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Kettlebells Transform Your Body Unlike ANYTHING Else – Huge Benefits Explained
If you aren’t training with kettlebells, you’re missing out on training that could genuinely transform your body and your performance.
Kettlebells have gained a lot of popularity over the last decade and are now a staple of most gyms. With that said, however, they still face a certain amount of discrimination. There are still a large number of people who look down on kettlebells and treat them like a novelty.
I see this, in particular, in the bodybuilding and powerlifting communities. To them, the dumbbell is an unnecessary alternative to the dumbbell. An awkwardly shaped weight that’s tough to curl or to press, and which doesn’t offer enough resistance to trigger serious muscle growth or strength.
Even kettlebell advocates often seem apologetic about their choice of equipment. They’ll say that “resistance is resistance” and that they simply enjoy the experience of swinging a kettlebell.
But this is doing a MASSIVE disservice to the kettlebell.
The kettlebell is, when used correctly, a truly transformative piece of training equipment. It offers profound benefits that no other piece of equipment does – at least not in the same way. Kettlebell training can change your body in ways that nothing else can. And I truly believe that everyone can benefit from implementing it – no matter their goals or their current level of strength and fitness.
I’ve made plenty of content describing the benefits of specific kettlebell movements. But I’ve yet to highlight the real power of kettlebells as a concept. So, let’s put some respect on kettlebells.
Strength Endurance
Let’s start by addressing the biggest criticism of kettlebells: that they’re relatively light. If you’re used to benching 150kg and shoulder pressing half of that… you might wonder what the point in a 20kg kettlebell is. Yes, they go higher – but they become increasingly unwieldy as they do and they’re increasingly difficult to find. You may feel you are simply beyond the need for a kettlebell.
But that’s the point.
You use kettlebells for higher rep ranges. You might do 30 kettlebell halos. 50 kettlebell swings. A minute of kettlebell clean and press. Ten minutes of the long cycle or clean and jerk.
And the reason this is important, is that it builds strength endurance. It is the perfect middle ground between strength and cardio, which is precisely what most people need.
If you only value strength and you want to build brute force with zero interest in cardio… I’m sorry but it’s just not a smart move. It leaves you less functional and less useful outside of the gym. In a fight, in sports, doing manual tasks… you’ll just tire out quickly.
Jogging, jumping rope, rowing… they’re all fantastic forms of cardio but they’re also just cardio. Many people find them boring. And they won’t develop much strength, if any.
Kettlebell training is perfect because it gives you both. You will develop bigger muscles and you will develop a powerful cardiovascular system that lets you keep going under stress. This better reflects most activities that actually require fitness, meaning it makes you more functional and more of an all-rounder.
This makes the kettlebell an extremely efficient training tool. Rather than doing resistance training and then spending just as long doing cardio – and seeing them work against each other – you’re doing one type of training that covers everything.
And, frankly, it builds a better physique. If you want to have tons of muscle but have it hidden under a layer of fat, then just lift weights. If you want to have great endurance but look scrawny with it, just run.
Want a good amount of muscle with low enough body fat to look defined? Try kettlebells. Kettlebells create powerful looking athletes.
Kettlebells are not optimal for building maximum strength but as Gregory Stark says: this is the tide that lifts all boats. It’s one thing you can do to build total fitness. And that’s amazing. It’s a better option for most people, simply more efficient.
And if you are a bodybuilder or powerlifter wanting to add some cardio, it’s a great choice and arguably a more logical option. Seeing as it still involves some resistance.
Oh, and unlike just about any other form of endurance training, this is something you can do in your living room in front of the TV.
This ALONE is a good enough reason for everyone to use kettlebells. It’s a reason that they truly transform your body. But that’s not all.
People are obsessed with the idea of what’s “optimal” for building muscle. If something isn’t optimal, it’s not worth doing. I find this frankly maddening and I can’t think of any other walk of life where we act this way. You don’t refuse to engage in other hobbies if they’re not “optimal” for one specific thing. Kettlebells do build muscle. They build less than barbell training. But they offer a ton of things that barbell training doesn’t simultaneously.
Functional Biomechanics
Look, I KNOW that “functional” is something of a dirty word these days. But that’s because people overcomplicate the word. I’m not saying some movements are functional and some are not. All I mean by “functional” in a non-athletic context, is learning to move in a way that’s actually useful and applicable. Much of what we do in the gym is but there are some glaring gaps: like our lack of rotation in the gym, lack of side to side movement. Or the fact that many people still can’t get their arms over their heads, hinge their hips properly, etc.
Kettlebell training teaches and trains a bunch of really useful movement patterns that you simply can’t get from dumbbells or barbells. And they do so in a way that translates to reduced pain, improved mobility, and FAR greater expression of power.
