posture

Improve Your Posture with the RKC Kettlebell Swing

June 8, 2016 By Beth Andrews and Jay Armstrong 7 Comments

Senior RKC Beth Andrews Kettlebell Swings

Postural correction is a hot topic. Spending too much time in a seated position while driving or working on a computer will adversely affect our ability to stand up straight.

Wouldn’t it be great if there was a time-efficient exercise that could counteract all the time you’ve spent in the seated position and help you develop good posture?

That exercise exists—it’s the kettlebell swing.

Swinging a kettlebell will help you develop strong muscles, bones, tendons and ligaments. It will also improve your endurance. But, one of the biggest benefits of the kettlebell swing is improvement in your posture. The kettlebell swing is a naturally corrective exercise which will help undo the maladaptive effects of too much sitting slumped over with a computer, tablet, or phone.

The following are some of the key postural issues that the RKC kettlebell swing can correct:

Problem #1: Your glutes are not working

Sitting down turns off your glutes. The RKC kettlebell swing includes a “hip drive” or “pop” that moves the tailbone under and drives the hips forward. The hips are a primary source of athletic power for many sports such as golf, tennis, baseball and boxing. This hip drive is fueled by a rapid and intense contraction of the glutes. Swinging a kettlebell can help you reactivate your glutes. Active glutes will also put the pelvis in a neutral position, increasing your athleticism and reducing your chances of developing chronic back pain.

Problem #2: Your back is rounded, and shoulders are hunched forward

When using a computer or driving a car, your arms are front of your body while you’re seated. This inevitably leads to the shoulders internally rotating and the chest collapsing. For most people, this also means they will look like a caveman when they finally stand up. The finish, or top position, of the RKC kettlebell swing features “packed” shoulders. This means that the shoulders are pulled back and down, the lats are activated, and the thoracic spine is in a neutral position.

The kettlebell swing also has the added advantage of teaching you to bend over and stand up into a correct postural position time after time, rep after rep. And each effort is performed under load. Using a weight means that the adaptive changes will take place faster. Even a short RKC kettlebell swing practice session will greatly improve your ability to go from a seated, computer desk position to an erect, well aligned standing position.

Problem #3 – Your core is weak and you cannot contract your abdominal muscles

Bad Computer Posture

Modern office furniture encourages us to relax everything while we type at the computer. This muscular relaxation includes the core and abs. But, when you stand up, your abs remain relaxed, your pelvis tips forward and all of your guts try to fall forward! Not very attractive. At the top position of the kettlebell swing, the spine is lengthened and aligned. In order to accomplish this alignment, the core must be stabilized with a balance of posterior and anterior tension. This simply means that the abs must be strongly contracted for a split second at the top of each swing. What could be a better way to relearn how to stabilize your core and contract your abs then to do this time after time with your RKC kettlebell swing.

One step we use while teaching the kettlebell swing is the RKC plank. Notice that opening your chest, contracting your abs, tightening your glutes and lengthening your spine into an ideal postural position are all part of the RKC plank exercise. The top position of a kettlebell swing should mimic the total body tension and spinal alignment of the RKC plank.

Beth Andrews RKC Plank

Focus on these points as you perform your RKC kettlebell swing. You will see fast and enormous postural improvements.

Stand tall my friend.

Beth Andrews and Jay Armstrong

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Beth Andrews is a Senior RKC, PCC Team Leader, and CK-FMS. She leads HKC and RKC certifications, and assists at the PCC. She became the 5th Iron Maiden in 2013. Beth owns Maximum Body Training and a successful online training business. She has over 25 years of training experience. For online training or to host a certification, email Beth at: bethandrewsrkc@gmail.com. For more training tips and workouts subscribe to her YouTube channel, Beth Andrews RKC or visit her website at maximumbodytraining.com

Jay Armstrong is a Senior RKC, 6 Degree Black Belt TKD, and Master Z-Health Trainer. The past 30 years have been dedicated to helping others develop confidence through increased strength and pain-free, exceptional mobility. His quest for knowledge continues. He runs The Kettlebell Club in Houston, Texas.

Why Kettlebells Will Improve Your Life

July 22, 2015 By Florian Kiendl 25 Comments

In teaching people of all walks of life, I have observed several distinct effects of kettlebell training. Some are obvious, others much less so…

If you are new to kettlebells you might be wondering what impact this new implement might have on you if you start using it consistently. This article should give you a good idea of what to expect, and it will probably strengthen your resolve to give kettlebell training a try.

