Hey there…

Glad you’re back.

Hope you had a chance to read the last few posts.  If not, do your best to take a few moments and read a couple of the latest editions. Just scroll down the page and take in the information.

All of the information written here at www.LoseTheKneePain.com will no doubt prove to be beneficial for you at some point in your knee pain journey.  Each post is a continuation of the last so do your best to stay updated.  This will help keep you on track, get you more educated about your knee pain and the options available to you and provide a source of inspiration and motivation to keep you moving forward as you attempt to lose your knee pain.

Now, let’s get after it…

How ’bout them kettlebells?

You gotta love what a kettlebell does for the body, especially those of us who suffer knee pain.

What’s that you say?…

You’ve never heard of a kettleball?

Well lets catch you up to speed.

Firstly, the implement of discussion is called a kettlebell not kettleball.  I know it looks kinda like a cannon ball with a handle on it, but it’s correct pronunciation is kettlebell.

Funny about the cannon ball reference, one theory behind the origin of kettlebells is that the Russian artillery soldiers stuck a handle on a cannon ball to help them develop strength, power and stamina to load canon balls in the heat of the battle.

I’m not sure there’s a clear connection to the origin of the kettlebell.  One thing is for certain though, the kettlebell has been a tool used by many branches of military, police, strongmen, wrestlers, professional and Olympic athletes and even ordinary Joe’s throughout Russian history dating back to the early 1700′s.

What makes the kettlebell so different from a dumbbell is where the center of gravity or mass exists.  With a dumbbell, the center of mass is in the middle of the handle.  With a kettlebell, the center of mass is beyond the handle and centered in the core of the bell.  This design allows for swing movements which cannot be replicated as efficiently and effectively with a dumbbell.

Because of the kettlebells’ design and featured handle or horn, swinging movements create more muscle fiber activation to perform and control the movements.  This is unique to the kettlebell and extremely important since the added activation is happening in the stabilizer and posterior chain muscle groups.

Why is this important to you?

Glad you asked.  The reason this is so important is because the stabilizer and posterior chain muscles of the body are often weak, inactive and inefficient at doing their job.  The reason for this is because we sit too much, we move about the world with poor posture and we perform repetitive movements more often than we should.

All of these cultural realities are the recipe for back pain, shoulder pain and you guessed it…knee pain.

In my own personal workouts, I use a variety of movements and tools to keep me in shape and pain free.

Here’s a sample week for me:

Monday

Barbell deadlifts

Decline push ups

Dumbbell Front Squats

Dumbbell bent over lateral raise

Various body weight movements

Tuesday

All body weight exercises like the monster walk, inchworm, ankle walks, body weight rows, wall squats, single leg reaching dead lift, gorilla, panther and many others.

Wednesday

This is kettlebell day.  Movements like the clean, swing, snatch and turkish get up along with a variety of body weight movements encompass Wednesday’s workout.

Thursday

The workout for Thursday is determined on Thursday morning and is dependent on how well my body has recovered from the previous workouts.  If I feel strong and energetic I’ll go back to dead lifting or rack pulls along with kettlebell push presses and kettlebell shoulder loaded movements like the:

Kettlebell shoulder loaded monster walk

Kettlebell shoulder loaded lateral lunge

Kettlebell shoulder loaded reverse lunge

Rack Squats

Windmills (one of my fav’s)  ———————————————————->

Friday

If Thursday was an off day for me because I was still in recovery mode, I’ll do the above workout on Friday instead.  I’ll spend Thursday in the sauna, stretching, performing mobility work and completing a few total body movements to keep me limber and get the blood flowing to help speed recovery.

Otherwise, Friday is everything goes day.  Whatever I missed out on during the week I’ll throw into Friday’s workout.  Exercises like:

Dumbbell Rows

Chin ups

Renegade Rows

Lots of abdominal and core strengthening exercises

Kettlebell Single leg dead lifts ——————>

Push up variations since I love push ups so much.

You will find plenty of kettlebell exercises with complete written,  audio and video descriptions including still photos in the Knee Pain Solutions program.  Get your copy and start learning about the kettlebell and all the benefits using it has for you.

Hey…it’s Friday and wanna get some kettlebell exercises done that I missed during the week along with my favorite new push up variation, the close grip push up.  So have a great weekend and we’ll talk next week.

I have a bunch of great information and tactics scheduled for you next week to help you win the knee pain battle so stay tuned.

Until next time…

Get strong and stay strong,

Rochelle Gravance

PS- Don’t forget to keep me updated on your progress by posting a comment below.  Thanks…