RKC News - September 2016

When kettlebell training is mentioned, most people envision impressive exercises like cleans, presses, and snatches. And rightly so. These exercises are quite striking, train the entire body in nearly unbeatable ways, and are also fun. That’s why they are considered top exercises and not the foundation.

For good functional fitness, you need mobility, stability, and a solid strength foundation. In particular, the last two points are supported by the fundamentals from the RKC school: planks, farmers walk, and suitcase carry as well as the Turkish getup. Before you start swinging, you should train these fundamentals.

Not only do walk and carry reflect fundamental movement patterns in your daily life. More importantly, these exercises wonderfully teach you to maintain the plank in motion. Plank in motion? At first, it sounds like that doesn’t belong together. But it does!

While the plank in the horizontal position is a wonderful exercise to train the core, it has little transfer to your daily life. We usually perform that in the vertical position. Every exercise that takes place in an upright position, or ends in one, culminates in a standing plank. Isn’t that reason enough to train the necessary body tension for the plank while standing?

Farmers walk and suitcase carry are the best exercises to train this foundation. Here, it is particularly important to maintain an upright posture and good body tension. You can fully concentrate on these two points while you "go for a walk" with your kettlebell. Thus, you easily train these important foundations of every functional movement.

Start with the two-handed farmers walk and then progress to the one-handed suitcase carry. Due to the unilateral load in the suitcase carry, you have to work incredibly hard in anti-rotation. This is much more challenging for your core muscles, trains the quadratus lumborum, a deep core muscle that is hard to reach, and wonderfully prevents the common ailment of back pain.

And the best part: it trains a movement that you perform hundreds of times a day. And thanks to your training, you can perform it pain-free and healthily for many years to come.

Kettlebells were originally used in Russia by farmers as counterweights for their products in the market. They sold their harvest in units of 1 Pood (16 kg), 1.5 Pood (24 kg), and 2 Pood (32 kg). It wasn't until around 1900 that kettlebell became an official sport in Russia.