If you want to transform your body, build strength, improve your core stability and become better at pretty much any sport then you need to be swinging a kettlebell.
Last year I read about a guy undertaking the 100 kettlebell swing challenge.
He committed to doing 100 kettlebell swings every day for 100 days. That’s 5,000 kettlebell swings in total.
That got me thinking.
Will someone see a difference in their body if they were to solely swing a kettlebell 100 times a day?
Yes!
Especially if you are a beginner!
You can see some amazing differences in your body and your health with just 100 kettlebell swings a day, consistently.
If you are finding it difficult to find the time to do anything fitness-related, kettlebell swings are the perfect start to a ton of health benefits.
Even if you can’t do 100, starting on 50, or even 25 a day can do a world of good!
Now, For those that work a desk job, the idea of swinging a kettlebell a hundred times a day seems ludicrous.
However, if you’re a busy person that doesn’t have time to exercise every day but is still looking for a way to lose weight and get fit, then kettlebells can be an ideal solution.
Understandably, you may have a few questions about performing 100 kettlebell swings a day.
How do I perform a kettlebell swing?
Or, How long should 100 kettlebell swings take?
Should I do 100 kettlebell swings a day?
All of these answers are below, and more!
9 Benefits Of Kettlebell Swings
You’ve probably heard of kettlebell swings, but how much do you really know about them?
If you think they’re just a simple way to get into shape, think again!
Read on to find out how you can benefit from this workout staple, from building strength to improving your balance and more.
And if you don’t yet have the right kettlebell for the job, check out our guide to choosing the best kettlebells or give us a call; we can help you pick out the right one!
1. Kettlebell Swings Are A Full Body Workout
One benefit to doing kettlebell swings is that they’re an awesome full-body workout.
Sure they mainly use your posterior chain, but they’ll also engage your core, your arms, and most of your leg muscles at once, so they’re really not just a lower body workout.
This is great for overall fitness and for improving your athletic performance in sports or even just for tasks around the house or office.
You don’t need a ton of space to do them either, so if you have limited room in your home gym or live in a small apartment then kettlebells can work well for you too.
2. Kettlebell Swings Are Great For Cardio
Kettlebell swings are a great way to get your heart rate up, which is ideal for burning calories.
If you haven’t ever worked out with kettlebells before, it might be intimidating at first because they can look pretty heavy.
The truth is that they’re actually one of the more weight-efficient ways to work out:
A 15-lb kettlebell will provide you with a similar workout as a 35-lb dumbbell.
This means they give you optimal results while also keeping you safe and reducing the risk of injury by promoting proper form.
So if your goal is to lose weight and tone up while improving endurance, doing kettlebell swings may be just what you need!
Play it safe though and start with a lighter weight before moving to a heavier weight.
3. Kettlebell Swings Train Your Core Strength
When swinging a kettlebell, your core muscles have to work hard to keep you stable.
When performing swings with proper form, your lower back and abdominal muscles are contracting during each and every rep.
You’ll also feel these muscles working throughout your body during swings.
In fact, strong abdominals can help prevent back pain.
If you’re looking for an exercise that trains your core without crunches or sit-ups, try kettlebell swings.
4. Kettlebell Swings Burn Fat
When you swing a kettlebell, you’re recruiting multiple muscle groups in your legs, hips, and core at once.
When you put all your major muscle groups through work your body requires more energy, more calories.
In short, more muscle mass means more fat-burning potential.
The hip muscles—the glutes and hamstrings—are especially active as they lift your body to initiate each swing.
As you get stronger, kettlebell swings will also engage your back muscles as well, particularly if you switch from one-handed to two-handed swings or from neutral grip to underhand grip.
These back muscles can play a big role in fat loss since they’re largely responsible for pulling food into your stomach after meals.
You can also go a step further by doing full-body kettlebell exercises like snatches, which help strengthen all those muscles even more.
Check out this article on functional training with Kettlebells.
5. Kettlebell Swings Improve Posture
Many of us sit for long periods and experience chronic tension in our upper back and shoulders.
That muscle tension wreaks havoc on your posture, forcing you to compensate by hunching forward or sticking your butt out.
Once you start performing kettlebell swings regularly, however, those tight muscles will start to release and your form will improve dramatically.
You’ll be able to sit up straight without shifting around or tightening your back muscles; over time, you may even find yourself getting taller!
6. Kettlebell Swings Improve Mobility
Kettlebell swings and kettlebell training are excellent exercises for anyone who wants to improve their mobility.
