A Killer Dumbbell Swing Exercise That Will Add Serious POWER To Your Kicks...

 

The Problem: Your kicks make contact but they have no IMPACT behind them.

To develop a powerful kick that'll do major damage, you need to train the core to deliver and deal with the massive rotational and impact forces involved. Otherwise, you're just flailing your leg around and annoying the other guy until he puts you on the ground.

The Solution: Double Dumbbell Swings

This may sound a bit strange, but with this exercise you're essentially going to be doing a cross-country skiing pole motion with your arms while holding dumbells in your hands. Sounds easy, right? On paper, sure. In reality, you're going to be in for a shock...

First think about where the tension from the opposing momentum of the dumbells moving in opposite directions is going through: the core.

As one dumbell is swinging down, the other is swinging up and it falls to the deep muscles of the core to stabilize the spine and body and to also provide muscular force to help keep those dumbells swinging.

This opposing torque on the abs results in TREMENDOUS elastic/plyometric workload on the deep muscles of the core, especially when both dumbells are at the bottom of their swings and heading back up. All the momentum of those dumbells swinging is now going to go directly through your core.

How To Do It:

First, pick up two dumbells, one in each hand, and stand up straight. Start fairly light (use approximately what you can do for 10 to 12 reps on the dumbell curl) - you will be working your way up to heavier weights as you get stronger and more experienced with the exercise.

Keep your feet close together (a few inches apart at the most). If your feet are set too wide, the dumbells will contact your thighs at the bottom of the movement. Keeping the feet closer together also forces the abs to do more of the stabilizing as your body can't rely on the legs to absorb as much of the momentum of the swinging dumbells.

In order to get a good swing going, this exercise will require a carefully timed dip in the knees.

So on your very first rep, start by dipping slightly in the knees then popping back up. As you pop back up, use this momentum to start your right dumbell swinging forward and up and your left dumbell swinging back and up.

As the dumbells start to come back down, dip your knees down again. As your left hand swings forward and your right hand swings back, pop back up strongly again.

You are using your legs to add momentum to the dumbell swings, getting them up higher and giving you the ability to use heavier dumbells.

Repeat this dip and pop up EVERY time the dumbells come down to the bottom and start to come back up.

As you do this exercise, try not to let your torso twist back and forth much. Do your best to keep your shoulders and hips square and unmoving so that all the torque goes through the core and so that you don't get any sharp twisting movements in the spine. Your shoulders WILL move somewhat (there is no getting around it) but by trying to keep still, you will minimize the movement.

Keep your arms rigid and locked into position as you swing the dumbells up and down. For height, you want to aim for about shoulder height in front of you and a little lower with the dumbbell behind you. Keep control of the weight and your torso throughout the movement - no wild swinging. Exhale forcefully each time you pop up (imagine as though you're trying to blow the dumbell forward).

If the dumbells are too light and you find the exercise is not challenging your abs after a few reps, increase the weight.

Keep going for as long as you can with good form. When you can't swing the dumbells very high or you feel your core strength starting to give out (i.e. your shoulders and hips start twisting too much for your core to control), stop the swinging and set the dumbells down.

At this point, you're going to be huffing and puffing like crazy - this exercise works not only your entire upper body, but also involves your lower body strongly each time you use your legs to pop up.

So how heavy should you go with this exercise? That will depend on how strong your core is and how heavy your dumbells go! You can build up to some very good weights with this exercise - I've personally gone up to a pair of 85 lb dumbells.

The more weight you can safely use with this exercise, the stronger and more powerful your entire core area is going to get and the harder you're going to be able to deliver your kicks.

The Bottom Line:

The Double Dumbell Swing is one of the powerful core-power exercises you can do. It's extremely practical and VERY functional, especially for improving kicking power and core explosiveness.

Want to keep this exercise for reference? Right-click here and choose "save target as" to download a "take home" PDF of this exercise now...