Misinformation Station #1: Kettlebell Side Bends

[Note: Misinformation Station is a series of articles aimed at providing information to the general gym goer. It’s based on mistakes I see in the gym everyday.]

Every day thousands of people discover through some means or other the ‘new fad’ that is the kettlebell. Using the kettlebell is going to make them stronger, leaner, faster, more powerful and generally look awesome.

You may discover kettlebells through the hundreds of fat camp shows on TV, the pictures of fitness models using them (poorly) in a fitness magazine, or it may be a friend of yours has discovered a hardstyle or GS kettlebell class in their neighbourhood.

 

You want the benefits of this awesome training and so you sign up for the gym (handing over your hard earned cash). You receive an induction into the safe use of two-dimensional gym machines, and all the time that the gym staff are talking you are nodding but have one eye on the kettlebells in the corner of the ‘functional area’ of the gym.

You come in for your first session in the gym, you ‘warm up’ on the treadmill for ten minutes whilst watching some subtitled TV on the over head screens, then you head to the matted area and do some static stretching. Why did you do these things? Because your gym teacher back in the 90’s who was educated in the 80’s using textbooks from the 70’s told you to.

 

You walk up to the ‘kettleball’ and start to ‘swing’ like the model in the magazine you saw in the dentist’s waiting room did. The ‘swing’ burns your shoulders/upper back but hurts your knees and lower back. You don’t know any better; you don’t realise that you can’t copy a motion by looking at still pictures from a magazine. You know that the kettlebell is the solution to your fat-loss/strength goals, but you know that merely standing next to the kettlebell isn’t enough. You don’t know what else to do with the ‘bell… so you revert to what you know from that textbook that your PE teacher had from the 70’s…

You start to bicep curl the kettlebell… you maybe do a few tricep kickbacks with the kettlebell (you’re proud of yourself for remembering that one)…

You think “How can I use the kettlebell to shrink my waist?”.

You start to side bend with the kettlebell, after all, it’s using the muscles in the area of the body you want to lose weight from…

And right there is your first mistake, but it’s not your fault because you weren’t taught any better!

If you want to make an area of your body bigger what do you do? You lift weights that use that area. If you want an area of your body to lose fat and get smaller, what do you do?

You can see where I’m going here.

First up, if you want to shrink that waistline tidy up your diet, get entry level strong, learn good technique for full body ballistic/explosive exercises and then do said exercises (combined with a strength programme) in a manner that increases your at rest metabolic processes. That’s it.

With the ‘cattleball’ that means learning how to hip hinge, plank, how to deadlift, how to breathe and then how to swing the kettlebell. Note, no side bends. And, if that kettlebell is the correct weight for you to swing in a fashion that offers metabolic challenge, then you sure as hell aren’t going to be busting out reps of bicep curls and tricep kickbacks.

Tracy Reifkind swinging the Beast (48kg)

Don’t confuse the tool for the methodology. That means don’t do the same stuff that has failed in the past using the shiny new toy. The converse holds true: a methodology that is successful can be used with multiple tools, be they kettlebells, barbells, clubbells or bodyweight exercises.

So let’s get back to the side bend, you knew I wouldn’t have brought it up if there wasn’t a rant here…

I’m not going to get into a debate about the effects of lateral spinal flexion other than, if we’re picking up a heavy weight we’re not supposed to flex (bend) our spine outside of its natural curve, correct? So why would we want to do it sideways (laterally) where our spines are more compromised than in the sagittal plane (bending forwards or backwards)?

Fitness Guru and strength and conditioning authority Brett ‘Mr Glutes’ Contreras has already done a fantastic analysis on the studies done regarding spinal flexion here [link to article].

Who does side bends anyway? Bodybuilders who lack definition in the abdominal region and powerlifters, who most certainly do not have narrow waistlines but are as strong as a mountain gorilla.

Who doesn’t need to do side bends? Just about everyone else. There is plenty of research out there showing that this form of training ‘might’ be dangerous and there are plenty of exercise variations out there that exercise the oblique abdominals and lumber spine stabilisers without going into lateral spinal flexion. So why risk the side bend?

Well, what are these exercise variations? Glad you asked, let me think for a second:

• Side planks
• Elevated side planks
• Side plank rows
• Regular plank rows
• One handed overhead press
• Suitcase carry
• Waiter walks
• Suitcase deadlifts
• Suitcase squats
• Turkish get ups
• Windmills (you are NOT flexing your spine)
• Viking Salutes

Anything that has you standing/kneeling/carrying a weight in one hand and not the other, etc…

And that’s barely scratching the surface.

Fortunately most people doing side bends in the gym are using insufficient weight to do any damage (or benefit for that matter – my three week old daughter is heavier than a 4kg kettlebell and I have to side bend to get her into her car seat.  Just as well the Turkish Get Up is my favourite exercise!).

So let’s start hitting some real weights with good, safe form.

Be fit, be strong, be happy.