Even if you work out every day, some days your muscles may not be up to par.
That’s when a kettlebell comes in handy.
Just 10 minutes a day can give you enough range of motion for most of your daily activities, especially since flexibility tends to go first as we age.
The simple up-and-down motion is gentle enough on your body that it won’t strain your joints or put too much pressure on them, so it’s great for seniors and those with limited mobility.
It also helps alleviate lower back pain, stiffness, and tightness without putting excess strain on any one part of your body as running does.
7. Kettlebell Swings Improve Muscle Endurance
The swing is a full-body exercise that requires your leg, core, and arm muscles to coordinate with each other to lift, swing, and move a weight through space.
It’s also repetitive, which means your body gets a lot of work in a short amount of time.
That can translate into gains in muscle endurance.
While kettlebell swings won’t make you ripped or take you down to single-digit body fat levels like some other exercises might, they do offer long-term benefits for overall health and wellbeing that include improved muscle endurance and conditioning.
8. Kettlebell Swings Improve Dynamic Balance
One benefit of kettlebell swings is that they improve balance.
Unlike some other strength training exercises, kettlebell swings aren’t performed on a flat surface, but rather on a balancing platform—your feet.
This means that as you swing a kettlebell up and down you have to make sure your center of gravity remains steady, which in turn helps improve your sense of balance.
Obviously, a better sense of balance can result in all kinds of benefits—from preventing injury while performing day-to-day tasks to simply feeling more confident while walking across slippery floors at home or out on the ice at work.
9. Kettlebell Swings Improve Grip Strength
Kettlebell swings are an effective way to increase grip strength because you have to maintain a stronghold on the kettlebell throughout each movement.
The muscles in your hands and forearms will be engaged from start to finish, leaving them sore and tired at times.
Even though kettlebell exercises primarily target your lower body, they will also challenge other areas including your chest, shoulders, triceps, and core.
With that being said, it’s important to not neglect hand and forearm exercises when working with a kettlebell.
Use finger crushes, hand squeezes, and wrist curls as an effective way to prevent injuries like tendonitis or carpal tunnel syndrome by improving circulation in those areas.
How Do I Perform A Kettlebell Swing Correctly?
The thing that I love about kettlebell swings is how simple they are to do, even for an exercise that works your whole body.
In 5 easy steps, you can understand how to perform a kettlebell swing with perfect form, without using the exercise as a squat followed by a front raise!
- First thing, start with your feet shoulder-width apart, with the kettlebell on the floor in front of you. Keeping your back flat, bend at the waist and grip the kettlebell handle of the kettlebell with two hands. Load the hips by keeping your feet flat and your knees behind your toes. You should start to feel the tension in your hamstrings here.
- From here, aggressively sweep the kettlebell between your legs using the tension in your lats. You can bend your knees slightly, but it is paramount that you are loading your weight behind your hips and hamstrings.
- After initiating the pendulum motion, drive the kettlebell forward with your hips and glutes (not your arms!) while straightening your knees at the same time, putting yourself in an upright position. Keep your shoulders loose to allow the kettlebell to swing.
- Here, we should be swinging the kettlebell to about chest height. Tense each muscle at the top of the swing.
- Allow the kettlebell to fall, while naturally sweeping it between your legs. Try to leave enough room between your groin and the kettlebell as this could cause some… painful accidents. Repeat steps 1-4 for each rep. Aim to do 3-4 sets of kettlebell swings, anywhere from 10-25 reps per set.
If you’re more of a visual learner, then check out my YouTube channel, Grizzly Functional Training.
I have A TON of videos about kettlebells and kettlebell swings, like this one below.
Will Kettlebell Swings Burn Fat?
Kettlebells have become renowned as an immense resistance training tool, and a kettlebell swing for 100 reps will most definitely raise your heart rate and fitness levels.
You may be wondering, though, whether kettlebell swings will increase calorie consumption or, in other words, burn that belly fat and get you shredded!
Due to the kettlebell’s center of gravity being outside of the handle, they engage more muscles to a greater extent than other pieces of equipment, allowing you to perform exercises that strengthen your muscles, target your core and melt away that fat.
Kettlebell swings are one of those exercises that do just that, and 100 repetitions a day consistently is going to start working those muscles, and with the right diet, get you in a calorie deficit.
Your fitness and oxygen intake will also increase exponentially, so the number of kettlebell swings you can do in a day will also increase, getting you in that lean shape you may desire!
