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Welcome to The Dr. JJ Thomas Podcast! Here I'll be talking all things physical therapy, raw and unplugged, giving you the unfiltered insights you've been searching for in your cash-based physical therapy business. If you're caught in the grind of the traditional model, swamped with paperwork, or feeling like you're not reaching your full potential as a physical therapist, this podcast was created just for you.
Step number 1, kettlebell reaches far away in this nice hip hinge. Step number 2, look up so that my back is flat. Step number 3, hike the bell so that there's no space. Welcome to the Doctor. JJ Thomas podcast.
Dr. JJ Thomas:Hey everybody. Welcome to the Doctor. JJ Thomas podcast. I'm JJ. Happy to have you here again today.
Dr. JJ Thomas:We have a great episode in store for you. We're actually going to go through one of my favorite things, which is exercise prescription, and form, and the how's, why's, and what if's basically of the kettlebell swing. Before we do that though, I just want to thank you all for being members and for subscribing. I love the interaction with you guys. This is literally why I do this every every week.
Dr. JJ Thomas:So happy to have you here. And if you haven't already subscribed, just go ahead and hit that button so you don't miss out on future content. Let's get into today. The kettlebell swing. Why let's start with the why of the kettlebell swing.
Dr. JJ Thomas:Why is the kettlebell swing one of the best exercises you can do hands down for your body? There's a couple reasons. Number 1, it is one of those exercises that will get your glutes engaged when done correctly. Right? How many of us have been to PT before, or have gone with a personal trainer, and you hear these words, your glutes aren't firing.
Dr. JJ Thomas:You have to engage your glutes. What does that mean? How do you make yourself do that? When you get the kettlebell swing form down, you will 100% train your glutes. And that is a very necessary thing because what do our glutes do?
Dr. JJ Thomas:They help us maintain upright posture, right? Glutes help trunk extend or hip extend. In fact, your glute max is a primary hip extender. Right? That's what gives us the nice toned tushies that we want to have on Instagram and everything else in our lives.
Dr. JJ Thomas:But, But regardless, so trunk extend or hip extend, that's the glutes primary responsibility. Also to stabilize in single leg stance. So if you're a runner, if you're anyone that runs for life, whether it's chasing your kids, or playing lacrosse, or playing soccer, some other sport. When you lift your leg, your glute medius and minimus will help you stabilize your pelvis in that single leg stance. So all of these muscles have to be, supported in a way where they will engage for you for daily life.
Dr. JJ Thomas:What else do we see the importance of glute firing in? Jumping, running, right? We're going to go through form in a minute, but when we teach jumping in our patients for better muscle recruitment, We teach them to get this position, right? Like the diver block, right? So if here's my box, and I'm going to jump up on the box.
Dr. JJ Thomas:I'm loading, I give my cues to my patients that I want you to pretend you're on a diving block, right? Don't I look like I'm going to swim? I'm not a really good swimmer. But this is my diving position, so loading like this. What you'll see when we go through the kettlebell swing is the kettlebell swing loading position is very similar.
Dr. JJ Thomas:So for instance, if we look at a box jump. Load, jump, land, stand. That's how I cue most of my early box jumps with people. There's a lot of different components to that. I think I'm actually going to go through the components of the jump later, but what I want you to understand right now is that the kettlebell swing will translate into very, into many areas of your functional life.
Dr. JJ Thomas:Whether it's for injury prevention or for spurts performance. On the injury prevention note, what I want to say what I wanted to make sure I mentioned is the other thing about kettlebell swings that relates to injury prevention is take, let's take ACL injuries for example. When we're rehabbing someone and we're getting ready to progress them towards more return to sport activities, running, really early on we're starting with bilateral jumping in order to progress towards a running activity for most of our athletes. A lot of the tests we do when we try to, when we evaluate if they're ready for jumping and running activities involve jumping. Right?
Dr. JJ Thomas:Either accelerating in the jump, loading stance, loading phase. So this is loading phase. Jumping phase, and then landing phase. Right? So one of the first things I look at is in a jump do they load like this in a hip hinge pattern?
