Since I have been involved in the Kettlebell industry, I have realized that it has gotten an bum rap for back injuries. Even my chiropractor said to me once, “Oh, I get a lot of business from kettlebells.”  Here is the problem. Most kettlebell practitioners blame technique as the root of all injuries. This is what they are programmed to believe. I have seen and received plenty of comments of certified kettlebell coaches ridiculing technique. Omg, you are going to injure yourself doing that. Ive heard it time and again. These people have been totally misinformed. Most of these people do not even train a lot of people on a regular basis. Ive been in the martial arts and fitness industry for over 30 years. What I have learned is the number one people get injured is because of improper warm up.

Here is a common scenario. I was at a tournament one day and a guy saw my Kettlejitsu shirt. He was like, “oh I love kettlebells.” “I was going to compete today, but my back is jacked up.” I asked him if he did it swinging. He said yes. I asked him if he warmed up first. He said, “yes, I did some jumping jacks first.” This is a perfect example of people not warming up properly.  I have seen numerous people jack up the backs from just the swing alone.  The fact of the matter is that if your body is thoroughly warmed up, you can do almost anything. Our bodies are super resilient machines.  We adapt to everything. In mixed martial arts and jiu jitsu, we are constantly putting our bodies at a mechanical disadvantage. Perfect technique %100 of the time is impossible.

At my gym SoCal mma and fitness, I can literally teach up to 100 students a week.  I am constantly getting new students. Many of them have never tried kettlebells, are overweight and out of shape.  But, they learn the same routines as the intermediate and advanced students at my gym. The beginners are obviously not going to have perfect technique. But since they are warmed up properly, they will remain injury free.  In my new Kettle-Jitsu Revolution dvd, the workouts are structured exactly the way they are taught at my gym.  The workouts are easy enough for the beginner, yet challenging enough for the advanced practitioner.  It is a complete workout program that includes a solid 15 minute warm up to insure you will not get injured.  I am also a firm believer that Kettlebell and body weight go hand in hand. The way I teach, you never even pick up the kb until we are thoroughly warmed up.  That is why I include and ab workout, body weight interval training and compound body weight training before we hit the kettlebells.

In my line of work, injured clients do not help pay the bills or bring me business.  Keep your clients injury free by warming up properly, especially before dynamic full body exercises with barbells and kettlebells.  You can learn how to warm up your clients from my new Kettle-Jitsu Revolution body weight and kettlebell dvd!