Why the Kettlebell is the Only Weight Loss Tool You’ll Ever Need

/in , ,

Want to get into lean, slim, toned and sexy shape? The only tool you’re ever going to need to complete this goal is the kettlebell.

Let’s take a look at why this is the perfect solution for those particular training goals and what you need to do to make it happen.

kettlebell

Enter: Resistance Cardio

The first huge advantage that training with a kettlebell has is that it allows you to use what is known as ‘resistance cardio’. This basically means that you’re combining resistance training (this is the term used to describe training that requires muscular force to push or pull a heavy object) with cardio (any exercise that continues for an extended period and thereby gets your heartrate up and helps you burn fat).

By using a movement like the kettlebell swing for 70 repetitions for example, you’re going to be forced to lift the weight while also repeating a rapid movement that will mean you have to burn calories stored as fat.

When you combine these two different training modalities, you are building muscle and you are burning fat at the same time. This is great for getting an attractive body because you’re not going to simply become skinny (or worse, ‘skinny fat’). Rather, resistance cardio will allow you to tone and burn at the same time. The fact that you’re engaging muscle means the muscle will be protected from deterioration as you’re training.

Moreover, resistance cardio will allow you to burn more fat in a shorter space of time than you could otherwise. This is because you will be forced to apply more effort in order to complete the movement, thereby taxing your system more and burning through more calories!

The Benefits of the Kettlebell Swing

The other great thing about building muscle while performing a cardio workout, is that the more muscle you add, the more you increase your metabolism. If you have lots of muscle, you will burn more calories even while you’re sleeping! At the same time, each workout that causes muscle damage will trigger the release of anabolic hormones like testosterone and growth hormone that actually increase the rate of fat loss.

The kettlebell swing is a particularly useful move because it targets the entire posterior chain – the muscles in the legs and back involved in jumping. These are some of the largest muscles in the body and thus this results in a massive flood of hormones and a lot of effort on your part.

And finally, for women who are looking to get toned buttocks and legs, the kettlebell swing is ideal because those are the exact muscles that it trains. This is the same combination of muscles as those used in squatting and if you do a Google search for ‘women who squat’, you’ll see that they are famous for having particularly round and firm glutes. If that’s the look you’re going for, then there are few moves better than the humble kettlebell swing!

Top Kettlebell Movements For Complete Home Workouts

/in , ,

The kettlebell is often heralded as a fantastic training tool thanks to its ability to train the body in a less conventional manner that involves more of our supporting muscle groups and challenges balance and focus at the same time.

This is only one advantage of the kettlebell though. What’s just as impressive is just how versatile the tool is – allowing you to train every muscle group in a vast variety of different ways. In fact, a kettlebell is versatile enough to provide an entire body workout and can be a ‘home gym’ all on its own!

kettlebell

Here are some kettlebell movements that demonstrate this nicely:

Kettlebell Curl

The kettlebell curl is a movement that works similarly to a regular curl and targets the biceps. The difference is that the center of gravity is lower down, thereby altering the angle and changing the direction of the force.

Goblet Squat

Something that is very hard to do when training from a home gym is work the legs using squatting motions. Squats are widely regarded as some of the most functional movements and are particularly popular thanks to their ability to engage lots of large muscles in the posterior chain. The problem is that they require a large, heavy and unwieldy squat rack and bar! Or do they?

Using a kettlebell, you can hold the weight against your chest and then squat from there. This moves the weight forward slightly but is otherwise effectively the same movement as any other squat!

Straight Legged Deadlift

The deadlift is another movement lacking from most home workouts and once again, the kettlebell comes to the rescue. A deadlift can be performed as normal, simply by squatting and grabbing the handle with both hands.

Likewise though, you can also train similarly while keeping both legs straight and bending only at the back to hit the erector spinae. This works better considering the slightly lighter and taller nature of a kettlebell.

Turkish Get Up

Now for something entirely unique. The Turkish get-up is a movement that requires you to lie on the floor next to your kettlebell and then simply stand up with it. This is much harder than it sounds and involves a complex sequence of movements that train the muscles in unison.

Kettlebell Swing

This is perhaps the king of kettlebell movements and involves performing a squat like motion while swinging the kettlebell behind yourself between your legs and then up in front of yourself. The key is to use a continuous motion and to use your hips to thrust the weight forward rather than engaging your legs or back too much.

Kettlebell Clean and Press

This movement is good in all kinds of ways and involves squatting down to grab a kettlebell in on hand, then throwing it up to lean against the shoulder, standing up and pressing it over head. This trains a huge range of different movements but what’s perhaps most effective of all about it is that you are training on just one side of the body – meaning you need to work very hard to maintain balance and to stabilize yourself.

Grip Strength-The Hidden Crucial Factor in Kettlebell Training

/in , ,

If you want to become amazing at kettlebell training, then there is one thing you need to develop more than anything else and that is grip strength. A firm and powerful grip is precisely what will enable you to lift heavier kettlebells for longer periods of time, not to mention the best way to ensure that you don’t accidentally launch them through the window in your local gym…

Meanwhile though, building amazing grip strength will benefit you in areas that extend far beyond the reaches of the kettlebell and this is actually one of the biggest reasons to take up this kind of training in the first place.

Grip Strength

By taking up kettlebell training, you’ll be able to build forearm and grip power that will translate to improved performance in just about every aspect of your life.

The question then becomes: how do you develop the kind of grip strength that you need for kettlebell training? And why is it so important anyway?

Why Grip Strength is Crucial

If you want to improve your performance on any movement in the gym, then training your grip strength is essential. Grip strength gives you a firmer hold on the bar or weight and this in turn means that more of the force you apply will go into the movement rather than just holding onto the weight. This can also help you to last longer on movements like pull ups or deadlifts before fatiguing.

