By Jen Wilson and Athalie Redwood-Brown

The ‘100 kettlebell swings a day’ challenge is the latest viral fitness endeavour on social media. The challenge is simple: pick up a kettlebell and do 100 swings (bringing the kettlebell from between your legs and using your core and glutes to swing it up to chest or shoulder height) every day. These can be done either in one stint, or broken up throughout the day.

Proponents of the challenge say it leads to fat loss, improved muscle mass and a stronger posterior chain (glutes, back and hamstrings) – all in a short daily session.

At first glance, it sounds like a time-efficient, no-fuss approach to getting fitter with minimal equipment. But while there’s some merit in consistency, this type of challenge often ignores fundamental principles of exercise and training – and could even do more harm than good.

Here’s a few reasons why it might be best to skip the kettlebell challenge.

It’s not personalised to you

One of the biggest flaws in the 100 kettlebell swings challenge is that it treats everyone the same. What’s manageable for an advanced athlete could cause problems for a beginner with poor hip mobility or lower back issues.

Daily, high-rep dynamic movements which use explosive power, such as kettlebell swings, require good technique, good posture and body awareness. Without that, you’re simply reinforcing poor movement patterns. Worse, you could be inviting injury when such movements are done repeatedly.

Effective training should be personalised – or at least adapted to your movement abilities and fitness requirements to have the most impact.

No room for progress

The human body adapts quickly. If you do the same 100 reps with the same amount of weight every single day, the challenge becomes less effective over time. That initial burn you felt in week one? It’ll be gone by week three.

In well-designed training programmes, there’s a principle called ‘progressive overload’. This involves gradually increasing stress on the body, either through the amount of weight you’re lifting, the number of repetitions you do of an exercise, the number of sets you complete or the complexity of your movements.

The 100-swing challenge skips this entirely. This means you’ll probably hit a plateau fairly quickly.

Risk of injury

Doing 100 swings every day, especially without rest or proper technique, can lead to injuries such as muscle strains or joint pain in the back and shoulders.

Too much repetitive movement, insufficient recovery time and inexperience can also lead to an increased risk of an overuse injury. This often results in pain, swelling, or stiffness and could potentially mean taking weeks or even months off from working out to fully recover.

Picking up this challenge might be appealing but it also ticks a lot of boxes for overuse injury.

It undermines recovery

Recovery between workouts is not optional. In fact, it’s where the actual adaptation happens. Training breaks the body down, while recovery builds it back stronger.

Kettlebell swings, especially if performed explosively and with heavier loads, place stress on your central nervous system. Doing them every single day without rest days, mobility work (such as stretching) or variation can lead to chronic fatigue, poor sleep, nagging injuries and even reduced performance in other areas of training.

If you’ve started the challenge and find you’re constantly sore, tight or worn down, the challenge may be doing more harm than good.

It’s a one-dimensional solution

Fitness isn’t just about repetition. True strength and conditioning involves a variety of movements, such as pushing, pulling, squatting, rotating and stabilising.

The 100-swing challenge trains only one plane of motion and one movement pattern. While that’s better than nothing, it’s nowhere near comprehensive. You’re not necessarily getting stronger or fitter – you’re just going through the motions.

A smarter way to use kettlebells

In fairness, the challenge does have some value in the right context. For beginners who need structure, it can help establish a daily habit. It requires minimal equipment, little space and can raise heart rate, build endurance and activate the posterior chain.

If you enjoy kettlebell swings, there are more intelligent and safer ways to include them in your training.

Try incorporating swings into interval sessions, circuits or strength workouts with varied repetitions and loads. Instead of doing 100 swings alone, aim for 100 total reps using a mix of exercises, such as goblet squats, rows and presses. This approach not only keeps things more balanced, but also reduces the risk of injury from overuse and gives different muscle groups time to recover.

The ‘100 kettlebell swings a day’ challenge might sound appealing in its simplicity, but simple doesn’t always mean smart. Without personalisation, progression and recovery, it can quickly turn into a repetitive grind that risks doing more harm than good.

Jen Wilson is Senior Exercise and Health Practitioner, Nottingham Trent University and Athalie Redwood-Brown is Senior Lecturer in Performance Analysis of Sport, Nottingham Trent University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence