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The kettlebell windmill is known for its advanced and complex movements that engages the body but especially focusses on the shoulders, glutes and core muscles. It's both a strengthening and stretching exercise, helping in enhancing the mobility, flexibility and stability of the body and is especially useful for athletes and coaches.
However, before starting with this exercise, you should be well aware of a few facts about kettlebell windmills, including techniques, benefits and common mistakes while doing it.
Let’s get started.
Correct Form of Doing Kettlebell Windmill
It's important to ensure that you assume a proper stance for this exercise to avoid any unwanted injuries. Here are some tips for assuming the proper stance for this exercise:
- Do not keep the distance between your feet more than shoulder-width. A wide stance is known to restrict the 'shift'.
- Make sure that your feet are angled 45 degrees farther from your arms that are gripping the kettlebell above your head.
- This stance should be further adjusted according to the individual.
How to do Kettlebell Windmill
Let's look at how to execute the kettlebell exercise:
- Keep a single kettlebell over your head, with your feet firmly planted below your hips. Angle both feet approximately 45 degrees away from the side of your stretched arms.
- Push your hip out by loading the heel and slightly bend your opposite knees.
- With your stretched arm, try reaching towards the ceiling. Keep looking at the kettlebell, and rotate with your spine.
- Your bottom arm should be sticking close to the leg.
- Bend your body as far as you can.
- To get back to the standing position, reverse the motion.
- Repeat.
Tips for Kettlebell Windmill
The kettlebell windmill is not an easy exercise, as it demands mobility and stability in your body. Here are some tips for doing the kettlebell windmill correctly:
- Starting with the warm-up can help in doing this exercise smoothly. Just practice the windmill movement without the kettlebell. That will help you in knowing how much you can stretch.
- Do not start with a heavy weight at the very beginning. Understand the posture required, and start without any weight.
- Eventually move forward with light weight before moving into heavy weight. That will help in ensuring that you understand the mechanisms of this exercise and do not get injured while doing it.
Benefits of Kettlebell Windmill
There are many convincing reasons for you to include the kettlebell windmill in your workout regime. The strengthening and stretching movement of this exercise targets a wide muscle group, providing many benefits. Here are some of them:
Improved day-to-day movement
Working on functional movements with the kettlebell exercise will help in safely performing the movements you make throughout the day, like ducking down or tilting forward. It will also prepare your body to work on more challenging tasks in everyday life.
Core stability
The kettlebell windmill greatly engages and works on the core muscles and spine. This exercise helps enhance hip function and improves core stability, which can bring greater injury resilience to sudden movements or twisting positions.
Better shoulder stability
By doing the kettlebell windmill, you can build strength and stability of the shoulders. The dynamic motions of this exercise can enhance muscle coordination and improve scapular control.
Improvement in posterior chain
The kettlebell exercise targets a variety of areas, including core muscles, hips, glutes and shoulder muscles; it improves the overall posture and mobility of the body as well. It is especially beneficial for people who are engaged in sports.
Common mistakes while doing Kettlebell Windmill
Over rotation of the body – If you rotate your torso too much, that will displace the extended upper arm out of its required position, which may lead to a serious injury. Keep monitoring the position of the extended upper arm as you move the lower arm towards the ground. Also, make sure that your extended upper arm is at the shoulder line and not behind it.
Focus on your posture - Do not ever sacrifice a good posture over the deeper stretch. That would be more harmful than beneficial. Don't take a stance too wide while doing this exercise, and make sure your heels are grounded.
Bent elbows - Do not bend the elbow of your outstretched hand.
Bent knees – You might bend your knees due to less flexibility in your body. That will decrease the workload and benefits of the kettlebell windmill exercise, though.
Bottom Line
The kettlebell windmill is a decent exercise that is important for stretching the body and strengthening the muscles. There are many variations of this exercise that you can do to avoid monotony in your workout regime. However, you need to be cautious about assuning a wrong posture to avoid any injuries.
