THIS is the one thing Kettlebells can't do ((maybe))

Kettlebells are the best tool ever.
Where is the lie?
I was always taught to be wary of absolutes.
Ironically, "never use absolutes" is an absolute.

What, if anything, is missing from your Kettlebell Training?

That's the juicy topic we are going to dive into today. 

I was talking to another friend/kettlebell coach today about this topic. They insisted kettlebells are the best thing ever and can give you a full at home workout. I don't disagree, but I strongly feel like that ignores nan obvious limitation. My friend asked me, “What is it that Kettlebells don’t have that you’re worried about? is it really THAT important to you?”

Yes, yes it is. 

There is nothing quite like lifting up your own body weight. 

You may have felt a similar high before, after a snowboard run, a jog outside, or some other activity that has made you feel invincible in the past…

Speaking of invincibility, who wouldn’t want to know that if they were in a superhero action movie and got pushed off a building by their arch-nemesis they would be able to hang on?

You’d likely have to grip the ledge anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes while the villain gave their "this is your end" speech. Then you'd pull yourself back up onto the building and take them out.

Could you do it? Hang on for 30 seconds? How about 60 seconds? 2 minutes?

Although that scenario ~may~ not ever happen to you, let's talk about why bar work (referring to the pull-up bar) is important. 

There are certain movement patterns in fitness:

• Push - ex: pushup, bench press, overhead press

• Pull- ex: bent over row, pull-ups

• Squat -including single leg variations like lunges

• Hinge

• Rotate

• Gait

Any exercises you could possibly do in fitness, likely falls under one of these movement pattern umbrellas. In a well-rounded workout program, you'd ideally have all of these movement patterns. If your program is full body, like Bedoya Bells is, you'd hit them all in one program cycle. If your program has a more narrow focus or goal, you might emphasize deadlifts and overhead press one cycle and another movement pattern the next.

Then there are fitness classes, in many of these classes,  we end up doing the "push" movement pattern far more than we pull, especially for the upper body. Think about how glorified pushups and bench presses are in fitness. When we push more than pull - the chest, shoulders, and tris become overdeveloped in relation to your back muscles leading to postural imbalances and an increased risk of injury. 

So we’ve established that upper body pulling exercises are important for overall muscular balance, posture, and shoulder health. A phrase that has always stuck with me is, 

“To be strong, build the muscle you can’t see” 

AKA, “Build a Back”

Think of the muscles you can’t see: 

• Your calves

• Your hamstrings

• Your glutes (powerhouse of the body)

• Your back (rhomboids, traps, and lats)

• & all the shoulder muscles back there

The muscles "behind us" are a big driver of overall body alignment, help support your spine, and improve overall stability and strength.

How do we make sure we are balancing out our training and not neglecting them? 

Do we just "pull" more?

Ahhhh, now we are getting somewhere. 

There are two types of pulls: horizontal and vertical. A row is an example of a horizontal pull and a pull-up is an example of a vertical pull. 

We accomplish lots of rowing in Kettlebells with bent over rows, renegade rows, gorilla rows, the list goes on. We also get this type of movement in some sneaky other places: think high pulls, cleans, those little motions. 

On the other hand, vertical pulls are harder to achieve in Kettlebells. In fact, I'd argue that most kettlebell athletes never truly work a vertical pull motion. (that's a pretty bold statement,  Nicole .) If you did attempt to vertical pull,  you might feel like you unlocked a whole new world of training. 

Not all kettlebell practitioners agree.

Many stand by a snatch being a vertical pull, a fair argument...

Others say that the row type (horizontal or vertical) doesn't matter, and that kettlebell rows are good enough...

Other say that the "lat engagment" in a kettlebell swing is more than enough to work those back muscles...

It's even been thrown around that the "ab roller" will give you a similar carry over...

I don’t think any of these things hold a candle to a true vertical pull. Vertical pulls include:

• Chin-ups

• Assisted pull-ups & regular pull-ups

• Banded lat pulldowns / lat pulldown machine 

• Various Other Pulldowns -neutral grip, one arm cable pulldown

In our workouts, we want a mix of horizontal and vertical pulling exercises to work the back. While pull-ups and rows essentially work the same mid and upper back muscles (back, bicep, core)...

• they have slightly different focuses (pullups - more latissimus dorsi, rows - more trapezius/rhomboids) and

• work them in different degrees and from different angles. 

Including a variety helps ensure all your back muscles are being worked properly. So for all the above reasons, part of me wants to scream to my kettlebell athletes from the rooftops:

“GO GET A PULL UP BAR, BUILD A BACK, SAVE YOURSELF FROM HANGING OFF BUILDINGS…IT’S SO FUN!”

If you’ve been playing with kettlebells for sometime now, I double doggy dare you to test your strength with a pull-up bar. No matter what variation you choose (more on ways to get started below), it is a HUMBLING experience. And I know you’re ALWAYS hungry for a challenge. 