On the other hand, if you are already an kettlebell expert or an HKC or RKC Instructor, you may find that you have already experienced or witnessed these effects with your clients. When I first started teaching kettlebells, it was sometimes difficult to convince potential clients or new students that kettlebells were right for them. In following paragraphs I will try to summarize my observations regarding the positive impact of kettlebell training.

Kettlebells Are Perfect For Making You Fit in a Limited Amount of Time

We all know that training promotes physical and mental health. What has changed in recent years is that science has now started to explain why. How muscles impact the immune system, or the effects of aerobic exercise on brain function are somewhat new areas of research. In the past, there was only the subjective experience of people like John F. Kennedy or Jack LaLanne who promoted an active lifestyle many years ago, but today we have profound scientific explanations for why everyone needs to move on a regular basis.

Yet, while medical science has started to understand the importance of movement for our overall health, the reality of our lives has also rapidly changed—and many people are more unhealthy than ever before.

Our lives have become faster and more stressful than in the history of mankind. To cope with this increased speed, we rely more and more on technology—therefore we’re moving less than any of our ancestors. Aside from obvious things like driving wherever possible or using escalators instead of stairs, there are more subtle changes that rob you of the opportunity to move. Internet stores make everything—even kettlebells—available at your fingertips without leaving your house.

We need movement more than ever, but we have less time and fewer opportunities for it. The average gym class or 45 minutes on the treadmill can not compensate for the lack of movement during your work-week—unless you can train several hours per day.

The kettlebell is the perfect solution for this problem. With its off-centered mass, it trains your muscles and your heart at the same time. Exercises like swings, cleans and snatches train your entire posterior chain—the group of muscles, ligaments, and tendons most important for a healthy spine and good postural alignment.

Kettlebells Naturally Improve Your Posture

Correctly swinging a kettlebell activates two muscles that are usually dormant in much of modern society: the gluteus maximus and the latissimus dorsi. These muscles are the two most important players in our posterior chain. Luckily, we can use the kettlebell to get them back into action.

The gluteus maximus (or more crudely defined, your butt muscle) is one of the biggest and strongest muscles in the body. If it functions as it should, it enables you to lift heavy objects from the ground and also protects your lumbar spine. In the kettlebell swing, its role is to forcefully lock out the hips. One of the first exercises I use with beginners when I teach the swing is the shoulder bridge (you lie on your back with your feet pulled toward the butt and push your hips to the ceiling). We start with this exercise for only one reason—so the beginners can experience what it feels like when their glutes are tensed. I rarely have my beginners do more than 30-40 swings during the first lesson and they are still sore the next day—guess where!

Active glutes lead to unlocked hip flexors and allow the pelvis to get into a neutral position, the foundation for a naturally s-shaped spine. The activation of the glutes is why sometimes even a few short kettlebell sessions can lead to an improved postural alignment.

The second muscle group, the latissimus dorsi (or the lats) is mainly responsible for all upper body pulling movements, but they also help with your press if you use them correctly. Additionally, the lats are able to stabilize the upper back and protect the shoulders.

In the swing, the lats are used to keep the kettlebell from pulling your shoulders forward and they also counter rotation in one-arm swings.

Kettlebells Bring Vigor and Youth Back

Have you ever noticed that you can accurately guess someone’s age from fairly far away by watching how they move? An older person is usually more restricted and moves gingerly. On the other hand, children move with mobility and vigor—at least until we make them sit still for hours every day.

For beginners, one of the hardest concepts in Hardstyle kettlebell training to understand is the explosive nature of the movements. We are not just standing up with the bell in hand, but are exploding out of the hinge and tensing the whole body in the top position. Movement of this quality simply does not exist in our every day lives. The average adult unlearned fast and crisp movements. With kettlebells, your body learns that it is not dangerous to move fast, and you will soon start to move as you did in your youth.

After beginners understand this idea and move more dynamically, they usually feel very good and empowered. They break the chains which have restricted their movement for years. It’s a great feeling, and you usually can see it in their eyes.

If you are wondering if this paragraph is dedicated only to a certain age group, it is not! Kettlebell training works for people in their late teens as well as for senior citizens older than 60. The only real difference is that older beginners will have more movement habits to unlearn, and will need to be more cautious in the process. A trusted RKC Instructor can be very helpful in these situations.