How Long Should 100 Kettlebell Swings Take?
This is quite a difficult question to give one outright answer.
This completely depends on how experienced you are performing these exercises.
I am sure someone with a bit of experience, and a high fitness level, would be able to shoot out 100 kettlebell swings in 5 minutes, but most likely at the cost of form.
In my opinion, 100 kettlebell swings should take around 10 minutes. This is mainly due to time under tension.
If we truly want to increase our calorie output and increase muscle size, we want to be straining our muscles, and tensing all muscles at the climax of our swing.
Also, as a beginner, kettlebell swings are HARD. 100 kettlebell swings are going to be a tough job.
So, start by splitting it into sets of 10 or 20.
Each set could take about 5 minutes, so this workout will most likely take a complete beginner about 20-30 minutes to get the form right and complete every tiring swing.
This time will tend to decrease as you start to get into the “swing” of things…
Get it…
Okay, no more puns now.
What Is A Good Starting Weight For Kettlebell Swings?
It’s always best to start a little lighter than you might think because you can always do more reps!
And as you need to move up in weight you’re also going to need to keep your lighter weights for learning more advanced movements!
I recommend for females to start out with a 15lb Kettlebell it’s going to be good for you to learn the standard kettlebell swing and movements like squats and presses.
And for everyone that’s a bit more advanced with their training.
You should use a 25lb kettlebell 25lb. It’s going to give you a really effective workout and it’s a great weight for starting out with bicep curls as well.
Maybe you’re already a pretty competent lifter and want to move over into kettlebells to mix up your training.
I would still suggest starting out a little lighter than you might think.
You’re going to love progressing through more advanced movements than just doing super heavy kettlebell swings every day.
So gents. Start out with a 40lb kettlebell if you’re already pretty fit and strong.
And move up to 55lb once you are pretty confident with a wide variety of exercises.
When Should I Increase My Kettlebell Weight?
Simply speaking, you should increase the weight of your kettlebell when the 100 swings become a bit too easy.
If you are not aching like you used to, or even feeling the tension like before, time to upgrade the weight.
I would not recommend a drastic increase, especially with the number of reps we are outputting.
This can be costly to our form.
If we are leaning towards splitting our 100 swings into sets of 10 or 20, rather than all in one go, then the amount of weight we can handle will be a bit greater.
As you get stronger, this weight will also be able to increase a bit quicker than if we were doing the reps all in one go.
If you are not wanting to spend some big bucks on buying a new kettlebell every time you need to upgrade the weight, I recommend purchasing a set of kettlebells, or better still, an adjustable weight kettlebell.
This can save you A LOT of money in the long run, and work as milestones for your consistent, hard work.
Should I Do 100 Kettlebell Swings A Day?
If you haven’t guessed it yet, I’m a bit of an advocate for kettlebells, and kettlebell swings.
They are so versatile, you can do kettlebell swings at home or in the gym.
They work your whole body, get you, fitter, stronger and healthier.
They help to slow down your heart rate, making your oxygen intake per breath so much greater – this is so much more useful in day-to-day life than you think!
Should you be fitting kettlebell swings into your workout routine?
110%
Even if it isn’t 100 a day, at least do a few a day and you will see a noticeable amount of changes in as little as 30 days.
Decide to take on the challenge of 100 a day, and these health benefits will do nothing but amplify!
It is easy to look at kettlebells as being less than other exercises, but an exercise that works your whole body will leave you with barely any excuses to not train.
No time?
Kettlebell swings can be done in no time.
Can’t get to the gym?
Do kettlebell swings at home.
Not a lot of fitness knowledge?
Kettlebell swings are simple to learn.
Do you see what I mean?
You don’t need to do more in your workout to feel the same kind of intensity and burn, kettlebell swings are all that!
Takeaway – Will 100 Kettlebell Swings A Day Work?
By now, this article should have proved to you that 100 kettlebell swings a day will most definitely work. As I always say, being consistent with it, eating the right food, and staying hydrated and rested is also necessary, just getting started is a big positive!
If you want to read a little more about the differences between kettlebells and dumbbells check out this article I wrote recently on the topic.
Another thing kettlebell swings prove is that everyone can work out whenever and wherever even without a gym.
This is a message I truly believe in, even writing my own EBook, ‘Train Wherever The F*ck You Want’, which you can pick up for free!
Give this a read if you are fed up with commuting to a busy gym, and are ready to leap into working out from home.
You won’t regret it!