How to Improve Your Range of Motion With Kettlebells

Building muscle comes with many amazing benefits, but there is a downside: it can lead to tightness, joint stiffness, and reduced flexibility. Have you ever seen a bodybuilder try to reach the middle of their back? It’s a good (albeit, exaggerated) example of how muscle growth can limit your movement. Strength, endurance, and power are all great things to focus on when working out, but there’s a whole other side of fitness to explore that can help you get the best performance from your body: range of motion.

What is range of motion?

Range of motion, or ROM for short, is basically how far you can move a joint in a particular direction. For example, if you were to do some dumbbell lateral raises, the maximum point where your arm can be lifted without pain, discomfort, or bending your elbow would be the endpoint of the range of motion for your shoulder. If your ROM is limited in that area, it may prevent you from getting the full benefits of the exercise when you perform it.

There are two main types of ROM. Active ROM is when you use your own strength to control your movement range without any assistance. Passive ROM is when you use an external force to control your movement range, like working with a physical therapist or stretching with a yoga strap. Strength training mainly deals with active ROM, which is why it’s a good idea to train ROM on its own to improve your performance.

How can range of motion help with strength training?

Exercises like deadlifts, bench presses, and squats are perfect for building muscles, but they don’t take your joint through its entire range of motion. Your muscles tend to shorten during hypertrophy, or the process of muscle growth. That’s why you get tight hips after doing deadlifts or tight shoulders after presses.

When you train your joints to move through their full range of motion, your muscles can work more efficiently, and you can achieve better force production and power generation during exercises. Your muscles and joints will also adapt better to the stress of strength training, which can help you avoid injuries. Additionally, training your full ROM ensures that both sides of a joint (agonist and antagonist muscles) are worked evenly, which helps prevents muscle imbalances.

Why are kettlebells good for range of motion?

Kettlebells are an incredibly versatile tool for fitness. They’re great for beginners, can help you get abs, and are more cost-effective than dumbbells. Kettlebells are particularly great for ROM because they help train movement in all directions. Dumbbells feature a symmetrical weight distribution, with a center of gravity that aligns with your hand, allowing for more predictable and stable movements. Kettlebells, on the other hand, have a weight distribution that is more off-center, which challenges your stability and coordination, and results in more movement when you use them.

So, now that we know all about range of motion and kettlebells, it’s time to move on to some exercises you can do to improve your ROM. These can be done as a warmup before your main workout, in which case you would go with lighter weight and lower number of reps. Or, you can opt to do them as a stand-alone workout, in which case you would go with heavier weight and higher reps. All of these exercises are pretty low-impact, but if you have weak wrists, you may want to use wristbands for extra support. If you don’t have access to kettlebells, you can use dumbbells for these exercises as well, but you won’t achieve the full effect of training your range of motion.

6 KETTLEBELL EXERCISES TO IMPROVE YOUR RANGE OF MOTION

1. Kettlebell Windmills

Start with a weight that’s challenging but not painful. If you start too heavy, you could end up tweaking your neck. Stand with your feet around shoulder-width apart. Hold the kettlebell in one hand and raise it overhead.

Bend forward at your waist with your legs straight. Twist sideways and reach towards your foot with the opposite hand.

Look forwards instead of up or down. Try to keep the hand that's holding the kettlebell as straight up as possible. The goal is to create a straight line from your bottom hand to your top hand.

Increase the kettlebell weight or move your feet further apart to make this exercise more challenging.

Target Areas: Spine and hips.
Do 3 sets of 5-10 reps on each side.

2. Kettlebell Side Lunges

Hold a kettlebell to your chest with both hands with your legs slightly wider than shoulder width.

Bend one of your legs into a deep lunge while keeping the other straight, then alternate sides. It’s ok if the heel on your bent leg doesn’t touch the ground, but try to get it as close as possible.

You can hold the stretch on each side for as long as you want, or do this as a dynamic exercise, where you switch sides without holding. If your adductors (inner thighs) feel tight, you may want to start with a few bodyweight reps to warm up.

Target Areas: Hips, ankles, and lower body.
Do 3 sets of 5-10 reps on each side.

3. Kettlebell Halos

Stand with your feet together. Hold the kettlebell by the handle and lift it above your head.

Make circles with the kettlebell around your head and behind your neck. Try not to lean to one side or the other and don’t use your torso or waist to make the circles. This movement should be isolated to your shoulders.

To challenge your balance a bit more, bend one of your legs at the knee and lift it up as high as you can, increase the size of the circle around your head, or hold the kettlebell upside down.

Target Areas: Shoulders.
Do 3 sets of 5-10 circles in each direction (for each leg if you’re doing the challenging version).

4. Kettlebell Slingshots

Hold a kettlebell in one hand and stand with your feet slightly apart.

Starting with one hand, swing the kettlebell around the front of your waist as you pass it to your other hand. Continue the swing around your waist and transfer the kettlebell to your starting hand when the kettlebell is behind your back. Swing the kettlebell around to the front again and repeat.

Don’t twist your torso. Keep it upright and facing front during this exercise.

Target Areas: Shoulders and core.
Do 3 sets of 5-10 circles in each direction.

5. Kettlebell Forward Fold

You’ll want to use a heavy weight for this one. Stand on a box, bench, or something that will give you a good amount of height.

Holding the kettlebell in both hands, bend forward at your waist and let the weight of the kettlebell pull you down towards the ground. Pause for a second or two, then stand back up.

You can stay down longer for a deeper stretch. If your hamstrings are particularly tight, you can perform the first few reps of this exercise with bent knees.

Target Areas: Hamstrings, glutes, upper back, and shoulders.
Do 3 sets of 5-10 reps.

6. Kettlebell Russian Twists

Hold the kettlebell in both hands at your chest and sit on the floor with your legs bent in front of you.

Twist your waist from side to side, while holding the kettlebell slightly out in front of you. The further you hold it out, the more challenging the exercise will be. Don’t round your back; keep it as straight as possible as you twist.