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Article by Infofit

Kettlebell Posterior Chain Training For Chronic Pain

Developing the posterior chain with kettlebells

Fat Loss, Conditioning, and the Posterior Chain with Kettlebells

An effective use of kettlebell training, as far as Infofit’s fitness certification course sees it, is for fat loss, conditioning, and developing the posterior chain.

Developing your clients’ posterior chain training with kettlebells, will not only make your client look good, but it will help them feel good, and lead to overall improvements in body function elsewhere. From Infofit’s fitness certification course training standpoint,  “structural” health is very important.

Include Training to Address the Core and Back

Today’s society sedentary lifestyle, usually caused from sitting (improperly) at the computer,  has us plagued with chronic neck, shoulder and back pain. People are unable to function or move properly. Infofit suggests trainers include training to address the core and back to remedy this.

Reduced Neck, Shoulder and Back Pain

In fact, to maintain health, it’s essential. Researchers learned that  training a control group, who suffered chronic neck, shoulder and back pain, with a variety of full body kettlebell ballistic movements, three times per week for an eight week period, resulted in more strength in their trunk extensors, glutes, erectors and reduced neck, shoulder and back pain.

Variety of Full Body Kettlebell Ballistic Movements

Other pieces of gym equipment such as barbell training can be comparable and deliver similar results but in a slower process. In terms of implementation, it is important for trainers to observe and assess whether these exercises are beneficial, in terms of pain prevention and developmental standpoint. Barbell movements take a client through a long learning process for the clean jerk and snatch than by mastering a kettlebell snatch; which tends to be learned in half the time thus giving faster progress for the client.

Other than posterior chain training efficiency, kettlebells don’t do anything special that any combo of dumbbells, sandbags, kegs, power blocks, water jugs, etc can do. You can swing a sandbag or water jug, snatch a dumbbell and demonstrate turkish getup; these movements can be applied to all sorts of equipment. The bottoms up movement is the valuable part, not the equipment and is demonstrated well with a kettlebell, keg and water jug.

Not the First Course of Action for Unfit or Injured

As much as explosive ballistic movements have a lot of benefits for many people, they shouldn’t be considered the first course of action for most unfit injured people. Infofit teaches fitness professionals to keep the client focused on developing slow, deliberate muscle control while maintaining tension on the muscle throughout the entire movement, prior to learning advanced explosive movements like snatches, swings, clean and jerks.

 References:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21107513