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Kettlebell Enter the Kettlebell back pain

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ross-hat

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Hello.
I started doing the exercises in this video (Enter the Kettlebell): .

About me:
I am a 30 yr old male, ~6' tall, ~155 lbs. I spend a lot of time sitting in a chair with posture that is not great, but not terrible.
Movement: I have not had a functional movement screen, but I think my joints seem to have average range of motion.
Sports: These days I occasionally play tennis and do capoeira; that's it for now.
I have a homemade kettlebell which is ~40 lbs. (18 kg)

I initially found it hard to do the exercises with my 40 lb kettlebell, but they got a bit easier. I was doing the sequence close to every day for a week or a few weeks, but at the end, I noticed my back hurting the day after. It felt fine during and after the exercise; it was only a day or so later that the problem started. If I bent backwards, I would feel a sharp pain in a muscle in the middle part of my back: slightly right and low of center. My back felt kind of weak generally. So, I rested and kept my back as straight as possible.

When my back was better, I assumed I had injured it because I didn't keep it straight during the exercises. So, I tied a straight board to my back to make sure my back was straight. When I did the exercises with this plank (I did not use the plank for the Turkish Get Up), I noticed my hips rotated forward and back a little bit when doing the swing, but other than that, I didn't have a problem keeping a straight back.

A family friend who has experience with kettlebells, but not Strong First methods, spotted me and said my form was OK. He said that the exercises can tighten up the front of your hips, which will put strain on the back muscles, so as long as it is only the back muscles that are affected, you just have to wait for your body to get used to it, and also do some hip warm ups. He said the hips can be rotated forward/butt sticking up and out when doing the swing.

After doing the exercises again, I have noticed just a slight feeling in my back that is similar to the original problem, but it is not very noticeable and doesn't cause trouble in my daily life. I will not do the exercises until I don't have that feeling anymore.

Have others had this same experience? Are there other exercises I should do for my back or abs that will reduce this problem? Should I stop these exercises altogether? I like doing the exercises and don't feel bad when I do them, and I put a fair amount of time into making my kettlebell, so I hope I don't need to give up entirely on the exercises. Once covid is over, I will try to find a StrongFirst trainer.
 
We highly recommend getting at least some instruction from a StrongFirst Certified Instructor, one-on-one, to be sure your technique is what it should be.

In lieu of, or in addition to that, you may post a video of your swing and we'll give you feedback.

Welcome to the StrongFirst forum.

-S-
 
Hello.
I started doing the exercises in this video (Enter the Kettlebell): .

About me:
I am a 30 yr old male, ~6' tall, ~155 lbs. I spend a lot of time sitting in a chair with posture that is not great, but not terrible.
Movement: I have not had a functional movement screen, but I think my joints seem to have average range of motion.
Sports: These days I occasionally play tennis and do capoeira; that's it for now.
I have a homemade kettlebell which is ~40 lbs. (18 kg)

I initially found it hard to do the exercises with my 40 lb kettlebell, but they got a bit easier. I was doing the sequence close to every day for a week or a few weeks, but at the end, I noticed my back hurting the day after. It felt fine during and after the exercise; it was only a day or so later that the problem started. If I bent backwards, I would feel a sharp pain in a muscle in the middle part of my back: slightly right and low of center. My back felt kind of weak generally. So, I rested and kept my back as straight as possible.

When my back was better, I assumed I had injured it because I didn't keep it straight during the exercises. So, I tied a straight board to my back to make sure my back was straight. When I did the exercises with this plank (I did not use the plank for the Turkish Get Up), I noticed my hips rotated forward and back a little bit when doing the swing, but other than that, I didn't have a problem keeping a straight back.

A family friend who has experience with kettlebells, but not Strong First methods, spotted me and said my form was OK. He said that the exercises can tighten up the front of your hips, which will put strain on the back muscles, so as long as it is only the back muscles that are affected, you just have to wait for your body to get used to it, and also do some hip warm ups. He said the hips can be rotated forward/butt sticking up and out when doing the swing.

After doing the exercises again, I have noticed just a slight feeling in my back that is similar to the original problem, but it is not very noticeable and doesn't cause trouble in my daily life. I will not do the exercises until I don't have that feeling anymore.

Have others had this same experience? Are there other exercises I should do for my back or abs that will reduce this problem? Should I stop these exercises altogether? I like doing the exercises and don't feel bad when I do them, and I put a fair amount of time into making my kettlebell, so I hope I don't need to give up entirely on the exercises. Once covid is over, I will try to find a StrongFirst trainer.

Welcome to the forum. I had a similar experience when I first started. Don’t know if this will shed any light but... I noticed that when I did one handed swings too heavy my body was rotating a little too much and I got a pain in the exact spot that you are talking about. My shoulders were too far forward and I was letting the bell pull me so when it was coming down I was doing some weird form of trying to like pull it back into my body as opposed to keeping my shoulders packed.
It’s hard to explain but it was like I was trying to hold the bell out in front of me while half bent over and twisted. Not sure if that sheds any light. But as Steve said, a video will help with feedback.
 
Thank you everyone. I will probably look for an online instructor once I am feeling back to normal.
 
Hello again everyone. I have been doing S&S a little bit now as well as some presses after checking with a chiropractor, and I thought I would try to get some feedback on my swing. Thanks!
 