There is no age limit for kettlebell training

Kettlebells Allow You to Express Yourself

The last aspect of kettlebell training I would like to discuss in this article is breathing. When watching people train, one of the first things you will notice is their rhythmic and loud breathing. Some people, especially the ladies will be slightly appalled when confronted with this for the first time. We raised in a culture where the sounds our bodies produce are considered to be inappropriate—which is kind of weird if you think about it. Therefore we always try to avoid or conceal those sounds, so it can be shocking when you first enter a gym and see a group swinging a kettlebells and sounding like a gathering of steam engines! What a strange sight!

Deep and pressurized breathing has several positive effects on our body. Most importantly, it activates the diaphragm.

Aside from these physical effects, I also observed that we are psychologically effected. It is similar to that of the Kiai, the blood-curdling Tae Kwon Do war cry you can hear during the keykpa (board breaking). Beginners always struggle with it and feel strange to call out this loudly. It is the same with the Hardstyle breathing during a good kettlebell session, you will hear hisses, grunts and even yells. Sometimes the rhythmic sounds you hear from a group swinging and pressing together can sound like a weird kind of music 😉

When you overcome the internalized reflexes of your upbringing and allow your breath—the most fundamental function of your physical existence—to be heard, it seems to flip a switch in your brain which makes it easier to express your needs. It literally liberates you to make yourself heard.

Conclusion

If you are already using kettlebells, you will have experienced the transformative nature of this seemingly archaic training tool. I would be glad If you could find the time to share your own experiences in the comments.

If you have not yet started training with kettlebells, I strongly encourage you to give it a try. Expect it to be a humbling experience in the beginning, but know that it has the power to make you better and healthier than you are today. A good coach can help anyone get a good start. It will not be comfortable, it will not be easy, but it will definitely be worth it!

***RKC Team Leader Florian Kiendl is a second degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do and runs a Martial Arts Gym in a small town close to Munich (Germany). He made it his mission to help his students to improve their movement and overall health. In his search for ways to overcome the movement restrictions of his students (and his own) he found the RKC and now works together with Master RKC Robert Rimoczi and others to help as many people as possible to gain back their Strength and Agility.

He writes a regular Blog at blog.kettlebellgermany.de and offers workshops all over Germany teaching the RKC Kettlebell exercises: KettlebellGermany.de.
If you have questions or comments on the article feel free to email him at florian@kettlebellgermany.de

It’s in the Hips, Part 4

December 18, 2013 By Mark Bixby 8 Comments

In this fourth and final installment dedicated to better utilization of the hips, I show some crawling progressions to emphasize that we can sometimes skip mobility drills and just move instead. But before we jump into part four, let’s briefly review the previous three pieces. First, we looked at some basic stretches done in a variety of positions to loosen up tight areas around the hips. In part two, we covered a very basic dynamic hip and hamstring mobility sequence to prepare field/court athletes or fighters for their active flexibility needs in competition. In the third piece, I differentiated “linkage” from “leakage” using the Hanging Leg Raise Sequence, and I went on to show how plyometric-style HLR’s can help with patterning powerful hip flexion/extension for the sprints.

I reviewed the previous segments to set this piece up as continuing in the line of “linkage” discussed in part three. In the HLR sequence, we used linkage to generate explosive power and dynamic control. Today’s segment departs from the power focus and instead incorporates “linkage” to produce controlled efficiency of movement. My aim today is to demonstrate quiet rather than explosive movement.

While your average guy on the street isn’t yet acquainted with the notion of mobility, it’s been a trendy word in the fitness industry for several years. The few people who actually do mobility drills tend to stand in one place and make a series of circular motions through the joints from the neck down to the ankles. While this is an excellent thing to get fluid moving into the joints and surrounding tissues, it’s debatable whether these isolated drills actually produce better mobility. Today’s video, then, attempts to show how putting mobility in motion yields better results than isolating each joint while also being more fun.

There are six movements on the video. All of them both require and improve mobility in the hips. The first two are low crawls, one on the belly and one on the back. The next two moves are creeping squats, the first done from a traditional squat and the other from a Cossack squat position. The final two moves combine elements of the first four and add rolls. The goal on each of the six movements is to move quietly. If you can do them without producing thuds during the transitions, you aren’t leaking; instead, you’re moving efficiently.

