kettlebell swing workouts

5 Ways to Level Up Your Kettlebell Swing Workouts: Boost Your Endurance and Strength with These Simple Strategies

Motion

Kettlebell swings are a powerful dynamic exercise that can benefit those who consistently incorporate them into their workout routine. Swinging a kettlebell engages multiple muscle groups, including the glutes, hamstrings, quads, core, and back muscles, making it an effective full-body exercise. Kettlebell swings can improve cardiovascular health, as they require significant energy and can elevate your heart rate quickly. Regularly performing kettlebell swings can also improve your posture, enhance your balance and coordination, and even help to alleviate lower back pain. 

According to a study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, kettlebell swings increase muscle power and cardiovascular health, effectively improving overall fitness (Jay et al., 2013). Furthermore, a study published in the Journal of Human Kinetics found that kettlebell training can also increase both maximum and explosive strength in the lower body (Pavel et al., 2011). 

Incorporating kettlebell swings into your workout routine can help to boost your energy, increase your strength and endurance, and provide a range of other physical and mental benefits.

How to make kettlebell swings more challenging?

You can make kettlebell swings, progressively more difficult by following the same guidelines as any other resistance, training, exercise. Sensibly increasing the weight of the bell, adding reps or incorporating different swing variations are all simple and effective ways to increase the difficulty.

20lb ankle weight riding on top of the 48kg kettlebell

Increase the weight: One of the simplest ways to make kettlebell swing workouts harder is to increase the weight of the kettlebell. As you get stronger, you can gradually increase the weight to challenge yourself. If 15-20+ reps of swings are no longer feeling challenging, it’s time to increase the weight of the bell. Make weight jumps incrementally. If you’re swinging a 24kg kettlebell comfortably for 15 repetitions, try swinging a 28kg kettlebell for 10-12 repetitions. Monitor your swing technique and post-set fatigue.

Increase the reps: Another way to make kettlebell swing workouts harder is to increase the number of reps you perform. As your endurance improves, add more reps to your sets, or perform additional sets. Adding repetitions has fallen out of favor recently, but it’s still an effective way to increase the difficulty of swings. Try adding 2-5 repetitions to each set and see how it feels. The key here is knowing when enough is enough volume-wise. At some point, adding more reps has diminishing returns. Also, beware of rep fatigue degrading swing technique. If you start moving sloppy, injury does become a concern, especially while swinging a heavy object.

Increase the intensity: You can make kettlebell swing workouts more challenging by increasing the intensity of your swings. This can be done by swinging the kettlebell more explosively or decreasing the rest time between sets. This is a hidden gem for getting better results from the same weight kettlebell. Swings should be explosive. Are you swinging aggressively? Or simply “guiding” the kettlebell through the arc? Check out this video where I’m performing “fake kettlebell swings”.

Change the swing style: There are several swing variations that you can try to make your workout more challenging. For example, you can perform one-handed swings, double-arm swings, or alternating swings to challenge your coordination and balance. If swing training is feeling stale with 2-handed swings, remove a hand, decrease the weight and attack one-handed swings. It’ll provide a different training stimulus.

Incorporate other exercises: You can also make your kettlebell swing workout more challenging by incorporating other exercises. For example, you can perform squats, lunges, or other bodyweight exercises in between sets of kettlebell swings to increase the overall intensity of your workout. Adding a set of 10 push-ups to the tail end of a swing set adds a new dimension to the workout. This is a simple tactic that can amplify the challenge exponentially. Bodyweight-based exercises are the most resourceful, but incorporating cardio or resistance training equipment are fantastic options as well. My personal favorite is alternating between kettlebell swings and SkiErg sprints. SkiErg motion is the opposite of swings, so they pair well together.

Kettlebell swings are a phenomenal exercise, one that the vast majority of people should consider incorporating into their workouts regularly. Take the suggestions in this article and apply them right away!

A Kettlebell Swing Workout (Part 2): Singles and Doubles

Quick Tips

An entire workout can be centered around the kettlebell swing.

