Tracking kettlebell swings?

Kettlebell swings is really considered strength training and it's generally not something you deduct calories for. You should deduct calories for any cardio that you do but not this. A great addition to what you're doing, regardless! I've been wanting to try them out myself.

Kettlebell swings is really considered strength training and it's generally not something you deduct calories for. You should deduct calories for any cardio that you do but not this. A great addition to what you're doing, regardless! I've been wanting to try them out myself.

this. ★

Kettlebell swings is really considered strength training and it's generally not something you deduct calories for. You should deduct calories for any cardio that you do but not this. A great addition to what you're doing, regardless! I've been wanting to try them out myself.

Uhmmm...wut??? :noway: A kettlebell workout is both cardio and strength training and is a major calorie burner! ABSOLUTELY track it, wear a HRM and adjust the calories burned if you feel it neccessary (to accomodate for BMR - I don't do that because any strength training also has after burn effect - but that's just me). Add a custom exercise to your exercise database, call it whatever you like and you can track it that way.

ETA: I have NO idea why people assume if something is not 'cardio' training that they are not burning major calories or should not track it. I did lower body strength training routine today and burned over 500 calories in 35 minutes.

Hi,
I read about kettlebell swings last year (Tracy Reifkind) but just recently bought a kettlebell to try and incorporate swings into my daily routine. I am starting off very slowly because of having fibromyalgia. My question is this: is there a way to figure out and track calories burned for kettlebell swings, if I'm only doing 20 at a time and breaking these sets up throughout the day? I haven't been tracking it because I couldn't figure out if this was possible.

I have a heart rate monitor but the battery is dead and I need to find a replacement. Maybe that would be the only accurate way to track it? I'm open to ideas/thoughts.

Thanks in advance.

Get a battery. That's how I track my kettlebell workouts.

Do you follow a routine for your Kettlebell or do you just swing it around? I bought one a while back but haven't done anything with it. I have seen some videos on CollageVideo that involve the kettlebell and was thinking about getting one to try it. Do you think it would be worth it?
Laurie

User FitnessBlender on YouTube has an AWESOME beginner's kettlebell workout.

Do you follow a routine for your Kettlebell or do you just swing it around? I bought one a while back but haven't done anything with it. I have seen some videos on CollageVideo that involve the kettlebell and was thinking about getting one to try it. Do you think it would be worth it?
Laurie

User FitnessBlender on YouTube has an AWESOME beginner's kettlebell workout.

^^^ true that. That was the first kettlebell routine I did. It seems simple enough but VERY challenging!

Thanks for the website. I am going to look it up!

Laurie

The best way to get the most accurate calorie burn is to get a heart rate monitor - otherwise it's a guestimate...

I'm a bit surprised by the amount of misinformation in this thread. First, kettlebell swings can be both a strength and cardiovascular workout. What makes something strength training or cardiovascular really depends on how that activity is performed. To be considered strength training, the activity needs to be of overall volume (combination of weight and # or reps) to cause muscular adaptation. Thus kettlebell routines may or may not be a true strength training workout depending on how many times you swing, and the weight of the bell.

As for whether it's a cardio workout or not depends on intensity and time. The most important thing here is that you are trying to get your cardiovascular system to adapt to the stimulus. In a way, this is very similar to the concept I mentioned above for strength training. It may or may not be a cardio workout depending on how much effort goes into the swing, and the time spent doing it.

Based on the fact that you're only doing 20 swings at a time, I'm going to hazard a guess and say you're not getting much cardio benefit from this. If you were to do multiple sets of 20 and kept it up for 15-20 minutes minimum, then it would likely have some cardio benefit. Otherwise, it's really not a true cardio workout because your cardiovascular system is not having to adapt. Now a related question is does this burn additional calories that you can log? Well, of course it does burn more, but accurately tracking those would be problematic at best and I don't think you could really count on a heart rate monitor for this since it's not sustained exercise. (There's also the whole other question of whether or not using a HRM would even be accurate for kettlebell swings, but I'll save that for a different post.)

You mentioned having fibromyalgia. I do think your current plan of doing several sets of 20 swings has some potential benefit for management of your disease, but I would caution against logging calories for this. It's very likely you'll overestimate the benefit and end up overeating. Instead, as your are able, would recommend you start trying to do a sustained workout instead of just small sets throughout the day. If you can do multiple sets and go for at least 15-20 minutes (with short rests between sets), I think you'd see a much improved cardio workout (with some potential calorie additions if you so desired), and be better off in the long run.

Kettelbell swings are total body cardio. Take your heart rate after, you burn a ton of calories doing swings.