In an attempt to elaborate on my notion of how linkage can create quiet as well as explosive movement, I’ll provide an exercise x-ray of the fifth move in the video: the creeping squat/roll combination. I set up the move in a Cossack squat position. From there, the flat foot shifts towards the ball of foot as the ankle extends to drop the knee to the floor. The knee drop carries my momentum forward. If I don’t rotate through my thoracic spine while flexing and rotating my neck, I’ll do a face plant. So, I opt for rotation. The previous movement clears the neck and spine so I can roll over the shoulder. An internal rotation of the rolling shoulder (imagine the Egyptian shoulder mobility drill that screws the shoulders into internal and external rotation) allows me to take the impact of the floor on the backside of the shoulder (thus avoiding jamming into the A/C joint). I roll across (not straight down) the spine to the opposite hip and back into the Cossack position. I do a creeping squat Cossack switch to get the other knee up and repeat the sequence to roll over the opposite shoulder. Basically, I have linked mobility drills sequentially from the feet up through the neck to produce movement.

In the RKC School of Strength, we emphasize the Turkish Get Up because it demands multi-planar movement through multiple joints while navigating the stability challenge of maintaining weight overhead. It is one of those few, coveted “desert island” exercises because of its strength, mobility and stability demands. If we hope to achieve the same great benefits from bodyweight exercises, we need to remember the mantra of “multiple planes, multiple directions and multiple joints.” While focusing on the hips is a great place to start in this endeavor, we must remember that dynamic movement is produced by systemic integration. Hopefully, the video that accompanies this piece can give you some ideas in making your movement more effective, integrated and enjoyable.

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Mark Bixby is a Dragon Door RKC Team Leader, PCC Instructor and MovNat Instructor. He discovered kettlebells in 2002 and found that they are the quickest, most effective way to train. A combination of past injuries and persistent low physical self-image had caused Mark to have severe posture issues and chronic back pain. Kettlebells taught Mark how to use his hips so that he didn’t tuck his pelvis and slump with his posture. He grew taller, stronger and more confident. More than six years later, Mark has accomplished huge gains in strength, flexibility and stability and he finds that kettlebells still present significant physical and technical challenges. Because the skill set can always be refined, kettlebells continue to push Mark towards higher levels of body awareness and fitness. Mark can be reached through: http://www.dkbfitness.com/.

It’s in the Hips: Part 3

October 30, 2013 By Mark Bixby Leave a Comment

Part three of this series on the hips continues the focus on dynamic hip action demonstrated in the second installment by implementing explosive hip drive into the Hanging Leg Raise sequence. After reading this and watching the companion video, you’ll have more control in your HLR while also running faster and jumping higher.

One of the great aspects of the PCC was the camaraderie developed over the three days. As we were sharing pull-up and flag stations, as well as spotting each other on handstands and bridging, we got to constantly coach and encourage each other. This was most evident during the Century Test, where the 55 attendees rotated through four testing stations. This meant that each of us had a cheering audience to encourage us through the Century.

Beth Andrews, Senior RKC and Iron Maiden (a title gained by doing a press, a pull-up and pistol with a 24 Kg. kettlebell) was the first person to pass the Century and gain her PCC certification. While the three guys next to her blew through their squats and pushups, Beth methodically did her own. The guys got to the bars to start their 20 hanging leg raises before Beth, but she ended up finishing first. While the Century isn’t a race, Beth’s hanging leg raises perfectly demonstrated the contrast between “linkage” and “leakage.” Beth’s leg raises could have been done with walls right in front and behind her, and she wouldn’t have touched them. She pulled her knees straight up, and pushed them straight down, deftly “linking” her movements into a total-body move. Meanwhile, the guys started noticeably swinging a bit in the HLR and had to stop their reps and kill their momentum so they didn’t get no-counted. They were “leaking.” Determined to mimic Beth’s HLR during my Century, I stepped up to the bar, started the sequence and began rocking a bit by my 5th rep. I “leaked.” The question was where.

As I quickly discovered at the GAIN Conference (discussed in part two of this series), I was leaking from the ankles up through the hips. Gary Winckler, Head Coach of the University of Illinois Women’s Track Team, led practical sessions at GAIN to demonstrate the importance of hip drive and ankle tension in the sprints. Over the course of his illustrious career at Florida State and Illinois, Mr. Winckler has coached over 300 All-Americans and 13 Olympians in the sprints and hurdles. He told us that the common coaching cues in the sprints—“stride it out” and “kick your butt”—had transformed sprint mechanics from being powerfully hip-driven to being weakly knee-driven. Striding as far as possible, we extend our knees, driving our posture forward. Then, to look pretty, we weakly flex our knees to kick our butts. As Coach Winckler demonstrated, the point is to create power by pushing through the ground with powerful hip extension on one leg, while spring-loading the other leg in hip flexion and prepping it to drive down. The up/down motion generated by the hips allows the runner to maintain the upright posture most effective for generating force into the ground.