There are very few exercises other exercises I would feel comfortable saying that about.  But the kettlebell swing is definitely a movement that be an all-in-one solution.  One stop shopping if you will.

Based on the popularity of my previous post, It’s Just a Kettlebell Swing Workout, I decided to go ahead and continue posting samplings of other kettlebell swing based workouts.

But I must be clear about one thing:  I am in no way endorsing that the kettlebell swing be the only exercise that you leverage in your movement training programs.

While the kettlebell swing is certainly a world-class movement, it is important to develop strength and power through other exercises as well.  Remember, the human body pushes, pulls, jumps, twists, carries, etc.

Humans have to be able to execute a wide range physical tasks if you stop and think about it.  Especially when you consider that you never really know what the demands of the workday or weekend are going to bring.

It really pays to be physically prepared.

Workouts are scheduled bouts of physical exertion.  You know exactly what is going to happen during a workout and how it is going to happen.  So much of our daily lives are unscheduled, random and out of our control.  The workout is one aspect of our lives that we can control.  We control the amount of effort, intensity, exercise selection and duration of the workout.  We have complete control of what happens during this brief period of time.

It’s a real turn on for some people who feel like they have little control over anything else in their schedule.

Anyways, back to the point of this blog post.

Kettlebell swings, and how we can organize and rearrange kettlebell swings into highly effective training sessions.

When I sense boredom creeping up on my training habits (as many of you have also experienced) I know that it is time to shuffle a few things around.  I value the impact that 2-handed kettlebell swings- especially heavier swings for longer duration work sets- can have on maintaining my body composition, but I also know that too much of anything can be a bad thing.

Boredom is part of being human, so it’s important to inject energy into your training sessions.

In this case, single arm swings added an element to my training session that reinvigorated the entire session.

Here is what the workout looked like.

Kettlebell Swing Workouts

If you get serious about adopting kettlebell swings into your workouts, you’re quickly find that your body will enter a different realm of lean.  I have to admit that I thought kettlebells were gimmicky in the beginning, but after submerging myself into kettlebells exclusively one Summer, I prove my own opinions incorrect.

I got really lean, really quick.  From just swinging the damn thing between my legs, back and forth like a pendulum.  The concept seemed too good to be true initially.

Interestingly enough, I didn’t have the greatest technique at the time, but I had established a great foundation of all around strength, stability and resilience to fatigue which allowed me to continue advancing my workouts.

This is an important point.  I would strongly advise that anyone reading this post go and seek out a professional who has the credentials of a high level swinger.  RKC (Russian Kettlebell Challenge) or StrongFirst certified individuals would be a great place to start.  Most of these folks were trained under Pavel Psatsouline, who is the godfather of kettlebells in the Western World.  You would get fantastic tips, tricks and technique adjustment from these individuals.

But, if you have a willingness to learn and a decent bodily awareness, I also personally believe that you can teach yourself how to swing at home.  Set up a smart phone and shoot short clips of yourself swinging.  Compare it to other videos like the following:

Neghar has great technique… check out her blog…

Pay attention to the difference in your technique and Neghar’s swing technique.  Critique yourself bit by bit.  Make the small adjustments.  Most people will notice that they are “lifting” the bell versus swinging it, or squatting versus hinging the hips.

We have the ability to teach ourselves things- not just mental education but physical education also- which I sometimes think that we forget.  We can be self-sustaining.

If you find that you have little time, and want a workout that is bare bones simple, try this little diddy…

10 minute kettlebell swing workoutRecently, I jumped into this exact workout prior to my evening plans.  I didn’t have much time to train but needed to get some amount of work done to feel good about myself, so this 10 minute workout fit the bill.  Using a 28kg KB, I recorded 215 swings.  Not a world record but also not too bad in my mind.

Kettlebell swings are a highly productive exercise.  Add them to your training, and with an ounce of consistency I know that you’ll see some significant return on your investment.  Just do it.

Cheers to swing workouts!

KG