A Kettlebell In The Kitchen

Environmental Cues For Health Behavior

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"We become what we behold. We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us."
—Marshall McLuhan

I love a good kettlebell. If I had to choose only one tool to maintain strength and health for the rest of my life, it would be my pick, hands down. Yes, it’s versatile in application, simple in design, and robust in structure—but those might not even be the best parts. The best part just might be that I can stick that cannonball in the corner of my kitchen and every day, there it sits, looking at me, taunting and cajoling me to pick it up and move it.

Heroic efforts are needed to win championships and break records, but they are not what sustain long-term progress. That’s because heroics are unsustainable. The slow, boring consistency of every day is what wins the long game. I imagine that’s why a little bit of daily exercise can slide under our radar. One of the best things we can do to both kickstart and maintain a behavior we want is to put a tool in the environment. A kettlebell in the kitchen, if you will.

Environment > Discipline > Motivation

Motivation passes with the wind. Discipline is important but not as universally reliable as the ascetics would have us believe. What can we count on, then, if not motivation and discipline? Environment. Animals are constantly being pushed and pulled by signals from their surroundings. Whether it’s the brightness of light in our homes, screens whispering to our melatonin about bedtime, or subliminal messages embedded in marketing campaigns, our environment shapes our physiology.

One of the most unique things about us humans is that we have developed a miraculous ability to manipulate our external environment. We clear forests to build temperature-controlled homes, we use cleaning products to make things more sanitary, and we even decorate our surroundings to serve our aesthetic sensibilities and manipulate the feel of the places we inhabit. Why not leverage this same superpower to make it easier to engage in behaviors that help our minds and bodies function with greater ease?

In my experience as a coach specializing in return-to-play for athletes, I found that even the most disciplined individuals struggled to engage in therapeutic homework assigned to support our in-person therapy. Why? It wasn’t a lack of discipline or motivation. It wasn’t a lack of resources or understanding. Often, it was simply a matter of logistical momentum. So, I started looking for hidden opportunities to get exposure—not by creating a new habit that was costly in time, resources, or discipline, but by putting something in the environment that acted as a psychological cue for the behavior.

One easy example I’ve used many times for clients looking to improve shoulder health is simply installing a pull-up bar in a doorway at home. Every time they walk through that doorway, they simply hang for a few seconds to get exposure. Famed kettlebell czar Pavel Tsatsouline referred to this as "greasing the groove": regular, submaximal exposures to a movement or exercise.

A Kettlebell in the Kitchen

Not only is environmental shaping useful for rehabilitative interventions, but it is also a way to invite general health behaviors into your life. Before modernity, the lack of technological convenience meant that exposure to a huge variety of movement patterns, speeds, and intensities was a part of everyday life—just to get by. Now, because we’ve been so successful at bringing the necessities of life within arm’s reach, we require a more thoughtful approach.

Here’s a simple, cheap, and effective way I’ve found to invite microdoses of movement into my life that aren’t necessarily part of my normal exercise routine.

I quite literally have a kettlebell downstairs in my kitchen. It’s tucked out of the way so as not to disturb any Feng Shui. After I feed my dogs and turn on the coffee, I get to it. I don’t attack with Herculean effort; instead, I choose a manageable amount of work and load. My current kitchen kettlebell is 28kg—plenty for lighting the corners without being anywhere close to failure on most movements.

Upper Body

Presses
My two favorite kitchen exercises with the kettlebell are the good old-fashioned overhead press and the windmill. Both offer improved access to shoulder flexion, a movement that, in my experience, easily diminishes (especially for men) without regular and purposeful exposure.

Since you’re not doing these for any specific training outcome, rep schemes and weights aren’t nearly as important. Look for quality reps in the time you have. As a general rule, I find 3–7 per side is enough to assess how my shoulders are doing that day but not so much that it’s a time suck.

Windmill
Windmills might be one of my favorite exercises of all time. Not only does your shoulder get exposed to an incredible range of motion under load, but it also involves a lot of spinal intelligence. Be aware that this movement can demand a lot from your body if you haven’t moved this way before. Get help from an informed professional if you’re unsure. At a minimum, start light and be precise.

Lower Body

Swings
Every year, I do a personal 100 swings for 100 days challenge. Usually, I break it into sets of 10 to 20 repetitions, resting a minute or so between sets until I’ve completed 100. This is not necessary for our purposes here—somewhere around 50 total swings will get your hips working and your heart pumping. That’s also only about 90 seconds of work, so that’s an added benefit too!

Goblet Squats and Squat Pry
Goblet squats and kettlebell squat pry are additional exercises that can introduce some movement during coffee time. Pick low, achievable numbers in the time you have. Again, these efforts aren’t about making you bigger, faster, or stronger. They are simply ways to expose your nervous system and tissues to some motion, grease that groove, and assess how your body is feeling.

Environment Matters

The way we organize the space around us gives us important cues for our behavior. If we become more conscious participants in how we use our space, we can direct our attention more easily—helping us break habits we don’t want and, more importantly, stay on track while forming new ones.

Human beings are incredible architects of our own environment, but sometimes we fail to use this superpower when we need it most. The pressures of modern life often scatter our attention, making it increasingly difficult to maintain the new habits we want.

Rather than relying on sheer force of will or hoping for a sudden, heroic change to sustain us, we can instead become conscious participants in structuring our environment—whether it’s our physical surroundings or the types of people we surround ourselves with. Now, go spend a few bucks on real insurance and put a kettlebell in your kitchen.

Thanks for reading,
Rob