a coach, I want to know WHY you are having pain with a movement. 

A great example is the kettlebell swing, over the last 20 years I have taught A LOT of very different people the kettlebell swing. In fact, when I first started teaching back in 2003 the kettlebell swing, many other coaches would actually follow my clients to the locker rooms and parking lot telling them I was going to hurt their backs. Funny now how the kettlebell swing is an exercise that is often promoted to help low backs. 

Working on teaching the kettlebell swing to U.S. Marines 

The truth is the kettlebell swing CAN be good for low backs IF you have really taken the time not to only work on the technique, but the progressions as well. When people would tell me the kettlebell swing would hurt their low back there were usually three reasons why.

Not Enough Pelvic Stability & Core Control

What makes a kettlebell swing so effective is the power the posterior chain creates and the long lever arm that both expresses our power and acts to help teach deceleration strength. These same qualities though make the kettlebell swing also very challenging to hav the proper foundational strength to take advantage of these benefits. 

There is A LOT of pelvic control and core stability needed to benefit from the kettlebell swing. The pelvis and core has to be stable enough to be a great platform for the legs to generate explosive power and they have to be trained well enough to react to the quick downwards phase so that the hips, not the low back absorb the forces. 

That is why spending time developing such pelvic control and core stability is essential and physical therapist, Jessica Bento provides some great example of movements that help us build up our pelvic control and core stability for the kettlebell swings. 

 

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Not Building The Hip Hinge Enough

I see online all the time coaches that show all you have to do in order to get to the kettlebell swing is do some kettlebell deadlifts and you should be good to go. Yes, a good kettlebell deadlift IS an essential foundational movement to get to the kettlebell swing, BUT it alone is not enough. 

For one, as kettlebells get heavy they become larger. This often reduces the range of motion quite a bit on the hip hinge and limits how much strength you can actually develop. Instead, we can use the kettlebells in more diverse ways that build the qualities of great hamstring, glute, and core strength that will have a huge impact on our kettlebell swing. 

You don’t need to perform ridiculous feats in order to challenge yourself with kettlebell deadlifts well either, you just need to understand how we progress many of our movements. 

Reduce The Lever Arm

I get it, the kettlebell swing is the “cool” kid in the kettlebell world. That is the exercise everyone sees and everyone wants to get to performing like yesterday. When it comes teaching power training though, it should come MUCH later in the training. 

The lever arm of the kettlebell swing gives us the ability to give some horizontal power projection to our power training that is unique, it teaches high levels of reflexive core/pelvic stability, and the downward phase creates BIG eccentric forces that can start to be comparable to those we see in plyometrics. Like we already discussed though, these are pretty advanced qualities to learn how to benefit from in your training. 

It doesn’t mean it is impossible, rather, we need some additional steps on our training. Like what? If we simply reduce the range of motion through high pulls and cleans, we can start to learn how to generate power correctly and as important, if not more so, how to absorb the forces coming back downwards correctly. When we do so, this gives us a much better base in which to transition to performing and developing the benefits from the kettlebell swing. 

Posts like these aren’t about reducing your enjoyment of training, actually it is to improve your results. When you put in some smart work in developing the qualities that allow you to not just survive, but thrive with the kettlebell swing you will start to see so much more value in the exercise and training overall. 

Don’t miss this week, our Progressive Kettlebell Movement online certification and PKM programs are 35% off with code “pkm35” HERE