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How to Build Muscle with Kettlebells

how to build muscle with kettlebells

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Kettlebell exercises are great for building muscle and adding some mass to your frame. They are effective and easy to follow. Grab a pair of weights and get ready to build muscle with kettlebells.

5 Key Aspects to Building Muscle with Kettlebells

Muscle building with kettlebells is not a complicated process, you need to do many kettlebell exercises and follow simple instructions. Listed below are five of the most important aspects of building more muscle mass with kettlebells in the most efficient manner.

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1) Use The Correct Weight:

More often than not people assume that 5 or 10-lb kettlebells are good enough for a beginner kettlebell workout. However, this is not at all the case, if you go too light you are simply wasting your time going through the movements. When you use the right weight for your kettlebell workouts, you are making sure you have the most efficient and complete workout possible.

It is crucial to challenge yourself during kettlebell workouts, to do so safely you must pick a decent weight to work out with, the sweet spot for most women is 10-25 lb kettlebells, and for men, it’s 25-45 lb. Anything under this, you probably won’t break a sweat using them and you’ll just be doing the movements with no real benefit.

Remember, will is important but the ability is crucial. Challenging yourself is important but there is always a limit to the amount of utility you get from a particular number slapped onto a piece of equipment. If it occurs that you are sacrificing form to lift a certain amount, you are outweighing any benefit that you could get with the risk of injury.

If you see a heavier kettlebell that you want to swing around majestically, you must first master the lighter ones and gain all the benefits you could get. The pride of ego lifting will never outweigh the regret of getting injured because of a foolish decision.

Find weight that you can control and stop the set when your form starts to take a toll, if you want to burn more calories and push yourself a little harder, try implementing drop-sets with good form to achieve absolute failure.

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2) Good Form

Exercising with kettlebells requires both muscle balance and a lot of explosive movements, and because of this, you can easily compromise on good form during exercise. Therefore it is important to understand what good form is for each exercise and also to remain mindful during it so injuries may be avoided.

For the most part of exercising with kettlebells is that you must keep your knees bent and your back straight, especially the lower back as it is a more sensitive part of the spine that can be easily injured if loaded incorrectly.

As most of the kettlebell swing exercises require a hinge or a bending down manner at the bottom of the standing position, like kettlebell swing and kettlebell deadlift, the lower back is prone to bend sometimes.

You should try to avoid this by creating a good mind-muscle connection and also by bracing properly by keeping your core and glutes engaged and flexed throughout the movement.

Ensuring good form will keep multiple muscles in your entire posterior chain strong and also increase your functional strength.

Make sure you keep your spine straight by squeezing your stabilizer muscles like your core and glutes to help you perform the correct reps of each exercise.

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3) Training Hard

Like with all kinds of resistance training and even bodyweight training, kettlebell training too requires you to train hard and take your sets to or close to muscular failure. Muscle-building exercises require you to train hard, whether you prefer to build muscle with kettlebells of low weight and high reps, or high weight and low reps.

Without training hard, your muscular endurance will remain the same and, when you train hard you are boosting testosterone levels in the body and you create microscopic tears in your muscle tissue, when your body repairs this by using digested protein, the torn muscle gains size when it is recovered. After this process, you repeat after complete recovery.

Implement all different kinds of kettlebell exercises to make your training better like single and double kettlebell exercises to stimulate muscle growth and fix any muscle imbalances. Including a cardio workout like kettlebell circuits are also great for training harder!

Whether your goal is building muscle, losing fat, or fixing muscle imbalances, training all your muscle groups hard with free weights is key to achieving your goals as quickly as possible.

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4) Employ Progressive Overload

Just like with any other exercise or weighted resistance equipment, performing progressive overload is absolutely necessary to avoid injury and to make the most out of your workouts. The same applies to kettlebell training!

For the average male, 25-45 lbs is the perfect weight to start kettlebell training in an efficient manner with proper form. For females, it is around 10-25 lbs. Once you are familiar with the movement patterns, only then should you increase the weight you use.

Progressive overload will make sure you are continuously improving whether your measure of improvement is increased strength, that is, being able to lift more or being able to perform more sets and reps, meaning your muscular endurance has improved.

5) Choose A Good Program

Choosing the best kettlebell exercises to build muscle will differ for everyone depending on their body type, fitness goals, and experience.

However, having a solid workout program is what will set you apart from other beginners, this will ensure you hold yourself accountable throughout the 6-8 weeks of the program. It also ensures longevity in your fitness journey as a good program will help you see decent progress in losing weight within the first few weeks.

Make sure you choose a program with exercises like kettlebell swings and kettlebell snatches. Movement patterns like the kettlebell single-leg deadlifts, kettlebell clean, kettlebell rows, kettlebell military press, the goblet squat, squats, and other kettlebell overhead exercises all make a good program.

You should also choose a program that uses double kettlebell exercises which use two kettlebells like the double kettlebell snatch or one or two kettlebells clean.

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Kettlebell Workouts Will: Train You to Move Better and Be a Better Athlete

Kettlebells are arguably one of the best pieces of equipment to strengthen your athletic skills, making sure you bring your ‘A’ game during whatever your sport is, whether it’s sprinting or grappling. Other than improving in your sport, kettlebells bring many other great benefits that include:

  • Improved endurance

  • Better grip strength

  • Lower and upper body explosiveness

  • Full body mobility

  • Core strength training

  • Full body workout in a short time

With such a wide plethora of benefits and advantages to what kettlebell complexes offer over other equipment, it is hard to pass on this absolute bargain of a deal. It should remind you that you can have a great full-body workout with minimal rest using just one kettlebell.

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The Importance of Good Nutrition While Building Muscle

A perfect training routine and program, training three times a week, and taking all your reps and sets to failure will only take you so far. Without a good diet, you cannot lose weight and cannot build muscle, muscle growth requires you to have a solid intake of good food which are solid sources of protein.

It is recommended to take at least 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight or 2 grams of protein per kilogram of your body weight. This is the perfect amount of protein that you should implement in your diet, alongside a decent amount of carbs to fuel your workout routine and also some healthy fats.

It is important to keep a balance between your high-protein diet and also your intense training sessions, you should not prioritize one over the other, but rather keep both maintained simultaneously. For maximum efficiency, you should take all of the factors into consideration.

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Take Recovery Seriously

Getting good quality sleep and prioritizing recovery is just as important as training hard and having a good diet. Without proper recovery your muscles will never recover and gain any size, rather they will continue to tear if you overtrain. If you continuously overtrain your upper body exercises, you will be prone to injury which could further hinder any progress you have made.

Make sure to sleep 8 hours a day and also take 1-2 rest days every week, a good equation for rest is that you should not train a muscle group again without a 48-hour rest period. Thus proving that without a good amount of rest, your kettlebell training will be in vain.

Cold Therapy, CBD, Massage Guns, and More

There are so many ways these days to take active steps to take recovery more seriously. It is a must if you plan on building muscle or plan on working out in a way that boosts your athletic performance in your respective sport. Cold plunging is a great way to relax the muscles after intense exercise. many athletes have been using ice baths for years now to get their body to its peak, recent studies have shown that cold plunging is an active form of recovery many should be implementing into their routine today. Find all the information on cold therapy you need to be informed about the practice here.

CBD

CBD is great for those that have muscle soreness from exercise. Applying just a little bit of CBD cream on your joints or on aching muscles can speed up recovery times and get you back to exercising to build muscle.

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