Welcome! 

Here is the first video in a 3 part series to help you learn the two-handed kettlebell swing.  A movement oft-named the "center of the kettlebell universe".

Enjoy, and make sure to reach out if you have any questions! 

Sincerely, 

Coaches Aleks and Alyssa

PS. If you'd like to test-drive the Kettlebell and Small Group Personal Training Classes at the Dragon Gym, just click the button below! 

 

 

 

(Transcript of Learn the Kettlebell Swing Day 1)

- Hey everyone this is Alyssa.

- And I'm Alex.

- And we are coming to from Strong On! at Dragon Gym, and we'd like to give you a little tutorial on the kettlebell swing. So this is Learn the Kettlebell Swing in Three Days, Day One is going to be all about the hip hinge, which is the, the movement pattern for the kettlebell swing. So first, why bother learning the kettlebell swing?

- Well there's a lot that can be said about the swing and we don't expect you to be able to everything right off of the bat but what you're gonna notice right away is that you're gonna start to feel that you're moving through your hips more, which means you're gonna be protecting your back. You're also going to learn, once you learn how to do the swing, how you can burn a lot more fat more quickly, you can build a lot of strength and get a lot of work done in a very short amount of time. So it's very time efficient, and very effective at most all of our fitness goals.

- Alright so let's practice today, Day One is the hip hinge. So we're going to get started with what that looks like and how to make it work for you.

- So would you like to be the model for this one?

- I would love to!

- Alright, cool. So first things first, the hip hinge just describes basically moving the hips back like so, alright? There's a slight bend to the knees but most of the bending is happening in the hips. And what you'll notice is that I'm not slouching with my back as I do it, I'm trying to keep a nice, straight back. So the way that we're gonna do this straight back is Alyssa is going to show you with a dowel. You can use a broomstick, anything that you can hold up against your back. There's gonna be a few points of contact to help you make sure you're keeping the right posture. One is in the back of the head, two is in between the shoulders, and three is on the tailbone, kay? So step out here just a little bit. Show em how it'll look, you're gonna hold it up against your back, and then as you push your hips backward, you're gonna make sure that it just, you maintain those points of contact. So if one of them were to come off, that means that you're losing the posture, for example like in the low back, right? So even just doing this, you're gonna start getting the feel of what it means to move through your hips and not through your knees, not through your back, which is gonna be very strong, very athletic, and it's gonna feel pretty good too. So once you can do that, next thing we'll do is we'll add a kettlebell. Now you're not gonna start swinging right away, the first thing you need to do, is you need to learn how to safely pick the kettlebell up off the ground. So Alyssa could you please demonstrate?

- Absolutely. So I'm going to put my, the handlebar of the kettlebells between my ankles so that they're straight in line, and I'm going to lift straight up in my body, sending my hips back. Chest proud, grip the kettlebell. Exhale to stand up, squeezing everything at the top of the motion, and then reversing the pattern.

- Good, and you'll notice, basically everything that we did with the stick, we are doing here, alright? So she's keeping her head up, she's also not slouching with the back, she's keeping a nice, tall posture, and she's moving her hips back, and they go down a little bit in order to reach the kettlebell, right? But her knees are not coming forward, her back is not slouching, all the action is happening through the hips. So you have to be able to go slow before you can go fast, so once you get good with the dead lift, the swing will come much more naturally and that is what we're gonna work on tomorrow.

- So see ya for Day Two!

- Adio.