The kettlebell swing is one of the best exercises to perform during the off season. It’s one of my personal favorites as it works the glutes, hamstrings, and a bit of your lower back. I usually do this one about 3-4 times per week in sets of 5.
If you’re a player, who suffers from lower back pain this exercise can help to correct it. Just be careful of how much you lift.
Here’s how it works. You want to start off with a kettlebell or dumbbell that fits into your ideal strength weight. I recommend starting at about 8-10 pounds if you haven’t been doing much off-court training.
The motion:
You want your feet to be in a wide base, further than shoulder width apart. Take the weight and hold it low between your legs. You can initiate the movement by swinging the weight through your legs and squeezing your glutes. As the weight starts to drop use your hips to thrust the weight up to your chest level. Briefly hold the weight in place before allowing it to swing between your legs and repeating the process again.
You can perform as many sets as you want but I’d recommend doing at least 3 sets of 15 reps per training interval.
On a side note, I’m going to begin recording myself performing these exercises along with my on-court training and practice sessions.
I’ve got a lot of content that I plan to release for 2015 and I can hardly wait to get started.
Hope you guys are having a great new year. I’ll be back in a couple days with my Australian Open predictions.
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