Dr. JJ Thomas:Which by the way is what we're going to teach you in the kettlebell swing. Or do they load like this in a more quad dominant pattern and they're not getting In this pattern we're engaging our quads much more. We're not getting our, our hip hinge, we're not getting our glute and trunk activation, which is where we're going to get our power. So it's been shown that ACL, injury prevention, one of the things that we need to stress is that hip dominant pattern when jumping. So this is something I look for on the loading phase.
Dr. JJ Thomas:On the landing phase, lots of us as physical therapists will look at the landing phase. This is called a depth drop. So we might just have them come down, and how do they land? Right? Are they landing like this in that same kind of loading posture that we want?
Dr. JJ Thomas:Or are they landing in like, not with their feet flat? Are they landing in a quad dominant pattern? Are they landing in valgus? This is something everybody knows to look for. Again, the glutes abduct the femur, or maintain hip position when there's load.
Dr. JJ Thomas:So if they're doing this, glutes are probably not doing what they need to. This is actually the kettlebell swing would actually be a great exercise to prep them for that loading and landing phase needed for, sports performance and injury prevention, like I said. So that's those are some of the, top reasons I love kettlebell swings. So glute activation, prep work or performance work for loading, jumping, running, agility activities like that. And the third reason is it's an excellent core stabilizer when you do it a certain way.
Dr. JJ Thomas:We're gonna go through that actually now. So right now, we're gonna go through a basic kettlebell swing. And I'm gonna talk through intermittently the form cues that I want you to think about when you're doing them. Okay? Don't worry, if you go to do this and you can't meet all these form criteria, I'm going to give you regressions of how to work yourself up to an excellent form kettlebell swing.
Dr. JJ Thomas:Alright. So I'm going to use the light weight first just as I warm up. So one of the first things we're looking for in an efficient kettlebell swing is that first initial. I call it the hike. Right?
Dr. JJ Thomas:So I usually start patients in a hip hinge posture because some of them will already start in this like very squatty kind of posture, or you know, too close to the kettlebell will encourage a more of a squat. If you look at my hip angle, it's more of a squat, then a leaning forward hip hinge angle. Right? So I have them hike it from here, and that's the exact cue I use. Is hiking this kettlebell as if I'm passing off a football.
Dr. JJ Thomas:Right? As if I'm feeding the quarterback. Before I actually hike this I want you to think about another couple things. One is I want them to have a I want you to have a flat back. So in order to have a flat back I usually encourage them to look in the mirror.
Dr. JJ Thomas:Now I know my neck is extended, but we should be strong enough to be able to have our spinal erector support our neck in this position. If I'm looking down, I'm more likely to have a rounded spine. See how even if I look at the kettlebell, I'm a little bit more rounded here. If I look up, my thoracic spine comes to neutral, my shoulder blades engage, and now I have a strong upper trunk. So eyes forward, arms straight to start.
Dr. JJ Thomas:Then I'm going to hike the bell. Right. I'm going to hike it like that. From a front view, I'm going to hike it so that there's no light coming through between my hands and my groin. So here, hike it.
Dr. JJ Thomas:Boom. Straight arms. I don't want them bending it. Straight arms, so that the pattern is core driven. Okay?
Dr. JJ Thomas:Spinal erectors are engaged to balance, which is perfect. They're gonna go from here in that hip hinge position, hike, no space. Right? So that's step number 3. So step number 1, kettlebell reaches far away in this nice hip hinge.
Dr. JJ Thomas:Step number 2, look up so that my back is flat. Step number 3: Hike the bell so that there's no space. Right? I stand and I show patients it'll look like this. No space between.
Dr. JJ Thomas:There's no light coming through. From there, the power comes from your hips. So you'll watch, I'll do a couple reps for you. As I power, arms are straight. All I'm going to do is power my hips and then the bell will come out a little bit.
Dr. JJ Thomas:If I'm doing this correctly, like I said, arms are straight. What the thing that's moving the bell out is my hips. Not my arms. So we're gonna talk through those compensations as well. So here's what a couple of reps look like.
