The Best Beginner Kettlebell Warm-up

You can use a generic full-body warm-up like the one covered if you don’t want to spend much time thinking about the warm-up or you can look at what your body needs and what the workout demands. For example, if the workout is all lower body, then the focus would be more on that. in the warm-up but still raising the temperature and spending some time on the upper body too. Even a lower-body-focused workout with kettlebells will still require the back to work.

The best way to warm up for kettlebell swings is by using the same movement that’s used in the kettlebell swing variation, if that’s a hip hinge then use that in a warm-up. Frankenstein kicks and single-leg hip circles are also great to include as per the follow-along warm-up video above.

Yes, kettlebell swings can be used as a warm-up for certain people. For beginners, it’s not recommended to start with weight right away but for more seasoned kettlebell athletes it’s possible to use. One would start with light kettlebell swings and then increase the weight and pace. For beginners, it’s best to start with hip hinges and/or squats and then swings.

How you start a kettlebell workout depends on your conditioning, experience, the workout itself, and more. But one thing is for sure, it’s always best to perform a warm-up before you start your kettlebell workout. The warm-up covered here is a good generic warm-up to use before you start a kettlebell workout.

The best structure for a session is warm-up, prep work, workout, and cool down. The warm-up is best performed without weight, i.e. bodyweight only. The prep work is where you break down the exercises in the workout and slowly start increasing weight. The workout is where you go all out and the cooldown is used to stretch the areas worked. Stretching is not always required, in our kettlebell workouts, we include a lot of active recovery, mobility work, and dynamic stretching between heavy or intense tasks. We basically hide/disguise the work most people prefer not to do or find boring.

A good warm-up should be anywhere between 6 to 10 minutes but it depends on the condition of the athlete, the work to come, and the local environment too, if it’s cold then the warm-up should be longer.

The intensity of a good warm-up should start at low intensity and then gradually increase. To what intensity it should go up depends on the conditions, but a warm-up should not tire you out nor fatigue the muscular system.

No, and a good example of this would be the difference between a warm-up for a split workout focused on the chest and a workout that has the overhead squat in it. The split chest workout would require focus on the front delt, pecs, triceps, and biceps, and the overhead squat workout would require focus on the thoracic spine, hips, knees, ankles, and shoulder joints.

The most common joints neglected in warm-ups are the wrists, elbows, and ankles. Including these joints in your warm-up will usually increase the warm-up time to between 10 and 14 minutes. The wrists and ankles are super important as the ankles do a lot of work no matter what you do standing up, and the wrists are involved with overhead work, although with a good grip and kettlebell placement the work on the wrists is heavily reduced.

Yes, you can include stretches in your warm-ups but they have to be dynamic and not static stretches. Static stretches are the ones that you hold for a while to work on releasing/relaxing the muscles. You could do a warm-up prep work, and then static stretching, although this is best left till after the workout. However, this is not black and white and the rule applies best to beginners, whereas the more advanced could under certain conditions start with static stretching.

The perfect warm-up for kettlebells, or any resistance workout for that matter, is one that makes your whole body feel nice and loose, gets the blood pumping through the body, and prepares you both physically and mentally for what’s to come. Mimicking the movement patterns from the workout helps prepare the mind, and can break down plus build up the more complex exercises in the workout. For me, the perfect warm-up starts with slow dynamic stretching, less intense bodyweight exercises that focus on the joints and movement patterns, followed by a more intense version of that, then prep work which again breaks down the exercises and gradually increases weight. Potentially that is followed up by a bit more joint work with a focus on the feet, ankles, wrists, and elbows for a couple of minutes and then attack the workout.

The reason for warming up is to prepare the body and mind for what’s to come and reduce the chance of injury. This is especially true for beginners and/or people who have been or are mostly sedentary. A good warm-up increases the body temperature, gets the blood pumping faster through the body, and also improves the delivery of oxygen to the muscles. There is a lot more that happens but without going too deep, a warm-up is always time well spent.