The Body Planner

Wobbly bums, bad backs and hamstring tears…Solved!

When someone has not exercised for a while these 2 issues come up a lot, I’ve noticed it both in my consultations and on forums, letters pages in magazines and other articles. You want to lose weight for reasons A, B and C but when you talk about weight loss it will inevitablely drill down to spot reduce; that is areas that you are more concerned with and one of those will be the bum or if I’m going to get anatomical, the glute region (the bum is made of 3 muscles – gluteus maximus, gluteus medius and gluteus minimus. There are a couple more and the back of the thigh also plays a part but you get the idea right. I’ll continue with bum or butt for now).

And one of the most common causes of pain and discomfort is in the lower back region. This can be the cause of any one or more of poor standing posture, poor sitting posture, overuse, inactivity and muscle weaknesses in other areas like (you guessed it) the butt.

Infact back problems are not far behind the common cold in the most popular reason for being absent from work. It’s just a lot harder to function when your back is sore, you wake up in the morning and feel like you need to be put out on a rack, you sit at the desk at you office and practically have to use your arms to lever yourself up and picking larger, heavier objects are your worse nightmare.

And in sports, one of the most popular injuries in sports is the hamstring pull (back of thigh) because of the weakness in it compared to the front of the thigh and other muscle groups compensating for that weakness. In football or soccer especially there is a growing number of cases of hamstring injuries because the players are so dominant in the front of the thigh compared to the hamstring and butt muscles. Sometimes it is plainly visible looking at the proportions and I’ve come across cases where it’s because knee injuries have led to a rehabilitation program that has strengthened the front of the thigh so much that there is now an imbalance between the superior strength in the front of the thigh compared to the muscles behind the knee and hip.

What we need is a solution whereby we are actively exercising the posterior muscle chain (hamstrings, butt) to work the glute muscles to make them function better and look tighter. By working these and the hamstrings we are also teaching them to become more efficient in everyday life and in physical activity and take the strain off the lower back muscles that until now have done more work than they should be doing.

A lot of exercises tick none of these boxes but there is a tool amongst it all that can really help melt that fat off the bum quicker and strengthen the muscles that matter in order to save the back. What’s better is that the exercises themselves do not take that long and offer variety to what most people are used to. While they have been around for sometime in fitness circles they are becoming more popular by their visibility in media circles by Hollywood celebrities such as Jennifer Garner, Jennifer Lopez and Matthew Mcconaughey using and endorsing them.

So a big drum roll for. ……Kettlebells!

What is a kettlebell then? Well, as you can see above it’s a lump or ball of iron weight with a handle at the top that has deep origins from Russia as far back as the 18th century with sportsmen for muscular strength.

These days it has been shown to give all sorts of benefits, hence the use by people from a multitude of backgrounds from sports to regular Joes looking to hack some fat off.

It delivers all round fitness. Many of the exercises performed are compound movements that use more than one joint and muscle.

They can also be quite dynamic in nature meaning that movements are performed at speed. When you then take the design of the kettlebell on top of that (as there are plenty of other exercises that use big movements and speed) it creates a very versatile piece of equipment that can cover a multitude of exercises and systems and can also be taken anywhere (one person can easily get away with one kettlebell).

The design of the kettlebell is different to say a dumbell because the mass of the weight is held outside of the handle. This means the body has to overcome the extra momentum that this then creates which for you just means you have to work a hell of a lot harder. As intimidating at this might sound the use of kettlebells is also extremely safe and all readings I have seen show the incidence of injury using kettlebells is a lot less than using other pieces of equipment.

Why? Because once you have learned how to use a kettlebell and perform the exercises, you are teaching your body to do really what it was intended to do in the first place and that is to move all parts together as a unit. When you compare this to sitting in a machine which on the outside looks a lot safer, it is actually supporting your body and letting it rest while it performs one movement. With many kettlebell exercises, everything moves together, just like you do on a daily basis and help strengthen weaker muscles and provide you with an awareness of how your body moves. The machines takeover this effort and let you relax in the seat meaning these areas never get stronger and infact weaken and lead to some of the problems we are discussing.

The physical benefits associated with kettle bell training are

- Increase fat burning, improve body shape

- Increase functional strength

- Improve Posture

- Improves aerobic fitness and endurance

- Improve flexibility

And that’s where we get back to our original problem. While there are many exercises that can be performed with kettlebells because of their versatility, one of the big plus points for me is the superior work that is performed on the posterior set of muscles that we speak about.

There are dynamic exercises like the Swing (picture above to the right shows a woman at the top end of this exercise) that really develops a strong posterior chain that other pieces of equipment would find hard to compete with. In doing so, the muscles in the lower back will remain strong but will be supported by what before where weak hamstring and glute muscles that are now taking on their functional responsibilities. The nature of the exercise also means high heart rate, a great fitness test and fat melting off your bum in quick time.

In my time working with kettlebells I have come across many good accounts and in particular one good story that crosses over from aesthetic benefits to sports related. One of my clients not only had particularly weak hamstrings that he had pulled several times but also wanted to lose weight.

The hamstrings were extremely tight and were in need of strengthening to prevent further injuries occurring during his physical activities of tennis and football. After the initial corrective exercises to lengthen these tight muscle groups we undertook a course of training that included a heavy use of kettlebells that targeted the posterior chain.

Over one year later this guy has not had one other injury to his legs and no complaints of tightness in either them or in the back through compensation for the weaker area. He has also dropped 2 trouser sizes in the shorter term, shown through his decrease in the hip measurement that goes across the widest circumference around the back of the butt. I’m led to believe his wife also acknowledges the change in shape around the back!

The kettlebell is a tool that I would recommend to any fitness enthusiast because it ticks a lot of the boxes that everyone needs to consider from time to time.

- They offer quick workouts

- They offer something different, interesting and challenging

- They offer an effective fat burning routine, and improve body shape in doing so.

- They increase strength, not just for physical activity but also for everyday activities that we all need strength for.

- They help improve upon posture

- They reduce the chance of back pain

- They reduce the chance of shoulder pain

A kettlebell or pair of will provide a great alternative to your workouts!

Mike Bach is one of the UK’s foremost experts in fat loss and performance. He is the creator of the M.A.G.I.C. system and the only trainer in the North West that offers a double money back guarantee.