Kettlebell Training Needs Brain Power Too

Learning proper kettlebell technique, like any other skill, takes a lot more than muscle. Not only must your tendons and ligaments adapt to the new stresses, your brain and nervous system are heavily at work forging new mind-body connections or proprioceptions (body awareness or the sense that indicates whether the body is moving with required effort, where the various body parts are located in relation to each other, and including equilibrium and balance). As you can imagine, these are critical when throwing around a hunk of iron.

In learning these new skills, it's important to give yourself (brain, nervous system, skeleton, muscle and soft tissues) sufficient time to develop the required connections so that you don't reinforce bad technique. A typical example of this is our seated posture. For someone who regularly slouches, sitting up straight can feel a bit forced, weird, maybe even uncomfortable. That's the body's proprioceptors telling them that they aren't in their normal alignment. Interestingly, 'normal' in this case is incorrect. Bad posture is a 'learned' state that can be undone by retraining our neurological pathways. Quick and easy - maybe not, but totally do-able. That's why it's important to learn and practice proper technique for kettlebells and all exercises (it's not the squats that hurt your knees, it's the way that you do/did squats that hurt your knees). Our bodies, under stress, revert to training. So by training them well, we protect ourselves from injury when we get tired, distracted or just lose focus.

What does that have to do with mental fatigue? Lots. Learning to use our body as one unit needs tons of brain power to coordinate the tension/relaxation required to execute moves properly. Sometimes, when we just don't get it or can't do it, it's not our muscular system that's failing us, but our brains that recognize the need for additional processing time.

What do you do about it? Understand and respect it. Like other physical arts - such as karate, tae kwon do, dance or yoga - we PRACTICE kettlebell training rather than DO it. Becoming skilled takes time and involves your whole system. You won't win any awards for being the first to the red light.

Want to learn more about kettlebells, kettlebell workouts and whether they might be for you? Visit insidekettlebellworkouts.com insidekettlebellworkouts.com for ideas, reviews, insights and reliable information to help you get the most of your fitness quest.

Martine Kerr is a personal trainer, group fitness instructor and Hardstyle Kettlebell Certified instructor. With 15 years of experience transforming bodies with fitness and lifestyle coaching, having done so 3 times for herself following injury and pregnancies, Martine is passionate about living FIT. She is Canadian and lives in Dubai.