Probably once or twice per week I get asked the same question: Is it OK to do kettlebells everyday?
It is possible to use kettlebells everyday but it will depend on the intensity of the workouts, your current experience and how quickly you recover from the workout. The kettlebell swing is one exercise that you may be able to perform daily.
Hopefully you are aware of the huge benefits of the kettlebell swing but is more better?
Is swinging a kettlebell everyday the answer to your fat loss, strength, or lower back issues?
Let’s take a look and see what we need to consider.
The Kettlebell Swing Exercise
The kettlebell swing is a full body exercise that targets over 600 muscles in the body.
As the swing uses so many muscles it also burns a lot of calories as well as raising the heart rate quickly making it very cardiovascular.
If performed correctly the kettlebell swing will also strengthen the body from head to toe as well as developing a solid core to prevent back issues.
Discover more: 4 steps to master the kettlebell swing for beginners
Watch a video of the two handed kettlebell swing in action below:
Recovery When Using the Kettlebell Swing Daily
As with all types of exercise the body needs time to recover in order to strengthen muscle tissue, ligaments, tendons and other soft tissue.
The big question is:
Can you recover enough each day before your next kettlebell swing session?
Exercise recovery is very subjective, it will vary from one person to the next.
For example, recovery will depend on:
- Age – younger body’s repair quicker than older ones
- Genetics – some people just recover from exercise quicker than others
- Diet – it’s hard to repair muscle tissue if you a feeding yourself with junk food
- Sleep – the majority of muscle repair happens during your sleep
- Occupation – a daily physical job may not leave much room for complete recovery
- Experience – a lifetime of exercise or lifting weights can mean quicker recovery
So not everyone will recover at the same speed.
You have to be very careful when comparing your workouts or rest periods to your friends or someone else online.
As with all workouts and exercises you need to listen to your own body.
Related: 9 most effective fat loss nutrition tips
The Daily Workout Intensity and Volume
One major aspect to consider is the intensity of the daily swing workout.
If your workout is too long or you are lifting a kettlebell that is too heavy then it will take longer for you to recover.
Usually it is the volume of the workout that will be the determining factor.
Heavier weights and longer workouts together create a lot of volume that will definitely overload the system.
It is important to push yourself during exercise in order to force an adaptation but push too hard and you will either get injured or require longer than you think to recover.
Discover more: Complete guide to buying kettlebells
How about swinging kettlebells daily
If you keep the volume down then yes many people can swing a kettlebell everyday.
However, you need to listen to your body and take a day off when you feel you have not recovered.
How do you Know When You Have Not Fully Recovered?
Firstly, your resting heart rate will be slightly higher than usual first thing in the morning.
There are various heart rate apps that you can download to build up a daily measure of your resting heart rate.
Make sure to measure your heart rate at the same time first thing in the morning.
Secondly, you should not feel excessive soreness or fatigue in your muscles.
If your resting heart rate is elevated or you feel excessive fatigue then take another day off.
Related: 3 heart rate kettlebell training workouts
How Many Times Should I Swing the Kettlebell Each Day?
As mentioned earlier, you need to keep the volume low in order to avoid overtraining and potential injury.
I like to keep the repetitions low with slight rest breaks in between each set.
For example:
- Two Handed Swing x 10 reps
- Rest for as long as needed
- Repeat 3-6 times
Keeping the repetitions and rest periods short like this gives you time to reset each set.
In my opinion, repetitions that last too long have a greater potential for injury.
So using a workout like the one above you could use the two handed swing daily.
After a few weeks you can start to progress to the one handed swing.
For example:
- Two Handed Swing x 10 reps
- Rest for as long as needed
- Repeat 3 times
- One Handed Swing – Left x 5 reps
- One Handed Swing – Right x 5 reps
- Repeat 3 times
As you get stronger and stronger you can increase the kettlebell weight but just be careful not to overload the amount of repetitions.
Related: Are you ready for the one arm kettlebell swing
Using Rep Setting for Your Daily Kettlebell Swing Workouts
You can use a system called ‘rep setting‘ in order to ensure you do not over exercise each day.
Set the total amount of swings to 60 reps.
Next ensure that you do not swing more than 60 times each day.
Your workouts could start like this:
The Daily Kettlebell Swing Workout Plan
Kettlebell Swing Workout 1
- Two Handed Swing x 10 reps
- Rest for as long as needed
- Repeat 6 times
Then progress to this:
Kettlebell Swing Workout 2
- Two Handed Swings x 15 reps
- Rest for as long as needed
- Repeat 4 times
You can then progress to the one handed swing like this:
Kettlebell Swing Workout 3
- Two Handed Swings x 10 reps
- Rest for as long as needed
- Repeat 3 times
- One Handed Swing x 5 reps each side
- Rest for as long as needed
- Repeat x 3 times
Finally, progress to this daily swing workout:
Kettlebell Swing Workout 4
- One Handed Swing x 10 reps each side
- Rest for as long as needed
- Repeat x 3 times
As you can see the total amount of repetitions always equals 60 reps so you make sure to keep the volume down.
Once you can complete 60 repetitions using the workout above I’d look at increasing the kettlebell weight.
Conclusion
The kettlebell swing is a huge full body exercise that is good for strength, conditioning, fat loss and power.
Everyone responds different to exercise depending on their age, genetics, diet, occupation, experience, and the workout itself.
The volume of the workout needs to be kept low in order to perform kettlebell swings daily.