While I made improvements on my stride working on the track, the lesson of hip drive didn’t really hit home until the next day’s session in the weight-room with Coach Jim Radcliffe of the University of Oregon (See part two of this series for more on Coach Radcliffe.). As a powerful hip hinge is a huge part of running faster and jumping higher, Coach Radcliffe tries to teach it in as many contexts as he can. He uses the hanging leg raise sequence to demonstrate how linking the hips/ankles into the movement can produce a more explosive leg raise without compromising posture. For me, Coach Winckler’s advice on the track hit home on the bar. A dynamic combination of hip flexion/extension and active ankles in the hanging leg raise cured me of my swaying motion. He was right: I had been weakly flopping through the knees and not driving up and down through the hips. After doing these dynamic hanging leg raises, I went back to the track, found the hip and ankle link, and produced the most powerful sprints I’ve ever run.

Please watch the accompanying video to learn this “plyometric” HLR progression. You’ll better understand linkage in your HLR sequence and benefit in your sprints and jumps.

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It’s in the Hips, Part 2

September 25, 2013 By Mark Bixby 2 Comments

In part one of this four-part series, I talked about how hip stiffness is usually part of a larger complex of stiff tissues and joints throughout the body. I then offered a very basic mobilization sequence starting with a knee sit and progressing to a standing hip extension/flexion drill. In this second part of the series, I will discuss more dynamic strategies for opening the hips and hamstrings to produce the active and resilient flexibility needed for sport.

After finishing the initial PCC with Al, Danny, Steven and Adrienne, I had the opportunity to attend the GAIN Conference hosted by Vern Gambetta at Rice University in Houston. This five day event, which started each day at 6:30AM on the Rice track and concluded at 9:30PM at the Valhalla Pub, included lectures and practical sessions hosted by luminaries in Olympic, collegiate and professional athletics.

One of the most inspiring presenters was Jim Radcliffe, Head of Strength and Conditioning at the University of Oregon for the past 28 years. It was immediately obvious that Jimmy was first and foremost a “movement” guy, who happened to be applying his principles in one of the most successful and well-funded athletic departments in the world. He spoke of growing up in northern California where he climbed trees and ran through the woods acquiring strength, mobility and coordination in a natural environment. He then discussed how his strength and conditioning program for Oregon football was based upon the natural movements he grew up with. Jimmy said that probably only 25% of his team’s work is done with weights. And much of the weight work, such as his Good Morning sequence, adds movement into the progressions.

Jimmy’s training template is as follows (in this order): dynamic mobility, “pillars of strength” (reflexive core stability drills), two stations of hip hinging drills, two weight-based stations (usually Olympic-style lifts), and agility work. The athletes do much of this work barefoot, and the agility work is often done in Oregon’s 40-Meter sandpit. Most importantly, Jimmy uses what he calls a “Jet Tempo” in his workouts to mimic the pace that Oregon football has become famous for. He emphasizes that he does no additional “conditioning” work to supplement his workouts. As he wants every rep to be explosive, he has no interest in training kids to do cardio at less than game pace because he doesn’t want to create “slow” neural adaptations.

The video that follows is an adaptation of the dynamic mobility drills Jimmy had us do in one of our practical sessions at GAIN. He said the athletes spend 3-5 minutes max doing this before going on to their reflexive core work. As Pavel demonstrated in Super Joints, Beyond Stretching and Relax into Stretch, athletes need to be flexible in athletic positions. They need mobility/stability under the incredible amount of tension produced by making high-speed cuts and other athletic moves. This sequence is a great way to loosen up the hips and hamstrings to prepare your body for whatever intense workout you may have in store for it.

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Mark Bixby is a Dragon Door RKC Team Leader, PCC Instructor and MovNat Instructor. He discovered kettlebells in 2002 and found that they are the quickest, most effective way to train. A combination of past injuries and persistent low physical self-image had caused Mark to have severe posture issues and chronic back pain. Kettlebells taught Mark how to use his hips so that he didn’t tuck his pelvis and slump with his posture. He grew taller, stronger and more confident. More than six years later, Mark has accomplished huge gains in strength, flexibility and stability and he finds that kettlebells still present significant physical and technical challenges. Because the skill set can always be refined, kettlebells continue to push Mark towards higher levels of body awareness and fitness. Mark can be reached through: http://www.dkbfitness.com/.