How to avoid lower back injury in your Swings

Have you ever tweaked your back doing kettlebell swings? If you do a lot of kettlebell training, you likely have once or twice. If you dabble with heavy kettlebells, the chances of tweaking your back are even higher. While there’s no way to eliminate the risk of lower back injury completely, there are a few technical characteristics of a swing that you need to be doing to reduce your risk as much as possible. #1 You need to brace properly. There are two aspects of a proper brace: how you brace and when you brace. Bracing properly is all about generating intra-abdominal pressure (IAP), which is the foundation for a good brace. You want to think about “pressurizing into a brace.” You know you’ve got IAP when you can feel an outward-pushing force in your abdomen. If you don’t feel this outward-pushing force, you don’t have IAP. If you don’t have IAP your spine is less stiff, which puts it at risk for injury. You want to make sure that you establish this brace BEFORE you enter the hinge phase of the swing. It will happen right at the top of the float phase or right as the bell begins to descend. You need to make sure you’ve got this brace fully engaged before you take on the weight. #2 You want to have a late hinge. The hinge phase comes right after the descent phase and is when your torso moves from an upright position to a more horizontal one. It is very common for athletes to hinge early. When you hinge early, the bell is farther away from your spine, which exposes the spine to more flexion torque (bending you into flexion). When this happens, you either get pulled into an overtly bad position, one in which you can get injured, or you have to brace harder to account for the mechanical disadvantage. If you execute a late hinge, your arms will be tight against your side and you will go into the hole in the best possible position for mechanical advantage. This makes the swing safer and more effective. #3 Squatting into the hole instead of hinging into the hole. This goes with the previous point. Squatting into the hole allows you to maintain good mechanical advantage over the weight as you drop into the hole and drive out of it. If you hinge too much, the bell will drift away from your spine, putting you in a more mechanically disadvantageous position. How you squat matters. You want to make sure that you are squatting down and back instead of staying upright and pushing the knees forward. This will allow you to better load your legs for a more powerful drive phase, which leads me to the final point. #4 You need a strong leg-drive out of the hole. Again, because a lot of athletes over-hinge their swings, it is common for athletes to hinge out of the hole. Not only is this very weak, but it puts a tremendous amount of strain on your lower back. You need to initiate the movement out of the hole with a strong leg-drive directly into the ground. This keeps your legs engaged and the entire movement grounded. As with the previous points, this will make your swing both safe and powerful. Best of Luck!!! --- Follow me on Instagram at @AthleteEnhancement. Want to attend a live Athlete Enhancement course? Visit: www.Athlete-Enhancement.com/store