Kettlebell Swing Exercises - Swing Away Your Body Fat & Build Muscle

Are you tired of the old style cardio workouts involving running endlessly and cycling to nowhere? Have you ever thought about using kettlebells or more specifically, using kettlebell swings? I don't know about you but it would definitely make me happy, because I hate conventional cardio workouts and I honestly have not found them to be a great fat burning solution. In fact, one of the major reasons for the growth in the popularity of kettlebells, is the fact that they are a great fat loss tool to use!

A great alternative to traditional cardio, is a kettlebell exercise called swings. Do you find this hard to believe? Well, take a 5-10 pound kettlebell and do 200 reps in under 12 minutes and see for yourself what I mean! Get back to me if you can do it and do not feel that it made your heart beat faster than light jogging or cycling.

How To Perform a Kettlebell Swing:

1. Place one kettlebell between your feet.
   
   
2. Push back with your butt and bend your knees to get into the starting position. Make sure that your back is flat and look straight ahead.
   
   
3. Swing the kettlebell between your legs forcefully.
   
   
4. Reverse the direction and drive though with your hips bringing the kettlebell up to the chest level.
   
   
5. Let the kettlebell swing back between your legs and repeat.
   
   
6. Breathe out as you swing the kettlebell out and breathe in as the kettlebell swings between your legs. Look straight ahead at all times.

Now that you have the form down for this wonderful exercise, we will now figure out how to incorporate it into your workout regime. Let me first tell you, do not think for even a second that you should do it with the same frequency as your morning daily walks. Swings are an intense exercise and if you do them everyday, it will cause serious overtraining and could cause overuse injuries. Do not do a high repetition kettlebell swings program more than every other day. In fact, two sessions a week would be ideal for beginners.

Ideally, kettlebell swings should work your glutes and hamstrings the most. It should not be taxing on your lower back. However, when you begin with this exercise for the first time, you will probably work your lower back quite a bit. Its all right initially and with time you will get better and use your legs and glutes properly instead of the lower back.

If you are following a regular 3 day per week weight training program, then do the kettlebell swings workout on two days of the week when you do not weight train. Take a 10-20 pound kettlebell and do this exercise. Here are the sets and reps scheme that you can follow:

Beginner:

• 10 sets of 10 reps with 45 seconds break.
  
• Work down to 15-30 seconds rest between sets.

After 4 Weeks:

• 10 sets of 20 reps with 45 seconds rest.
  
• Work down to 15-30 seconds rest between sets.

As you progress, add more reps to each set while decreasing the rest periods. You can also use a heavier kettlebell to increase the intensity instead of always increasing the reps. So now go and get swinging as you have a tough battle ahead against a seasoned enemy, which is called body fat!

By Arnav Sarkar