Dr. JJ Thomas:So we're here, I'm reaching, I look up. That sits my butt back, flattens out my back. I'm gonna hike, pop. Hike, pop. Hike, pop.
Dr. JJ Thomas:Hike, pop. We'll show a side view. We'll go a little heavier. So you can see the power a little bit better. So side view, same position.
Dr. JJ Thomas:Hip hinge. Eyes forward. I'm gonna hike, pop, hike, pop, hike, pop, hike, pop. So we're going to go through some comments, some some what to avoid in a little bit. But what you'll notice is arms stay straight, hands go right like I'm hiking every time, and then I pop and the power comes from my hips.
Dr. JJ Thomas:I guess we'll talk about the squat now. What I don't want, and I'm going to use a layer one so I don't hurt myself here. There's a couple things in those first phases. I'm just going to go through 1 by 1. Couple things I see is that people will tend to not get that space.
Dr. JJ Thomas:So they'll be here. The bell will not get back. They feel awkward with this because they can't they don't feel the feedback through the power through their hips. So if you're doing this and the bell there's any space in between. See how there's light coming through now?
Dr. JJ Thomas:That is not good. And you can see even though I know what good form is, when I do that I tend to end up leaning back. To get the bell up you end up going like this. If you look at a side view, you'll see at the top my shoulders are behind my hips here. We don't want that.
Dr. JJ Thomas:So, if you have space below, you're going to end up squatting, first of all. And you're going to end up leaning back. That is not giving you all the goals that you want. That is not giving you the right glute activation pattern you want. It's not giving you the explosion you need for running and jumping.
Dr. JJ Thomas:It's not giving you the correct landing pattern. What I mean by that is at the top of the kettlebell swing when done correctly it's an excellent core stabilizer. Think of it as a block at the top. So we're going to get power through the hips with all the good form cues we talked about. At the top now we're going to say, Block the bell.
Dr. JJ Thomas:And if you're doing it correctly your abs will engage, your ribs will come down for those of you who know you might have rib flare. Your ribs will come down, and you will integrate the upper trunk and lower trunk in the same way that you need for lots of high level activities in life. So let's go through that. So keep the bell high. Pop, block.
Dr. JJ Thomas:Pop, block. Pop, block. As opposed to lean. See the difference? Lean.
Dr. JJ Thomas:I'm gonna go sideways so you can see my if I'm leaning back and I'm not blocking it, that number 1 is gonna hurt your back because you're not using the power muscles. Your glutes are your power muscles. Number 2, you're just not getting what you need out of it, including that core firing pattern at the top. If you get the rhythm where you're getting this strong, powerful hip extension, and then you're blocking it at the top with ribs down, and posture in that nice alignment that we're talking about here your core stability patterns it's like doing a powerful plank again, and again, and again, and again. Your body will learn that core stability position, and it will serve you so well in life.
Dr. JJ Thomas:So let's go through what that looks like with that last piece of the things to pay attention to. So, going through the steps again. Step 1 is have the bell start far away from you. Step 2 is look forward. That drops my hips just a little, and keeps my back flat.
Dr. JJ Thomas:Step 3 is going to be hike the bell so that there's no light coming through. Step 4 is going to be power the glutes so that they're doing the work. Step 5 is block the bell at the top. So that core now has to decelerate all that explosion that you created from your hips, right? It's all kinetic energy.
Dr. JJ Thomas:Power. Block. Power. Block. So that's what it looks like.
Dr. JJ Thomas:Here's what it looks like. So we're here. Boom. Boom. Boom.
Dr. JJ Thomas:Boom. Boom. Like that. So my bell, you can see my arms are powerfully blocking it. The momentum of my bell is going up just a little bit, but for the most part I have it blocked.
Dr. JJ Thomas:Now, some of you who train in the gym regularly might be saying, Well JJ, what about snatches? What about American swings? Those are also they're a progression of the kettlebell swing. Right? I would say the key with those is to make sure that you're still able to do that block.
