Body Movement & Therapy

Celebrities such as Claire Danes, Penelope Cruz, Sylvester Stallone, Jennifer Lopez, and Matthew McConaughey have all added kettlebell training to their body sculpting workouts.

The cast and crew of the film “300″ trained with Mark Twight of Gym Jones in Utah to get in shape. To get the bodies of ancient Spartan warriors and support fight training, the Warner Bros press kit explains, “the training emphasized athleticism by combining compound movements, lifting, and throwing. Primitive tools – medicine balls, Kettlebells, rings – were used instead of machines.”

Athletes of all different shapes, sizes, and sports have certainly jumped into kettlebell training also. Everyone from professional football strength coaches to UFC fighters is discovering, studying, and implementing kettlebell training in their strength and conditioning regimens. Even Bruce Lee trained with kettlebells!

Police, firefighters, and armed forces are all doing kettlebells too! The Spec-Ops teams are using them, the US Secret Service has its own kettlebell snatch test, plenty of SWAT teams are training with them, and more and more fire companies are realizing that kettlebell training is perfect for developing tactical strength without bulking you up.

The elite of the US military and law enforcement instantly recognized the power of the Russian kettlebell, ruggedly simple and deadly effective as an AK-47. You can find Pavel’s certified RKC instructors among Force Recon Marines, Department of Energy nuclear security teams, the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, the Secret Service Counter Assault Team, etc.

Once the Russian kettlebell became a hit among those whose life depends on their strength and conditioning, it took off among hard people from all walks of life: martial artists, athletes, and regular hard comrades.

If you want to get an idea of what sort of body kettlebell training develops, think less about Arnold Schwarzenegger and more towards Bruce Lee.  Not an athlete, a Navy Seal, or a celeb?  Kettlebell training is still for you!

Ken & Barbie... NOT!

Improved Physique:

Russian kettlebells (KB) are not for Kens and Barbies who want to look like “a collection of body parts”.

KB’s forge doers’ physiques along the lines of antique statues: broad shoulders with just a hint of pecs, back muscles standing out in bold relief, wiry arms, rugged forearms, a cut midsection, and strong legs without a hint of squat-induced chafing.

Kettlebells melt fat; losing 1% of body fat a week for weeks is not uncommon. If you are overweight, you will lean out. If you are skinny, you will get built up.  According to Voropayev (1997) who studied top Russian gireviks, 21.2% increased their bodyweight since taking up kettlebells and 21.2% (the exact same percentage, not a typo), mostly heavyweights, decreased it.

The Russian kettlebell is a powerful tool for fixing your body composition, whichever way it needs fixing.   KB exercises train your body to work as the unit it is. Since the brain knows movements and not “muscles” you become more coordinated with KB use. This is also why athletes look different than bodybuilders.

For more information, check out the American Council on Exercise (ACE) study.

Improved Quality of Life

Kettlebell training is the solution to trying to squeeze cardiovascular, resistance, functional AND flexibility training in an already overbooked schedule.  KB movements will develop strength, endurance and flexibility at the same time; faster than any other method.

Rapidly Improved Strength

Vinogradov & Lukyanov (1986) found a very high correlation between the results posted in a kettlebell lifting competition and a great range of dissimilar tests: strength, measured with the three powerlifts and grip strength; strength endurance, measured with pullups and parallel bar dips; general endurance, determined by a 1000 meter run; work capacity and balance, measured with special tests.

Voropayev (1983) tested two groups of subjects in pullups, a standing broad jump, a 100m sprint, and a 1k run. He put the control group on a program that emphasized the above tests; the experimental group lifted kettlebells. In spite of the lack of practice on the tested exercises, the kettlebell group scored better in every one of them! This is what we call “the what the hell effect”.

