Kettlebell Injuries caused by kb training

[4-bit]

First post here, although I've been following SF for quite a while...

I thought it would be really interesting to hear your KB injury stories. That is, what kind of injuries/stubborn sorenesses have you gotten from doing kettlebell workouts. (previous injuries that flared up don't count in this case - the cause needs to be kb training exclusively).

My own "contribution"
I got a really stubborn ache in my lower back by doing 16 kg overhead kb presses with poor thoracic mobility. Oh, I wish I would have known about my t-spine mobility defiency, but it's fixed now after some dedicated foam rolling and other mobility exercises. After a year of rest, my back has become better and I'm training again with even greater focus on technique.

I also got in the kb swing injury trap when I arched my back at the top position... Not good...

By sharing our stories, I thought we could learn from each others' mistakes and hopefully stay injury free in the future.

 

[Sauli]

Well. Kbs healed my lower back years ago. I have never injured while doing kb work.
I got some minor injuries from Barbell work, but never from kbs.
Most of the time I go lighter than I could so that may be reason for being injury free.

 

[Maine-ah KB]

In my experience I've only ever hurt myself with poor form/or miss grooving. Kettlebells have only made me better when I do the lift correctly

 

[4-bit]

In my experience I've only ever hurt myself with poor form/or miss grooving. Kettlebells have only made me better when I do the lift correctly

Would you like to share what the specific mistakes in form were, that caused the pain?

(I've been really humbled by the swing, because no matter how much ground I cover there are always more subtle details to learn. Reaching "correct form" in kb training sometimes feels like an overwhelming goal, especially because of the injury risk while getting there - maybe that's why I love kettlebells so much).

 

[Antti]

I once tweaked my back doing cleans. It was pretty bad, I had to go on my knees. I was worried it was something worse but it got better soon on its own. I don't know what caused it, I cleaned like I've always done before and since.

I've also got some overuse aches around my shoulders from pressing. I found out I benefit from doing rows, shrugs, carries etc along my pressing.

 

[Anna C]

Can't claim any big injuries, but definitely a few tweaks, aches, and trigger points:

• shoulder when trying to do a windmill before I had any idea how to do one
• lower back when forgetting to stay tight a the end of a set of swings or carelessly picking up bells before/after training
• biceps when snatching heavier weight (ramped up weight and volume increase too quickly)
• rhomboids when doing heavy get-ups and not keeping shoulders optimally packed
• trigger points in upper traps when lats get lazy during any exercise and shift too much workload to the traps
• unspecified mid-back tweak following a heavy get-up attempt and swings afterwards

All healed up well with a few weeks of taking it easier on the affected areas and starting back conservatively. Except the right shoulder which is never quite 100%. But the docs couldn't find anything wrong and it doesn't limit me, so I just live with it.

 

[JeffC]

I developed pretty bad tendonitis in my forearm when doing loaded Cleans for the Bent Press. Most likely from the drop. I was also doing a lot of Windmills and Getups at the time. More specific Grip and arm work fixed it.

 

[North Coast Miller]

Sore elbows. Went away after a few and hasn't come back.

 

[mikhael]

I have injured my right wrist after lot bent presses with weight my body wasn't used to. Haven't fix it yet.

 

[Maine-ah KB]

@4-bit sure the injuries I’ve caused is shoulder from military/side press thingy ending in a shrug. Pulled something in my shoulder and it hurt for 2-3 weeks. I’ve also experienced pain when I first did tgu heavy from not packing my shoulders. And when I first started snatching with a bigger bell I mildly pulled lower back because I wasn’t bracing right. What this tells me is that if my shoulders are packed, and I’m bracing I should be good to go. Fortunately I’ve been lucky and only caused a problem for a week or 3

 

[Im out]

I hurt my back about 5/6 months ago. Apparently my legs are relatively long and I need to bend the knees more for swings. A SFG instructor pointed this out, problem solved. Besides that all I have to report is good things about kettlebells. And I think any kind of injury comes from mistakes in technique, or overextending oneself. BTW I nearly dropped a KB on my head twice with TGU's. In the learning phase that is with a 16kg

Then again I have also managed to stay injury free using free weights for 10 years, and calisthenics for a little under a year so...

To be fair I had aches in my wrists from bench pressing, knees from leg pressing, elbows from inbalanced training. A schoolbag screwed over my back, and the rest of my posture yearsssss before that. And the most annoying of all my shoulder got messed up at work in 2014 september and still isn't the way I want it to be.

I hurt myself this morning but I doubt it has to do with kettlebell work. Unless the C&P practice on top on S&S plus a kcal deficiet was too much pressure for my body. But I would call this overextending myself rather than injury really.

The swing loads a very nice tension in my (lower) back that forces correct posture. It remains present for the bulk of the day if you practice correctly in the morning. Get Ups do my shoulders well although my form is flawed and I doubt it could ever be fixed... A SFGII instructor told me I did too much pressing after I told him I did S&S 5/6 times per week, so I doubt anyone here could help with it

Anyway I am a firm believer that injuries, for the average mortal, originate from bad posture. Exercise with bad posture mess you up even more. I can't think of any way to explain this thinking, but let's say one can't perform an exercise correctly when one can't stand properly, or move properly (with good natural posture) If this makes any sense to you ?