Dr. JJ Thomas:So if you're going overhead with your swings this is just a side note if you're going overhead with your swings, you still want that block where the ribs and the pelvis meet. Instead of this, because if you do this you're gonna be in our office on Monday, or whatever day. You know within 2 days you're gonna be in you're gonna be in our office. So let's go through that real quick just for those of you are interested. So this will go overhead.
Dr. JJ Thomas:So here, engage. Eyes forward, pop, block, pop, block, pop, block, Block. So that's what I want you to look for. Those main form cues are what I want you to focus on when you start to train these moves on your own. If so if you're struggling, if I've given you those cues and you're like I hear you JJ, and you're looking in the mirror, and you have your friend checking your form, and you video yourself maybe, and look at all the hit a checklist literally of all those things.
Dr. JJ Thomas:If you're able to hit them, go baby, go. Progress up the weight. Do what you can. If you find that you're lacking in any one of those areas, it would definitely behoove you to regress the motion so that you can own the motion, and really get the most out of it. So we're gonna go through some regressions of that now.
Dr. JJ Thomas:This is the this is the we did the why because it's awesome, and lots of reasons. Now we're doing the how, right? So the how to do this, the first regression that I'll give is a traditional kettlebell swing, but we're going to break it down into, basically one swing at a time. So the way I coach this is still focusing on all those form patterns, right? So we're getting that hip hinge, we're getting, our eyes forward, we're making sure the bell is far enough that I have to reach.
Dr. JJ Thomas:Right? Because if it's here I might tend to squat. But if it's nice and far out I'm not I'm going to basically avoid that squat. And then what we're going to do is we're going to train 1 single rep at a time. And in doing so we're going to replace the Bell back out there which is going to encourage the continuation of that hip hinge which is what we need.
Dr. JJ Thomas:So it will look like this. So you'll hike, pop. Hike, set it back. It's just almost too light for me to show you the power. So here again.
Dr. JJ Thomas:So eyes up. We're gonna hike, pop. Hike, return. Hike, pop, hike, return. Now, I'm not saying the block, but I'm doing the block.
Dr. JJ Thomas:When I have my patients, I'll start with hike, pop, hike, pop, hike, return. And then as they start to get that, I'll give them the block cue. So, here. Hike, pop. Hike, return.
Dr. JJ Thomas:Pop, block. Pop, block. Pop, block. Like that. So once they show the single, or you, show the single rep with good form, then we can start stringing maybe 2, maybe 3 together, and start cueing that block.
Dr. JJ Thomas:And the block remember will keep your back safe. Well there's 2 main things that keep your back safe. 1 is the hinge pattern because if you're a squatty pattern then the bell is pulling your back like this. And that is definitely gonna land you in here. The second thing is that block, so you don't end up in this position.
Dr. JJ Thomas:You've got to block it like a plank. So that's variation number 1 is progressive single reps, returning to the start each time, or starting to string a few reps together focusing on the block at each one. If you still struggle with the form on those then there are other options. What we're going to do is you can take a band, tie it around something, like a big super band will work. You can get these on Amazon.
Dr. JJ Thomas:You're gonna straddle the band. You're gonna, grip grip the band like a baseball bat. Okay. You're gonna walk out until there's tension on the band, and your hands and come this way, and your hands are exactly what like we talked about. So your hands are not letting any air, not letting any light through, and then you're gonna let the band I'm gonna pull more resistance pull you back, so you get that loading feeling again.
Dr. JJ Thomas:Now remember this This position is just like jumping. You can see it now. Right? I'm gonna use the heavier one again so you can see. So here, I'm gonna grab it like a baseball bat.
Dr. JJ Thomas:I'm gonna walk out so there's tension. I'm letting it pull me into that hip hinge pattern, and then I'm exploding that one was strong. I'm exploding through my glutes. Explode, explode. So this is a great this is a variation that I do a lot with my patients early on.
Dr. JJ Thomas:So we're here loading. Eyes are forward. The cues are all the same, explode. Let it pull me back like a quarterback, explode. Alright?
