What is the ballistic nature of the kettlebell workout?
Another difference in workout methods is the ballistic nature of many kettlebell lifts. By ballistic I mean fast movement of the body to yield a fast movement of the kettlebell. Most weight lifting looks to maintain a low ballistic quality to the movements. You simply lift along a certain path, controlling the weight, until you complete your set. Some gym workouts do get into varying the speed of the movement up or down (called the negative). That said, generally the focus is on lowering the ballistic quality of the lift. In contrast, kettlebell lifting looks to incorporate fast body movements while controlling the weight both when expressing the movement and of equal importance when bringing the weight back down. We’ll address more about this ‘load reduction’ aspect of kettlebell lifting later in the question about ranges of motion.
