Sitting at a desk — or any extended sitting — are a unavoidable reality of modern life.
Upside: we can focus for long periods and earn in comfort.
Downside: sitting damages posture.
We end up with:
Forward head → limited airflow & core stability (diaphragm inhibition).
Slumped shoulders → restricted shoulder movement , higher shoulder injury risk .
Tight hips → weakened butt muscles, shear forces on lumbar spine, back pain.
So on Swings, instead of hips driving the movement, the lower back overworks . A common “fix” for tight hips is hip flexor stretches . When I first discovered this in 2001/2, it felt great —until it didn’t. The looseness never held. Research shows hip flexor stretching briefly boosts deep abdominal activity, but it declines when training ends. Sitting then maintains tightness, creating a loop. At the same time, I used abdominal bracing for core stability. Which worked —until it didn’t. A hard brace raises hip joint forces. Research shows strong bracing reduces shear at the lumbar spine but increases hip compression by 8–12%. It also reduces hip-knee flexion and raises ground reaction forces, shifting stress to hips instead of glutes.
Combine tight hip flexors, weak glutes, and max bracing, and you get aching backs and damaged hips. That’s how I injured both labrums after years of stretching and bracing.
The Fix: Restore Anticipatory Control
In a well-functioning body, the deep core fires milliseconds before moving an arm, get more info leg, or kettlebell. This feed-forward activation , or anticipatory postural adjustment , is also called reflexive stabilization.
Studies show the Transverse Abdominis and Multifidus activate promptly in pain-free lifters but respond slowly in those with back pain. Conscious bracing can’t substitute—once the bell moves, you’ve only got milliseconds. If the reflex is off, shear forces hit when load peaks, often causing that “lightning shock” in the lower back. So, how do we restore it? With specialized stability drills that re-train feed-forward activation.
One of the best is the Dead Bug, demonstrated to restore proactive balance. We use this and additional exercises in the Stability phase of the SSP Model (Stability–Strength–Power) from Systematic Core Training for Kettlebells.
The prescription:
5 minutes of stability training before KB sessions.
A brief 10-minute period after.
Then advance towards Strength and Power.
This reboots the deep abdominals, rebuilds them with the pelvic floor and diaphragm, and renews the ability to create intra-abdominal pressure (IAP) to shield the spine in Swings, Cleans, Squats, and Snatches.
Should You Ever Brace?
Yes—on challenging, deliberate lifts like Deadlifts, Squats, and Presses. But bracing should layer on top of reflexive stability, not substitute it.
Stay Strong,
Geoff Neupert.