Less Pain & Discomfort

KB’s have a reputation for strengthening backs and abs like nothing else before. The ballistic, but non-impact nature of KB work is the key. You are on your feet the whole time with KB training. It is the perfect antidote to our modern seated society.  Only 8.8% of top Russian gireviks, members of the Russian National Team and regional teams, reported injuries in training or competition (Voropayev, 1997).  A remarkably low number, especially if you consider that these are elite athletes who push their bodies over the edge.

Many hard men with high mileage have overcome debilitating injuries with kettlebell training (get your doctor’s approval). Acrobat Valentin Dikul fell and broke his back at seventeen. Today, in his mid-sixties, he juggles 180-pound balls and breaks powerlifting records!

Here’s some interesting stuff on running/foot mechanics:

http://barefootrunning.fas.harvard.edu/

Warrior Restoration Kettlebell

A “kettlebell” or girya (Russ.) is a traditional Russian cast iron weight with a thick, kielbasa shaped handle coming out of it.

The kettlebell goes way back, it first appeared in a Russian dictionary in 1704 (Cherkikh, 1994). So popular were kettlebells in Tsarist Russia that any strongman or weightlifter was referred to as a girevik, or ‘a kettlebell man’.

Although kettlebells have been around since the 1700s in Russia, they have recently made their impact in the United States, thanks to Pavel Tsatsouline, founder of the Russian Kettlebell Challenge (RKC). Kettlebells are not a fad: they have been proven to work for years. The off-centered nature of the weight makes training with it singularly difficult if you lack the proper form.

Unlike bodybuilding style workouts that focus all the stress on a single muscle group through isolation, kettlebell style training recruits as many different muscle groups as possible at the same time. This trains the user to use his or her body synergistically, moving as a coordinated whole. Thus, a kettlebell, when used properly, develops strength, flexibility, AND cardio all at the same time!

So I hear this all the time: “I exercise all the time, how come I get hurt?” First initial thought tha comes to mind is because you exercise all the time your body never gets to regerate/recuperate. Let’s dig even a little deeper: “I workout my shoulders, how come I still get hurt?”

Consider this, “training” is practice with a purpose. There is an intended goal for your body. We train so we can reap the benefits of not just the training, but also so it can carry over to other activities. Exercise can come in any form…generally anything that makes you break a sweat, raises your heartbeat, and increases you caloric burn can qualify as exercise. But does that activity actually train your body for what you want to participate and enjoy in?

Just a thought…..

During your training session(s) one question to ponder when things get challenging: “Are you really tired or are you just giving up?” If your tired and form is starting to suffer, then stop. You can regroup/reset and restart again…and if things still are lacking then stopping may be the wise option. There is no reason to groove and practice bad movement patterns; a fatigued neurologic system is detrimental to training. A la Gray Cook “don’t stack fitness on top of dysfunction”. Why have a “fit” dysfuntional movement pattern? It’s not necessarily a bad thing if you fall short of your reps…it may be wiser to live and train (properly) another day. However, if you’re just “giving up”…….well, you’re the one who has to look in the mirror…..’nuff said

Some things I’ve picked up from hardstyle kettlebells and why I can’t recommend it enough:

1)Safety first! If it’s unsafe, DON’T do it!!

2) It is possible to build fitness on top of dysfunction, DON’T do it! Take the time to re-establish mobilty and proper movment patterns….. just ask me about my pathetic squat pattern as demoed at the TPI and SFMA seminar(s) in 2007 and ’08.

3) It’s about the movement, not about the bell – too often we focus on reps and sets and not about how our body is moving through that exercise; sure we accomplish the rep/set “goal” but at the same time sacrificed and developed compensatory movement (patterns) to get there; this sacrifice winds up being detrimental to our body in the long run….pay attention and take mental inventory of our body in movement and through space

4) Strength (and movement) is a skill; a whole body skill – we all have (much) more strength than we believe to and access; by addressing neurologic and biomechanical “leaks” we can harness untapped strength and power.

*these were just a few things of the top of my mind, more to come in future posts*
**a special “thank you” to Dr. Mark Cheng and my fellow RKC team instructors and members for helping attain my RKC**