Dr. JJ Thomas:So that's that. If you try that and you're like, I own that, JJ. That's all me. There's another variation, or you're like, I feel weird with that one. I don't have a band.
Dr. JJ Thomas:Whatever. I'm I'm gonna give you another variation. So the other variation we can do is we can take that hip hinge pattern and train it in half kneel. So the beauty of that actually this weight may not be enough but I'll show you. So half kneel like this.
Dr. JJ Thomas:Remember what I said? Essentially, the kettlebell swing, the jumping, and I may not have said this yet, but the deadlift are all actually the same position. The same angle, the same muscle recruitment. Just in different speeds, capacities, etc. So we're actually going to do like a deadlift to a clean in half kneel in order to incorporate that same hip hinge pattern.
Dr. JJ Thomas:So it's here. You're going to do it, you're going to reach the dumbbell on the side that the leg is down. And then you're going to explode up. Come down. Explode up.
Dr. JJ Thomas:Come down. Explode up. So you can see I'm getting hip hinge here. I'm also getting single leg. I'll switch sides.
Dr. JJ Thomas:Explosion on the front leg. So here, explode. Here, explode. My eyes should be forward. Explode.
Dr. JJ Thomas:Explode. Okay. So that's another variation where sometimes people struggle with like making sure every joint is in alignment, and those first couple exercises I gave you, the cues I give do a really good job usually of helping people find that hip position. But if you're struggling with it, you may wanna take the ankles out of it and go to this half kneel position. So that's another option for you.
Dr. JJ Thomas:The other option I wanna give you is we talked about it earlier. We alluded to it earlier. Is training the jumping pattern. So we're gonna break down the jump now. So to train the jumping pattern there's a couple things just like the kettlebell swing that I want you to focus on.
Dr. JJ Thomas:One is the loading position. Like I said, anytime you jump, especially in a Box Jump. I want you to load in this hip hinge pattern. I don't want you to load like this. I don't want you to load like this.
Dr. JJ Thomas:People do this when they have tight ankles. I want you to really focus on that feet flat, hip hinge position. Now we're going to use our glutes and arm speed to power up. Right? From here, land.
Dr. JJ Thomas:Now this is the other piece I want to focus on, because people that don't have really powerful glutes often bottom out at the top of the squat. So it'll look like this. And then they come up. Sorry if you lost me in frame. So another component of training the glutes is gonna be to stick it.
Dr. JJ Thomas:So load, jump, stick. Then stand. So then you're getting another sort of deadlifty squat thing. But, load. Stick it.
Dr. JJ Thomas:Stand. And then come down. So that's how I would have you train, train the jump. You can also train the drop. So as we talked about the depth drops earlier, you can train yourself to land in the hip hinge.
Dr. JJ Thomas:So now we're decelerating the motion. So just falling off. Make sure you're landing in a position that that hip can, tolerate in. I'm going to try to give a side view. I had my arms up so you could see, but actually I would prefer to show with the arms as if I was going to jump again.
Dr. JJ Thomas:And then the progression of that would be to actually jump again. So you could go depth drop here. Each time landing in that position, which if you remember is the same hip and knee angle and trunk angle as the kettlebell swing. So a lot of content. A lot of information.
Dr. JJ Thomas:When you start putting into practice you'll see the trends are, really quite remarkable. And when you train with this type of focus in each of these exercises, or at least the kettlebell swing in and of itself, you'll find a lot of power and, even mobility will open up. Because as your body starts to use its muscles the way they're intended to be used for power and explosion, your body will essentially reward you. Your body will give you mobility because now it knows, you know what? You're working really efficiently.
Dr. JJ Thomas:You're using your body effectively. I'm now going to allow you to have hip mobility because I know you can control it. Whereas a lot of the compensations that happen, happen for two reasons. People are tight, but really rewinding that back one more step. It's that they're tight because they're not really recruiting the way they need to.
Dr. JJ Thomas:So if your hips are tight, don't be intimidated by your tight hips. Regress these postures. Use them. And, let me know. Reach out.
Dr. JJ Thomas:As always, if you have any questions, this is what it's all about. Everybody, talk to you soon.