Office work — or any prolonged sitting — are a common challenge of modern life.
Upside: we can concentrate 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 , increased chance of shoulder injury.
Tight hips → weakened butt muscles, shear forces on lumbar spine, back pain.
So on Swings, instead of hips driving the movement, the lower back strains.
A common “fix” for tight hips is targeting hip flexors. When I first learned about this in 2001/2, it worked well—until it didn’t. The looseness never stuck . Research shows hip flexor stretching briefly boosts deep abdominal activity, but it diminishes when training ends. Sitting then reinforces tightness, creating a loop. At the same time, I relied on abdominal bracing for core stability. Which helped—until it didn’t. A hard brace increases hip joint forces. Research shows strong bracing lowers shear at the lumbar spine but spikes hip compression by 8–12%. It also limits 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 damaged both labrums after years of stretching and bracing.
The Fix: Restore Anticipatory Control
In a healthy body, the deep core fires milliseconds before moving an arm, leg, or kettlebell. This anticipatory response, or reflexive stabilization , is also called reflexive stabilization.
Studies show the Transverse Abdominis and Multifidus activate promptly in pain-free lifters but late 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 movement drills that re-train feed-forward activation.
One of the top is the Dead Bug, shown to restore proactive balance. We use this and others in the Stability phase of the SSP Model (Stability–Strength–Power) from Systematic Core Training for Kettlebells.
The prescription:
Five minutes of stability training before KB sessions.
Ten minutes after.
Then advance towards Strength and Power.
This resets the deep abdominals, re-strengthens them with the pelvic floor and diaphragm, and recovers the ability to create intra-abdominal pressure (IAP) to shield the spine in Swings, Cleans, Squats, and Snatches.
Should You Ever Brace?
Yes—on heavy , here controlled lifts like Deadlifts, Squats, and Presses. But bracing should build upon reflexive stability, not replace it.
Stay Strong,
Geoff Neupert.