Any fitness guru I spoke with on the subject agreed with me, but none knew any way on how to fix posture, nor did anyone tried too, with themselves or their clients. Which is one out of many reasons I coach myself and rather not visit any kind of instructor. Off topic

Posture & form. Clean those up and you're set.

 

[Kozushi]

I've never hurt myself with kettlebells. I've hurt myself doing other things that then impacted my kettlebell training, but never from the kettlebells themselves.

 

[krg]

I've only hurt myself going too heavy or too sloppy.

Once wrenched my shoulder trying to save a get-up I should never have attempted.

Once jarred my elbow when I let my arm get slack in a swing.

As Pavel says in ETK - 'it's your fault'

 

[Chrisdavisjr]

The only injury I've had was torn skin on my palm from high-rep KB snatches without having figured out the proper grip. Although, on the very same day, I was also swinging and jumping from bar-to-bar at a parkour gym so I don't even think it was the kettlebell that did it.

Either way, my fault.

 

[william bad butt]

I once launched a 28 kg bell through my wall. I wasn't focused, just going through the motions and daydreaming a little bit (complacency). I hurt my pride.

I've had several other injuries related to the barbell and other sports. The kbell, for me, is restorative. It allows me to train safely and pain free, while restoring old injuries. To contrast, heavy barbell training sometimes re-aggravates my lower back issues. That is why I always follow-up my bus bench power lifting training with park bench kbell training.

 

[Maine-ah KB]

I once launched a 28 kg bell through my wall. I wasn't focused, just going through the motions and daydreaming a little bit (complacency). I hurt my pride.

I've launched a kettlebell before. hit the guest bed so again lucky. although it funny when I moved it was kinda slow motion and I was thinking "ohh sh!!!!!!!!!!!!"

 

[Oscar]

So far I haven't hurt myself with the KB in 1 year of s&s. I've had some minor aches in my lower back, biceps and other parts that went away shortly.

I did get cured of a patellar chronic tendinopathy doing this year. Quite amazing.

 

[crazycanuck]

Back in 2008, when I first started using a kettlebells (here and there, not really seriously at that point), and had only been doing swings, and reading about other things you could do with a bell, I (foolishly) thought I could do snatches. Not enough hip drive, using my arms too much over time eventually led me to tweaking something pretty bad in my mid upper back....like muscle spasm/seized up go to the hospital for an injection-bad. Over the remaining years, smartened up, worked with an SFG instructor or two, and things have gone pretty well.

The only other thing was recently, like just before tjis past Christmas. Have been attempting Simple since summer 2016, and had worked 8 months at it, after 9 months at it previously and a 3 month stretch off with a hand fracture (not KB related).

Got back up to 20kg swings one handed, and had been 16kg getups for a while, when I was spending some time here and there practicing the initial stages of a 20kg getup like just getting to the elbow and then knee and hand on floor, with the goal of doing one complete one some day. I strained my intercostals/serratus muscles on the right side. Now that I have had the whole past month off to reflect, I believe it's like what others above have mentioned....getting sloppy. Like paying so much attention to what my shoulders and lats were doing just before takeoff (engaged) but not realizing that once I got to the elbow that the arm holding the KB was hoisting the bell a bit too much and my lats was becoming disengaged and shoulder blade rolling forward. Sore ribs are painful and no fun. It was good to have some time to reflect though lol!

 

[Peter]

Funny you should ask because just yesterday I felt a twinge in the lower back swinging a 28. Upon reflection I realized I had lost focus and tension. Fortunately I set the bell down immediately. It has been a long journey. I started S&S in beautiful Carpinteria, California while on vacation in July 2015. I am just starting to integrate the 28 kg. There have been many bumps in the road that have prevented me from doing one armed swings for extended periods of time - arthritic right elbow that had miraculously healed, right shoulder, left shoulder, knee pain. Last summer, still unable to do one armed swings I was 1000 double armed swings away from the 10,000 swing challenge when I pulled an intercostal. No swings for a month. Until yesterday I thought I finally had a straight road to the simple goal.

 

[Marcus Aurelius]

I've never gotten "injured" per say. I have gotten very locked up though. That's what happens when you workout hard and neglect mobility work/walking.

You can never forget about your health and wellbeing.

Here's a write up I did on Facebook but I'll share it here :

Sometimes I'll encounter a friend who appears in fantastic shape. But I often find he's nursing knee pain or elbow pain. If your exercise is causing pain, you need to look really carefully at what you're doing and why you're doing it. When you're young it's easy to bounce back from injuries but as you get older things stick around and sometimes never go away. If you're young and experiencing pain just realize that this same knee that is hurting when your 20 is the same knee that needs to last until you die.

So the message is this :

1. Keep your joints healthy through frequent mobility work. Joint circles, bar hangs and daily walking.
2. Keep your health at the forefront. There's nothing else that truly matters.
3. Measure risk to reward for every exercise. you do. Exercise is supposed to make you better at life or your sport. In exercise the point is to get stronger in a safe manner. In sport, we understand a risk of injury is there and the point is to win.
4. Take advice from those who are 60 years or older and are still healthy, vital and moving well.
5. Don't be afraid and live in the present.