18 Great Benefits of Kettlebells

Most kettlebell exercises create a full-body workout, targeting the lower body, upper body, and core musculature [1].

Kettlebells are the best all-in-one total body conditioning tool since they are functional and allow for multiple exercises and their variations to hit all body muscles.

The benefits of kettlebells include diversification of full-body workouts which is one of the principles of building strength and power.

Kettlebell presses and rows are excellent for building upper body strength, while kettlebell swings, squats, and deadlifts are great for enhancing lower body strength.

All kettlebell exercises will additionally build core and grip strength as a function of whole-body kettlebell workouts.

2. Improves Core Strength & Stability

The benefits of kettlebells include improving your core strength and stability through both bilateral and unilateral exercises.

Core strength is one of the pillars of today’s athletic performance and is necessary to lower the chance of lumbar spine injury.

Kettlebells improve the stability of your entire body by strengthening before mentioned core stabilizers, but also hip and shoulder muscles responsible for stabilizing the whole body during the movement.

Kettlebells improve overall athletic performance by increasing core strength and enhancing the stability of small and large muscle groups [2].

Kettlebells will enhance your body awareness and coordination by exercising proprioceptors in your muscles and vestibular system.

This is responsible for whole-body balance and is located in the inner ear [3].

Kettlebells enhance body awareness by allowing for more complex movement requiring multiple joints and muscle groups to work simultaneously.

In addition, kettlebell training will improve your overall coordination, but only if you introduce enough variety to your workouts.

Coordination can be topologically split into two main categories, even though there are many more. Those include hand and leg coordination patterns.

By enhancing your overall body awareness and coordination, you will move gracefully through space and optimize your movements to spend less energy than usual.

The added benefit of body awareness is decreasing the risk of injuries.

4. Improves Balance & Stabilizer Muscles

A Kettlebell workout will improve your body's overall balance and build stabilizer muscles necessary for executing complex movements correctly.

Kettlebells improve balance because they fall into the category of free weights, which are the hardest to handle balance-wise.

Free weight, such as kettlebells, will require your body to become more stable during complex movements, especially if you perform unilateral variations of kettlebell exercises.

Kettlebells will also build knee, hip, shoulder, and core stabilizer muscles.

Knee stabilizers built during kettlebell movements include the quadriceps, soleus, gastrocnemius, adductors, and gluteus medius [4].

Hip stabilizer muscles include the glutes mostly, but all surrounding muscles play a major role in stabilization during complex movements.

Kettlebells will enhance shoulder stabilizer muscles such as the deltoids, rotator cuff muscles, trapezius, and many more.

Lastly, kettlebell movements will build strong abdominal musculature, resulting in even better and improved core stabilization.

Kettlebells are excellent for changing your body composition and especially burning fat if performed with the correct dosage and rest intervals [5].

One of the best ways to help the body burn fat is to stay in the aerobic zone of exercising, which is between 35 and 50% of your VO2 max (maximum rate of oxygen consumption).

You can easily achieve this with kettlebell swings if you pick the proper weight, set adequate rest intervals, and allow recovery between the sets.

6. Great Non-running Cardio Alternative

Kettlebell benefits include a cardo versatility option, allowing you to change and restructure your cardio workouts for even better results.

Kettlebells can be used as a non-running cardio alternative if you set the intensity properly, meaning you can perform specific kettlebell exercises for an extended period.

To exercise your cardiorespiratory system, you must stay in the lower intensity zone by allowing your body to mainly synthesize adenosine triphosphate with oxygen molecules.

Aerobic training means the energy your body releases is mainly created through oxygen consumption and not glycogen or creatine-phosphate.

However, you can also include high-intensity interval training, which indeed will burn above mentioned energy sources, but will produce something called oxygen debt [6].

Oxygen debt will require your body to consume more oxygen post-workout to clear lactates from the blood, raising your aerobic threshold.

Kettlebell swings are excellent for improving your explosive hip strength and speed [7].

Kettlebell swings will teach your body to produce power for hip-hinge or extension movement patterns, which is clearly present in all track and field sports.

You must use proper external resistance, sets, reps, and rest intervals to develop hip power and explosive hip strength with kettlebell swings.

Programming for strength and power requires you to do 4 or more sets per muscle group, 1-5 repetitions (87.5% + of your one rep max), and include rest intervals between 2 and 5 minutes.

8. Increases Range of Motion (Mobility & Flexibility)

Kettlebells are excellent for increasing your joints’ range of motion and muscle flexibility.

Free weight movements like kettlebell exercises will allow additional freedom of motion in the shoulder, hip, and ankle joints.

This freedom of motion will stress your body, and your body’s response will increase the range of motion for respective joints.

Kettlebell swings, for example, will develop flexibility in posterior chain muscles such as the hamstrings and glutes.