When you learn to do the kettlebell swing, for example, you are learning to properly hinge your hips, reducing injury risk when lifting weightt. But you are also learning to drive power through the legs and glutes which helps to combat inactive glutes while also improving running and jumping. The deadlift also teaches the hip hinge but not the same explosive extension that we use for athletic movements.
And, with those higher rep ranges, you’ll be able to ingrain those correct movement patterns and maintain proper form even as fatigue starts to set in.
To do a kettlebell clean, you will learn to hinge the hips while also keeping the kettlebell close to your centre of gravity and slipping the hand through the handle. It’s explosive, but it’s also smooth and graceful. If you choose to jerk the weight from here, you’ll be learning to transfer power from the legs into the arm. This is a triple extension – a pattern we use when jumping – and it’s also a useful skill for throwing and lifting in itself.
Thing is, if you get these movements slightly wrong, the kettlebell will teach you. You’ll feel it in the callused skin on your hands, or you’ll bang up your forearm. Or you’ll just gas out, immediately. This is how kettlebell training refines your movement, fixes imbalances, and helps you move with greater efficiency and less pain.
I know this because I’m working on my clean and jerk right now. I’ve been doing the crossbody clean and press for years and years but I’m only just now experimenting with the jerk. It’s a lot of fun but I clearly have some refining to do. It’s a ton of fun, though, and actually addictive to practice. Imagine an addictive hobby that gets you shredded!
You might have noticed that these movements are similar to Olympic lifting. As you may know, Olympic lifting is a form of training that involves HUGE amount of plyometric, explosive power, and translates to drastically increased performance. It’s also very skill-based with a high barrier to entry – not to mention requiring a lot of space and a lot of weight.
Kettlebells allow you to train these same qualities on a smaller scale – perfecting the technique and generating similar power, in a safer and more convenient form.
The kettlebell halo, conversely, opens up the shoulders and trains rotation and throwing patterns. This is hugely important, as highlighted by Mark Wildman. Throwing is a fundamental skill for humans – one that allowed us to overtake many other species – and yet it’s something we rarely use anymore. Let alone symmetrically!
The halo is only the first step on this journey – macebells and clubbells are far greater tools for this and ones that I’m gradually learning. But the point is that this is yet another area you can train with kettlebells that often gets overlooked.
Just like rotation. Whether you’re doing cross body kettlebell swings, halos, atlas swings, or windmills. Kettlebells allow you to train in all planes of motion – far more than dumbbells or barbells.
And the fact that these movements are so endlessly nuanced with so much to learn. Will you train the hardstyle kettlebell swing and alternate between relaxation and sudden, powerful tension? Or will you train sport and look for the most efficient movement to achieve higher and higher rep ranges? Maybe you’ll use a hybrid method. Or maybe you’ll learn kettlebell juggling.
And it’s this nuance that causes many people to liken kettlebell training to a martial art. You’re learning the same kind of body control, exploring different styles and concepts. It’s awesome.
Now, you might be thinking that this is a downside for kettlebells – that they’re technical and challenging with a high risk of injury. But that’s not really true. Yes, the kettlebell swing is a technical movement with a risk of injury – but no moreso than a deadlift. And, just like a deadlift, it isn’t dangerous if you practice with a light weight to begin with. Nobody got injured doing swings with a 5kg bell.
And simpler movements like goblet squats and kettlebell deadlifts do exist.
There’s So Much More!
The crazy thing is that there’s so much more you can do with a kettlebell, too. You can treat it like an oddly shaped dumbbell and do kettlebell curls, shoulder press, bent over rows. Some of these movements have slightly different benefits or even feel more comfortable with a kettlebell. Like explosive, alternating kettlebell rows that help to train more stability in the core and spin
They’re also ideally suited to being used for carries, which are brilliant for building bigger traps, a strong core, and invincible grip. Flip them on their head and they become an incredible stability challenge just to keep steady. Then there’s the Turkish getup and its variations, which is practically it’s own entire thing and endlessly refillable. There’s kettlebell juggling, too, which is a fantastic form of training that challenges reflexes, coordination, timing, endurance, strength, and more – while allowing you to express yourself in a creative way.
How about kettlebell “flows?” Moving from one movement to another in a continuous sequence – training those in-between positions and once again allowing for that creativity.
They’re also excellent for weighted stretching and there are a bunch of weighted stretches that work best with kettlebells. I love a deep cossack squat or even a regular squat for improving ankle mobility. And the halo itself is a dynamic stretch that has done wonders for my shoulders – check out clips of me doing them a few months ago versus now and the difference is visible.
There is SO much to explore with kettlebell training and you can get all this from just one or two small weights that fit in the corner of the room.
I’m not trying to claim that kettlebells are superior to other forms of training. I’m just telling you that they are uniquely powerful tools. They offer things that no other tool can. And they can absolutely transform your body: improving healthy movement, turning you into a lean, ripped, powerful machine that never gets tired in the process.
Respect the kettlebell!