It looks like you are using your lower back to power the KB instead of your hips. Try bending your knees a little more. Think about pushing your feet through the floor, and keep you weight spread evenly throughout your feet.
 
Checking in on your KB deadlift might be helpful.

Agree on the advice above to bend the knees more—it looks like you are getting into a negative shin angle during the hike and not fully straightening the knees on the way up. All of which is likely centering around the stiff leg style you are currently using.
 
Yes... @ross-hat ... load the hamstrings. The revised & updated S&S book has a great description of how to learn to do this, if you don't have a copy already.

Just to clarify, we're all saying the same thing. @Ronzi's "bend the knees a little more", @Adam R Mundorf "athletic hip hinge", @Brett Jones "kettlebell deadlift" (as a way to re-pattern) and finding the right angles, and me "load the hamstrings". It's all about finding and using the loaded hinge.

Really, other than that, I think your swings are great! You'll be amazed at the difference when you make this change.
 
Thanks everyone! Glad to have your help with this. The video is on Youtube already, but here is a vimeo link just in case that works better: . I have the new S&S book, so I will review again.
 
@ross-hat - that last rep looks like your leading with your back and not your hips. Did you feel a difference?
 
I thought this was a follow-up video but I see that it's the same one as above.

So the previous advice stands as the primary change to focus on (more of an athletic hinge), but I did notice a couple more things...
  • That's the most interesting "kettlebell" I've ever seen! You must tell us how this came to be!
  • You might try more toe turn-out
  • Bare feet on the hard floor will provide better grounding than sock feet or rug
  • Adding more forceful power breathing on the hip extension will add power
 
@ross-hat
You are doing a very straight-legged swing, with little backward hip displacement. So you are generating a lot of your power by driving your shoulders back, rather than driving your hips forward (since they don't go back much, they can't drive forward), and you aren't getting much power from knee extension since your legs stay so straight.

So you need to regroove your hinge pattern. This should also reduce the stress on your back that your are experiencing.

Two things I think would make a big difference in establishing a good hinge pattern are the touch the wall drill and KB deadlifts.

For the touch the wall drill:
--Stand facing away from a wall with your heels a foot or so from the wall.
--Sit back into your hinge and touch your butt to the wall.
--Move a little further away from the wall and repeat.

For the KB DL:
Note: I learned to lift KBs when Pavel first (re)introduced them and DD first started selling them. I had developed a pretty decent barbell DL from following PTTP before that, so I had a good base for my hinge pattern. At the time, I would have laughed at the KB DL as pointlessly light, and I never really practiced them. However, when I was recovering from a shoulder surgery, I did a LOT of KB deadlifts because I could do them long before I could do ballistics, and I developed a new appreciation for them. I found that they were actually very valuable in helping refine my hinge pattern, even after deadlifting and doing KB ballistics for decades.

Here are some things I learned/experienced/recommend:
--Do sets of 20. You can use one bell or two, and one or two arms on one bell, but do sets of 20. I found that the second 10 in a 20 rep set is where my brain and body really started to feel things and figure things out, but you have to do the first 10 to get there.

--Start with the bell(s) back between your feet toward your heels, keep the arms in tight to the body and try to lower the weight to the same spot. The bells will want to drift forward, so you will have to really sit back and keep your arms in tight. Avoid any tendency to get squatty to keep the bell back. Do it by sitting back -- your hips will move down as well as back, but keep the hips above the knees and the shins relatively vertical.

--Focus on your timing. The tendency is to start lowering the bells by sitting back as far as possible and THEN continue to fold forward and bend the knees to reach the floor. So it ends up being a two-part movement. See if you can adjust your timing so that your hips, knees, shoulders, and the bell all start and finish together. This tends to happen naturally on the positive part of the movement, so see if you can reverse engineer the timing of the positive and apply it to lowering the bell.

--Focus on your rooting. Keep your weight evenly balanced over your whole foot and try to maintain that same weight distribution throughout the range of motion. I visualize the soles of my feet extending straight down into the ground, as if I were wearing tall flat platform shoes that are sunk below the surface of the ground.

--Get a feel for the endpoints of the lift (the zipped up standing plank and the deep hinge) and use those as targets in your swing. I found this had a lot of carry over to my KB ballistics when I returned to them. By grooving the pattern at slow speed, I could naturally and smoothly transition from plank to hinge and back at ballistic speed, with everything starting and finishing together.
 
@Coyotl I think I did notice something, but I don't remember very well. I think I did see a difference, so I will try to be aware of that.
@Anna C I used a basketball as a mold for concrete with some bits of lead inside, and I added the threaded rod bent at a ~90 degree angle facing downwards so I could attach some weight plates later if I need. The red things on the ends of the rod thar are outside the ball are to keep the weight plats from moving around if I add them. The handle is made from a dowel with screws sticking out of the ends that are in the concrete. I filmed parts of the making, so maybe sometime I will edit them together and put it on Youtube.

Thanks again for the advice!
 
@ross-hat, I am rather late to this thread. As Steve W mentioned, re-patterning your hinge/DL is the big step. One obvious thing I noticed, which you can potentially use as a diagnostic is to keep the shoulders above the mid-foot when you deadlift. As you can see from the screengrab - your shoulders are well in front of your midfoot. More knee bend, a deeper hinge, more hip - all the corrections mentioned in this thread should result in shoulders above mid-foot.
 

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