Related Article: Best Mobility Exercises

Kettlebell exercises such as presses, cleans, deadlifts, squats, and more will increase lean muscle mass.

Kettlebell strength training is one of the best tools for building functional strength, which translates well onto the field and real-life situations, such as carrying groceries.

In the world of athletes, everything relies on functional strength since the only strength useful on the field is the one you can incorporate into necessary movements [8].

For example, you may be able to lift 150 kg on a barbell bench press, but it may not be the best option for translating it into a powerful punch in martial arts.

However, the punch may be enhanced by a single-arm kettlebell bench press since the movement is biomechanically similar and will translate better to the field of action.

"There is no time like the present to get started on your Kettlebell Sport journey, when most gyms are temporarily closed, and many of us are being asked to shelter in place. As a power endurance sport, Kettlebell Sport can improve both your GPP and your mental toughness, helping you stay strong and sane during these uncertain times."

- Keka Schermerhorn, Certified Personal Trainer

10. Develops a Strong Posterior Chain and Improves Posture

Kettlebell training effectively develops strong posterior chain muscles such as biceps femoris, semitendinosus, semimembranosus, glutes, and erector spinae.

Posterior chain muscles are responsible for keeping your posture in the correct position, lowering the chance of postural injuries.

Posterior chain muscles, such as the glutes and erector spinae, are responsible for balancing your body and keeping your posture in the correct position during standing, walking, running, and all other similar activities.

The kettlebell farmer walks and the rest of the exercises are essential for improving grip strength.

Kettlebells carries significantly benefit your grip and forearm strength, which is one of the predictors of long and healthy life [9].

Grip strength is especially important for real-life activities and everyday situations such as carrying heavy bags, moving the sofa from the living room, and similar activities.

12. Improves Weaknesses & Muscle Imbalances

Unilateral kettlebell exercises are extremely useful and important for improving your muscle weaknesses and correcting postural muscle imbalances.

If you have functional scoliosis, you must strengthen one side and stretch the other to negate the effects of this specific postural deformity.

Kettlebells are excellent to include in your unilateral sessions for strengthening the necessary side to correct postural deformities such as functional scoliosis [10].

Kettlebells will train you to move better if you incorporate kettlebell movement in all three planes of motion. Planes of motion include the sagittal, frontal, and transverse.

Sagittal kettlebell movements include calf raises, biceps curls, triceps extensions, good mornings, Romanian deadlifts, and similar.

Frontal kettlebell movements include side lunges, kettlebell lateral raises, and similar activities [11].

Transverse kettlebell movements include multiplanar lunges, kettlebell Russian twists, kettlebell Turkish get-ups, and similar exercises.

14. Low Risk, High Reward (Safer and More Effective)

Most kettlebell exercises, if taught with proper technique and form, are low risk but high reward in terms of aforementioned kettlebell benefits.

You can perform a vast corpus of kettlebell exercises safely and experience benefits in cardiorespiratory fitness, strength gains, and range of motion freedom.

However, you must hire or be taught by a professional or certified personal trainer who will teach you how to perform kettlebell movements correctly and safely.

Kettlebells will improve your joint health if you stress them adequately during kettlebell workout sessions.

You can significantly improve the health of your ankles, knees, and hips with basic and advanced kettlebell exercises such as swings, squats, and deadlifts.

Upper-body kettlebell exercises will improve the health of your wrist and shoulder joints, which is extremely important in sports requiring high-shoulder output [12].

Related Article: Best Joint Supplements

16. Simplifies Your Training

You can simplify your training by performing every exercise with the kettlebell.

Almost all exercises with free weight can be performed using a kettlebell, which simplifies the whole preparation phase for kettlebell workouts and allows for more energy to be spent by working out.

This is important because a significant amount of energy goes into setting the weights, machines, resistance bands, and gym equipment before starting to work out.

Kettlebells are compact and portable, allowing you to design a home gym with space-saving factors in mind and without worrying about where to place the kettlebell [13].

This is extremely important if you are tight on budget and can only choose from a few home gym setup options.

You can easily carry the kettlebell to another room or even outside if you prefer to have your workouts somewhere else.

Imagine having the pull-up bar outdoors, and you need the kettlebell for pushing exercises since the pull-up bar can mostly be used for pulling exercises.

In that case, you will only bring the kettlebell outside and enjoy a full-body push/pull split on fresh air.

Related Article: Portable Home Gym Equipment

18. Versatile Workouts

Kettlebells are one of the most versatile functional fitness equipment, allowing for different upper-body, lower-body, and core workouts.

You can easily diversify your workouts by implementing the kettlebell and slightly modifying exercises.

You can even hold the kettlebell in a few different ways (holding the base, regular hand grip, or reverse handle grip) to further increase the versatility of your workouts.