Listen to your body and take a days rest if your resting heart rate is higher in the morning or you have excessive fatigue in your muscles.
Want more? 5 smart ways to supercharge your kettlebell swing workouts
Good luck and happy swinging.
To see more posts about hip hinge workouts, go here.
Got questions? Let me know more in the comments below…
Hi Greg, maybe it’s a silly question, but, keeping in mind that I exercise daily, what’s better, 3 20-rep sets with 30 seconds rest between sets or a single, 40-rep/60-second set? (Of course, I also do other exercises).
Depends on your goals Stefano. Personally I’d rather go slightly heavier and do sets of 10 – 20 reps.
Hi Greg. I’m currently doing two sets of 15-rep each side single-arm swing, with a 30-second rest between sets, and it seems to work great. Keep in mind that I only have a 26-pound kettlebell (I work out at home). Any suggestion?
Hi Greg. A friend of mine has a herniated disc. He asked me if kb swings may be harmful for him. He can’t speak English, so I must act as a bridge. Many thanks in advance.
I would avoid swings if you has a herniated disc and seek some one-2-one support.
Hi Greg. Push, pull, swing, squat: but, is this the proper sequence? Thanks in advance for your help.
Depends on your goals and programming schedule Stefano.
As for my goal, it’s just keeping myself reasonably fit at 61. I have a short bout of bodyweight exercise first thing every morning: one squat, one push, one pull (one rest-pause set per exercise) and one swing, in this order, and it seems to work fine. Then I add 15 minutes of stair climbing (500 steps approx.) I followed you advice to do no more than 60 swings a day. What about if I did just one set of 30 reps per side of one-arm swing? I only have a 26-pound kb. All the best from Italy.
Yes Stefano, great idea. The single handed swing will help develop even more muscles 🙂
Yes I do it daily .I head a heart attack last year . And got myself fit again my going to rehab gym. But I’ve always loved kettle bell workout. I’m 69 yrs. But still have a little bit of fat to lose. I’m at present doing 300 kettle bells swings a day.I had 2stents inserted. and my breathing is better.but would love to lose the last bit.of fat I also do toning excercise .
I’m 61. My daily routine 1 set to failure of prisoner squat, push ups on bars and trx row, plus 3 sets of 10+10 1-arm kb swings (load 35 pounds). What about this?
Sounds good to me Stefano but you will want to add variety soon otherwise your body will adapt to the movements and routine. Take look at these 12 Workout Formats for some new ideas.
Thank you. Please keep in mind that I’m way too poor to afford buying a set of kettlebells (let alone a gym membership – I work out at home). I must make do with an old (but good) pair of loadable dumbbells. As for the swings, for the sake of variation I recently switched to the high (overhead) version, with a 26-pound (12 kg) load. Feels good. Any subsequent advice will be warmly welcomed.
All the best from Italy
I just started using a kettlebell and have been doing swings daily. I use a 35 pound kettlebell and initially could only do 3 sets of 10. Now, within a week’s time I can do 10 sets of 10. It’s amazing how strong I’ve already become. Glad I found out about kettlebell swings, they really are a great workout!
Excellent, well done Christine, perhaps you could now start adding in a few Turkish Get Ups at the end of the 10 sets.
I do a regular full upper body weight lifting workout 2-3 times a week (ideally mon/wed/fri) and then do a 30-20-10 rep (Squat, burpee, cycle of abs) HIIT lowerbody focused workout (tues/thurs).
Due to a chronic injury in my feet however, I’ve had to stop doing burpees because of the stress they put on my big toes…I know that KB swings are great cardio and was thinking of replacing burpees with KB swings.
My question is: is it harmful to your muscles to do the swings between upper body days? I’ve always been taught that you need to give your muscles a day to recover (ie. don’t bench two days in a row).
My ultimate goal with the burpees/swings is for the cardio element in a short amount of time, due to work constraints, I only have about 80 minutes of free time a day.
Hi Will, it looks like you have a full on schedule here. How you train will always depend on your goals. Your talk of upper body training is from the bodybuilding world and unless that is your goal then you would get better results by dividing your workouts into 3 full body workouts incorporating all the essential movement patterns: squat or lunge, deadlift, push and pull. If you put all these together into a circuit you could work your cardio as well as gaining muscle at the same time. You have now gained 4 off days where you can get outside and run, hike, cycle, row, climb etc.
You should really strengthen your feet especialy your toes. Start doing workouts barefoot, do towel twist with toes, pickup towel with toes, pressdown on twisted towel with big toe. You will probably fall very often when you age if not.
This is so interesting! On January 1st, I started a “kettle bell challenge” with a friend. The challenge was 100 swings a day for 100 consecutive days. Day 100 was Tuesday, April 10th. I completed the challenge and did 100 swings a day for 100 consecutive days. I am a 59 year old woman, and have been an avid kettle bell user for years, so I was up to the challenge — but, honestly, I had no idea just how “challenging” it would be. My swings ranged in sets of 10-25, with bell sizes of 14kg (single arm), 16kg, 18kg and 20kg. Of the 100 days in the challenge, there were 13 days when ALL I could manage was to get those swings in – but I did them!!! For the remaining 83 days, I did spin classes, ran, and did lots and lots of other weight training in addition to the 100 swings. It was an incredible experience — I am stronger for it and so proud!!! There is no question that my core has changed as a result. YES! You can swing every day.
Yes, when you’re in great shape