A commercial gym offers us a wide variety of machinery to stimulate our entire body. However, for those days when we don’t have time or the gym is closed we can train at home with a kettlebell simulating these machines. In this article, we propose a list of exercises to gain muscle mass or lose weight that you can do at home or anywhere.
Leg exercises with a kettlebell to do at home
In the legs we find the muscle groups that allow the greatest load when training. With small modifications of exercises or a greater number of repetitions of the same we can make the training intense. train at home your quadriceps, hamstrings and glutes with the following exercises.
globet squat
The globet squat is an exercise that fulfills a double function: stimulate your lower body and improve your squat technique heavier with bar. Grab your kettlebell at both ends and try to lower until your buttocks are a little lower than knee height. You may need a high number of repetitions if the weight of your kettlebell is small.
bulgarian squat
The Bulgarian squat is one of the best options for training legs at home or in the park. When raising a leg all the weight falls on the one that we have supported. To this we also add the load of our kettlebell so that the exercise becomes a excellent option for our quadriceps in particular and legs in general.
Romanian single leg deadlift
Just like the Bulgarian squat lifts one leg so all the weight falls on the other, the Romanian deadlift can copy that strategy. This exercise performed on one leg is a spectacular option for stimulate the entire back of our legswhile improving the technique of the conventional deadlift.
hip-thrust
The hip thrust is an exercise that arrived relatively recently to stay in leg routines. Support the base of the kettlebell on your pubis and perform the glute bridge squeezing hard at the end of the movement, when the kettlebell is closest to the ceiling.
Pulling exercises with a kettlebell to do at home
The pulls are the most complicated movements to train at home with little material, since they require pulling our body or a machine towards our trunk. If we have traction bars at home we can also do pull-ups. With a kettlebell we can add tension to our back and our biceps with the following exercises.
One hand rowing
You can do the rowing with one hand as you see in the video or leaning on a chair, sofa or any piece of furniture in the house. Pull on the kettlebell as if you wanted to elbow something at hip height, preventing your elbow from being too bent.
Pull over
The pull over is a mixed back and chest exercise since the movement performed activates both muscle groups. In the initial part of the movement, when the kettlebell is close to the ground, you will feel more the dorsal, while once the kettlebell passes our eyes we will feel the pectoral more, although they are activated simultaneously.
bicep curls
The kettlebell allows us a neutral and closed grip which gives us a variation of the common biceps curl. In this case the movement looks more like a hammer curl, with the palms of the hands facing each other while we stretch and flex the elbows.
Bicep Curl Modifying Towel Grip
For a more open grip bicep curl we can use a towel. Roll up the towel and pass it through the hole in the handle of the kettlebell and you will have a new accessory to train your biceps. It will also allow you turn the wrists out to further stimulate the biceps, since in addition to flexing the elbows, the biceps performs that external rotation.
Preacher curl with elbows resting on the knees (kneeling preacher curl)
At first glance, the gesture of the elbows is the same: bend to raise the kettlebell towards the head. However, resting the elbows on the knees as we see in the video activates different fibers of the musculature than they do with the normal biceps curl. Thus we activate the biceps from different angles.
Pushing exercises with a kettlebell to do at home
The muscles that are responsible for pushing a load are the deltoids, pectorals and triceps. We can work on them at home with different variations of push-ups and add these exercises with a kettlebell to increase the number of exercises that we can do with hardly any material.
military press one hand
The one-handed vertical push is an exercise that allows stimulate the deltoids while our core works to keep us straight. With the weight of the kettlebell our body will tend to flex towards the side of the weight, so we have a very complete exercise.
front raises
Front raises put the focus on the front of our shoulders. The Russian weight allows us a very comfortable grip to perform this exercise at home, outdoors or in the gym. Run it slowly for the best boost.
Alternate Lateral Raises
Lateral raises primarily activate the middle part of our shoulders. We must do them alternately by first doing the series on one side before moving on to the other. We can do it freely or grab hold of a door with our free hand or any support to improve balance.
One arm chest press
Just as the one arm vertical push stimulated the core as well as the shoulder, in this case the horizontal chest push will do the same for our core and pectorals. when lifting the weight our body will tend to turn to the side of the kettlebellso we must resist that rotation.
Overhead triceps extension
Overhead triceps extensions are normally performed with dumbbells, but the kettlebell allows us a more comfortable grip. Try this exercise at home to fully stimulate your triceps and increase muscle mass or retain muscle while losing fat.
french press
The French press is one of the most important exercises for our triceps. Grab the kettlebell as in the video and bring it to your forehead by bending your elbows while your arms remain static. You can also hold onto the kettlebell handles if that’s more comfortable for you.
Core exercises with a kettlebell to do at home
the way it has a kettlebell makes it one of the best accessories to train the core since it concentrates all its mass in a point outside the grip. That makes it more difficult to balance it by all our structures that are in charge of it.
turkish uprising
The Turkish uprising is the more complete core movement What can we find. In it we must perform frontal flexion of the trunk, lateral flexion and rotation. In addition, almost all of our muscles work to stabilize us on the way up and down. It is very complex, but by following the video we can learn to execute it step by step.
wind mill
Chances are you haven’t seen this exercise around the gym, or in ab workout videos. Try it to see how all the lateral musculature of your abdomen is working to stabilize and to laterally flex the trunk.
lumberjack halo
The lumberjack is a core exercise that combines power and technique. In this case we make a mix in which we introduce a twist on our head (halo). Speed up and slow down the kettlebell as much as possible to make the exercise more noticeable. It is not the typical abdominal exercise, but after doing it you will realize that said muscles are working.
Power exercises with a kettlebell to do at home
Kettlebell power exercises are the best option if we want to lose weight at home using just a kettlebell. In this section we recommend the three that stand out the most and that you can do at home or anywhere.
swing
The swing or swing is a power exercise where we mainly work the back muscles of our legs. It must be Him hip strike the one that raises the kettlebell upbeing the arms a mere guide of the kettlebell, but without them being the ones that pull the weight up.
snatch
The kettlebell snatch, or one-handed kettlebell snatch, is an exercise “all in one”. It requires a high technical complexity, but we can progress little by little with different weights until we control it and increase the weight of the kettlebell.
Clean
The clean or loaded is the other Olympic variant that we can do with a kettlebell. In this case the kettlebell goes towards the shoulder, so the arm is not stretched towards the ceiling. It usually allows you to introduce more weight, but as with the snatch, the ideal is that let’s progress little by little.
In Vitónica | Exercise routine at home: a practical example
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