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What Is The Best Kettlebell Exercise?

Posted on | February 17, 2009 | 3 Comments

The best kettlebell exercise. Is there such a thing?

Definitely.

Sure, we got our favorites, but is there one movement that is superior to all others?

The best kettlebell exercise is (ready?) defined by your posture.

There, I said it.

There is a best exercise that will do wonders for your strength, stamina, flexibility and overall fitness. The thing is it will only work for YOU. Yes, you are unique.

Let me give an example. Lets say that someone has shoulders that are rolled forward (tight chest muscles and stretched, weak back muscles). Such dysfunction would imply limited range of motion in the shoulder joint. Those effected, may not be able to lift their arms straight up as elbows are locked. In severe cases hanging from a pull-up bar is not possible…

Any kind of exercise that involves holding a kettlebell above their head on a locked out arm would cause lower back to compensate and lead to lower back injury or strain (in the best case scenario).

For those folks, kettlebell snatch (the czar of kettlebell exercises) is going to do more damage than good.

For the shoulder dysfunction described above the best kettlebell exercise would be kettlebell swings coupled with kettlebell windmills. Such combination would ensure balancing of shoulder muscles (resulting in increased mobility and range of motion) along with proper amount of cardiovascular load.

The best exercise for you? I’m afraid to say – it depends. On your posture and the outcomes that you are looking for. To make it more complicated, your best exercise will evolve with your your posture and fitness level.

Remember, your best kettlebell exercise is not a static unit. It will change and transform many times.

To make things even more confusing, the exercises that you love the most may be the worst for you. But more about that in the next post.

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Category: functional training, Kettlebell basics, Russian Kettlebell Training
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Comments

3 Responses to “What Is The Best Kettlebell Exercise?”

  1. Brett Cornwright
    February 20th, 2009 @ 11:38 pm

    Cool blog. I love kettlebells. I look forward to learning more from you.

  2. Denis Kanygin
    February 21st, 2009 @ 3:29 pm

    @ Brett

    Thank you Brett. Kettlebells are awesome – dont’ get me started :-)

  3. Vince Choo
    December 27th, 2009 @ 2:18 am

    This is a very useful article. Glad you didn’t post some “do this move” tip :)

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