That said, there are a couple caveats:

• Overhead mobility is a privilege not a right. I see so many people unable to do a simple overhead press without extreme compensations (like their shoulder pulling up to their ear) but they will see a pull-up bar and without warming up start to pump out reps like it’s their job… You should not be doing any vertical pattern without first assessing your overhead mobility/stability and making sure the range of motion is safe for you. For some people, they will never vertically press or pull, and that is the safest and best option for them!

• Those with past injuries that are at higher risk of injury going overhead should avoid this movement pattern or only work it in with their physical therapist. In this case, the horizontal row IS the best or only option. 

• The best place to start is with horizontal rows, it’s accessible and teaches you proper core stability, strength and alignments

• Form comes first. If you only feel a “pull” in your lower back, then it may be a signal that your back/core muscles are still a little weak, the lower back is tight, or your form is off somehow. 

You might be convinced. You might be sitting there saying, "Ok, Nicole, I'll bite. How do you get started on the bar?" Here are drills that will build your vertical pull strength, increase your shoulder stability, and give you a full body challenge. 

NICOLE'S GUIDE TO YOUR FIRST BODYWEIGHT PULL-UPS


TO START: Hang from the bar in what is called an “active hang.” Build up to 30 seconds, then 1 minute and then just keep building your holds. 

Active Hang means that you are not just dangling, you're "Actively" moving your shoulders away from your ears and "sticking them in your back pocket"

NEXT,  you can start to move from passive to active on repeat. These are called "scapular pull-ups" and use a small range of motion to start to grease the shoulders and engage the right muscles.

The scapula themselves are winged bones. The initial start of scapular retraction – the act of bringing your shoulders back and chest out - is how the pull up is started. 

During this initial phase of building your grip strength and time on the bar, I'd also sprinkle in some banded lat pull downs. This is a great way to get use to your shoulder blades moving in this way. 

I love to play with the tempo of this movement and hold at the bottom for 3 seconds and then slowly let the band come back up. Make sure you have tension on the band the whole time, even when the arms are fully extended.

There are machines for this in the gym, but since most of us with kettlebells are training from home - I felt the banded version would be most helpful. You can loop your band onto a pull-up bar or find a creative way to anchor it in your door.

Once you're ready to play with the bar more - there are a variety of ways you could approach it to keep training fun:

Negative Pull-Ups where you use assistance to get up to the bar because you are only focusing on the lowering phase. Lower down slow and smooth. 

image credit: Nerd Fitness

Band assisted pull-ups use a pull up band to support you through the sticky points of your pull-ups.

Every once in awhile in the fitness industry there is a huge backlash against a certain movement. Band Assisted Pull-ups took a lot of fire not too long ago for not being the most direct way to get a pull-up. Trainers argued that no bands should "ever" be used on the journey to a pull-up. 

Well, you know how I feel about "absolutes." In truth, bands are a brilliant way for beginners to start to achieve 5 assisted reps when body weight reps are still just out-of-reach. Bands help you continue gaining strength. I use them in my own training and it's made a huge difference. 

I recommend not OVER using bands - as in throwing on 3 bands when you really only need one to bang out those 5 reps. 

ProTip: Come all the way back down in each rep to hit full range of motion. 

Last but not least, 

Chin ups are a little easier (or a lot easier) than pull-ups and can be a big confidence builder on the bar. 

In a pull-up, your hands are a bit wider and facing AWAY from you. The increased distance of your hands and the muscles involved make pull-ups seems nearly impossible for first-timers.

With chin-ups, your hands face towards you and are closer together (shoulder-width). Generally speaking, this hand placement relies less on shoulder mobility and stability and you can draw a bit more strength from your biceps. 

While these two are different movements and shouldn't be interchanged on a whim, they do compliment each other and you can help out your back gains getting you closer to your pull-up strength.

IN CONCLUSION 

Is it going to be the worst thing in the world if you never develop your pull-up/chin-p strength? No! 

But do I hope you're a little bit more curious about what you might be missing out on? For sure!

I got my pull-up bar in 2020 at the start of lock-down. It hung in my NYC studio apartment in the kitchen of all places.

I used it a total of zero times because the kitchen was so incredibly tiny, and I didn't trust the doorframe to not fall off.

When we moved to Colorado and set up the garage gym is when I first really started developing my vertical pull strength. 

I'm obsessed. My back muscles are more defined and popping than ever before. My increased shoulder stability and back strength is translating over to almost everything I do in Kettlebells, and the happy dance I did when I finally did my first body weight pull-up was a moment of pure joy. 

Remember, it's never too late (an absolute I fully support). We all started some way, somehow, with the idea that, maybe...just maybe...we could do it too!

If you've gotten this far, thank you for being here! Maybe this sparked a renewed fire for your pull-up journey. If you have any questions, follow-up with me.