One Arm Kettlebell Swing
Kettlebell Swing, but only one arm at a time
As with the traditional Kettlebell Swing, it too works your lower body, core, shoulders, back, and activates the strongest joint in your body – the hip. This is an excellent progression from the standard kettlebell swing, can add a fun and challenging component, and can be built further to more difficult and complex exercises.
Key Points
The one-arm kettlebell bell swing is a variation of the traditional kettlebell swing . This particular variation does the same movement as the kettlebell swing, just uses one arm at a time. The benefit to this is three-fold.
Benefit #1
You require your core to do more work to stabilize and keep a straight trajectory. This helps strengthen the lumbar and abdominal muscles in a different way than the traditional kettlebell swing.
Benefit #2
You are placing particular emphasis on one shoulder and back muscle and it is trained differently.
Benefit #3
You promote symmetrical development by doing the same amount of reps per side, ensuring you are placing the same effort rather than doing both sides at the same time.
Movement
Just like with the two-arm variation, you begin with your back almost parallel to the floor as shown in #1 and the kettlebell held by the handle. Then, make sure your knees always have a slight bend and your lower leg (calves) are straight as shown in circle #2. Make sure that your neck is straight and your head is in alignment. Try and make sure that there is no pressure in your neck at all times. I personally could’ve done a slightly better job in circle #1 by looking down a little and straightening my neck.
Make sure that there is full hip extension at the hip shown in circle #3, which will make the exercise that much more effective. Additionally, you have to keep your shoulder blades back and neck straight the entire time. You keep your one arm straight (never bent) and raise to parallel with the floor as in circle #4.
Muscles Worked
The one-arm variation incorporates a few more stabilizer muscles (Obliques and more back emphasis) than the traditional kettlebell swing. Everything else is pretty similar.
Primary
Secondary
Conclusion & How to incorporate
An altered version of the Kettlebell Swing, the One-Arm Kettlebell Swing should be treated the same. Anywhere after the workout is great for the swing, as well as in between harder exercises such as the Kettlebell Snatch.
Similar Exercises
We encourage you to check out these other kettlebell exercises if you have not done so already.
