When it comes to kettlebell training, it seems that most beginners are too eager to pick up the kettlebells, swing away and move on to the more advanced moves such as kettlebell snatches and cleans without spending time working on the foundational movement such as Turkish Get Up and Kettlebell Deadlifts. Well, this is the feeling I get after spending time as a kettlebell instructor teaching people how to use the kettlebells. Honestly, I don’t have a problem seeing people doing that as long as they possessed quality functional movement skills. The truth is good percentage of people don’t possessed that skill. In my opinion, one of the most important functional movements is the deadlift which I find very lacking in most people who have a sedentary job that forces them to sit all day. Just a quick word of warning, you probably want to avoid the kettlebell swings if you have not learned how to do the kettlebell deadlifts properly.
Kettlebell Deadlift Could Be Your Life Saver
If you’re wondering why you’re always getting back pain, the chances are you have a weak core and your bend over lifting posture which is the deadlift move is bad. Most people think that solving back problems can be done simply by training the low back muscles doing exercises such as back extensions or training the core through crunches and sit-ups. It seems logical that such approaches developed high level of strength in the low back and core to prevent any back troubles. But the truth is a strong low back or so-called “strong core” may not save you from pain troubles. According to Dr Stuart McGill an authority in low back pain studies, muscle strength in the low back cannot predict who will have low back troubles based on several studies.
Kettlebell deadlifts is one of the first kettlebell exercises that I teach to newbies in my Perth kettlebell classes. Most people would think how difficult is that. In most cases (it’s like 99/100), people who first come to my kettlebell training cannot deadlift properly to save their life. In fact, it’s like disaster waiting to happen with the back ready to blow up anytime because the technique is just so bad. The problem is most people overload their low back area with bad deadlifting technique.
The worst thing I heard about deadlift is that it is bad for the low back. Just because you hurt your back doing deadlift does not mean that the exercise is bad for the back. It’s like you were learning how to ride a bicycle and fell off the bike and say it’s unsafe to ride again. The problem is you have not learn the right way to do deadlift that’s why you hurt your back.
Think about it…how often do we bend over a day and pick up stuff? My guess is it is alot and it’s almost avoidable to deadlift in our daily movement. If you are a dad or a mum, you are most likely have to perform a deadlift (which is bend over and pick up stuff) to pick up your children who maybe as heavy as 15kg or more on a daily basis. If your work requires heavy volume of manual labour, you too have to deadlift on a daily basis. In fact, there are many other things you do in a day that requires you to deadlift. Does it make sense that you should be trained to do deadlift well to cope with all these daily demands? So you won’t have hurt your back.
Why Kettlebell Deadlifts?
Using a kettlebell to train your deadlift is perfect because you are allowed to bring the weight up from between your feet. This is a common situation we are in when we lift heavy stuff off the ground. When kettlebell deadlift is done the right way, it will teach the body to distribute the load efficiently across several joints in your body thus sparing too much unhealthy loading on you low back. As Dr Stuart McGill said in his book “Ultimate Back Fitness & Performance”, “Training a whole-body motion involves balance of force throughout the linkage. Too much force, or too little at a joint, or force applied at an incorrect time results in poor performance and injury”.
Therefore, it is important that you train movement and not muscles when you are doing the kettlebell deadlifts. In fact, you should always train movement and not muscles when you used the kettlebells. When your kettlebell deadlifts are spot on, then it is a good time to move on to high performance kettlebell swings as the chances of hurting your back on a kettlebell swing is much lower. To learn how to do the kettlebell swings, go to this link: Step-by-Step Instructions How to Do Kettlebell Swings
Benefits of Doing Kettlebell Deadlifts
Doing kettlebell deadlifts right not only helps prevent back pain, it also has 3 other benefits:
Benefit #1 – Improve your posture by strengthening your posterior chain muscles that includes your low back, hamstring, glutes and upper back musculature. This is exactly what a office worker need.
Benefit #2 – Tone up the butt cheek and hamstring muscles
Benefit #3 – Develop highly functional hips that spare excessive loading on your spine and thus prepare the body for kettlebell swings
I’ll be back in the next blog post on how to perform the kettlebell deadlift safely. So if you want to be updated on the next blogpost. Please do sign in for the FREE Online Kettlebell Training Video right at the bottom of this blog.
Hi! I'm TC, a kettlebell instructor, who is a certified Russian Kettlebell Challenge Instructor (RKC) and Australian Kettlebell Instructor (AKI). Welcome to my blog! And I'll be sharing some of my thoughts on kettlebell training that I hope can be useful for you. Don't forget to grab your FREE Step-by-Step Basic Kettlebell Training Video just by entering your name and best email above. 