This is something that old-time strongmen knew very well and hence they would train with weights that had wider bars for instance in order to increase the challenge for their grip. This also prevented anyone from their audience from stepping up and showing them up by being able to lift the same weights. No matter how strong they were, they would normally lack that crucial grip strength.

And in the real world, grip strength is useful for: opening jam jars, combat, climbing, using tools, carrying luggage and more!

How to Develop Grip Strength

Training with kettlebells is one excellent way to develop grip strength because the weights swing. Each time you perform one of the movements, the angle will change, forcing you to tighten your grip in response and thereby keep the weights held firmly rather than dropping.

There are many more ways you can develop grip strength though in your training and these will help you to improve your kettlebell workouts as well as many other aspects of your training.

Good examples include:

  • Performing pull ups by gripping onto a rope or even a towel looped over a pull up bar
  • Performing curls with thicker bars
  • Training using a grip trainer
  • Attempting to bend bars
  • Performing wrist curls and other exercises that specifically target forearms

Another great option is taking up rock climbing and in particular, traversing. Rock climbing requires you to hold onto the small holes and jutting out rocks that you can grip onto. Traversing means climbing along the wall instead of up and this is an ideal form of exercise as it allows you to climb without a rope (you never get more than a meter off the ground) and means you are gripping onto the wall for longer periods of time while you find your footing.

The Forgotten Muscle Groups That Kettlebell Training Works

/in , ,

In the last few years, the ‘gym bro’ has become an anachronism. Old ideas about strength training are falling by the wayside and more and more, we are experimenting with alternative techniques that ultimately present greater benefits in and out of the gym.

So what is a gym bro? What are these old approaches that have fallen out of favour?

kettlebell

The Problem With Old Fashioned Training Ideas

Chief among the ideas that are moving aside is the focus on the ‘mirror muscles’. Your typical gym rat in the 00’s was obsessed with the idea of building bigger biceps, bigger pecs and toned abs and had little regard for smaller supportive muscles that helped to develop true ‘functional strength’ that translated to actual performance improvements and better health. If you train only some muscles at the expense of others, then you will develop an uneven physique that places uneven pressure on your body and ultimately leads to injury.

This is why multi-joint exercises and exercises that force you to move your body through a more dynamic range of motion are now preferred by physical therapists and personal trainers.

And the kettlebell is the perfect example of more adaptive training methodology…

Why Kettlebell Training is the Solution

When you train with a kettlebell, you are using a weight that is unevenly distributed. That is to say that the center of gravity can move as you move the weight, thereby altering the angle of the resistance and adding new elements like balance and resistance.

This forces you to brace your body and balance yourself in ways you wouldn’t have to with something like a bicep curl and that is what allows you to bring in the involvement of your smaller supporting muscles found throughout your body.

So what supporting muscles are you training in particular?

Here are some examples:

Obliques

The obliques are the muscles that run down either side of the abs and are used for bending from side to side and also twisting the torso (applying toque). They are very useful for a range of different movements and are great for aesthetics too – actually making the abs look considerably more impressive.

Serratus Muscles

These muscles are found on the sides of the pecs and are used for extending the arm forward when straight. Again, they can create a more ripped physique and actually provide considerable extra force when engaging in pushing movements.

Forearms

One of the most important muscle groups trained by the kettlebell swing and other movements is the forearms. These include your forearm flexors and extensors which allow you to grip and release things. By improving your grip, you gain a firmer hold on any weight or tool you’re training with and thereby greatly improve your performance.

Erector Spinae

These are two muscles trained by the deadlift as well as many other movements. Their job is to help you stand up straight and keep the spine erect. They can help to combat back problems as well as giving you considerably more lifting power!

More Items That Work Like Kettlebells

/in , ,

Looking to get into incredible shape and improve your functional strength? Then there are actually few things that will be more effective than a kettlebell workout. There are many reasons for this but the biggest factor is that a kettlebell workout involves training with multiple different angles and multiple different speeds.

The weight is constantly swinging around and constantly changing position and your body needs to constantly adapt to those changes in order to train. This works the smaller supporting muscles that other workouts just can’t hit and the result is more functional power and a better physique.

kettlebell

But the kettlebell isn’t the only tool you can use to do this. If you’re looking to get a truly functional workout, then actually there are several things you can deploy to get the job done. Here are some great examples…

Indian Club Training

The Indian club is a tool that looks like a weapon, a set of skittles or perhaps juggling pins. Essentially, you hold them at one end and then swing and move them around in your hands.

The reason this works so well, is that, as with training with a kettlebell, you are holding a handle that is removed from the weight itself. This then means the angle of the resistance will change as you build up momentum and it means that you can train muscles that might otherwise be hard to reach.

Hammer Training

Another great way to train your body is to use a simple sledge hammer! Just take the hammer and hit something like a car tire. This will use all the torque motion in your body and also require a lot of cardio endurance as well as the basic strength.

Moving Bricks

Take a pile of bricks and then simply move them to a new pile. This involves twisting, picking up each brick and then turning to the side to drop it behind you. Again, you’re training your obliques through the twisting and torque motion but you’re also using your grip and biceps to lift the bricks.

Climbing

When it comes to using your body functionally and as you’re supposed to, there are few things better than rock climbing. Rock climbing allows you to train your grip as you hang onto the walls, your lats, your biceps, your legs and more. What’s more, is that the high stakes and psychological challenge ensure that you are highly engaged with what you are doing and that you are thus more likely to be mindful of your training and more likely to engage more of your body and mind in what you are doing.

Swimming

Swimming is another surprisingly powerful form of functional training that utilizes your entire body moving in synchronous motion. The great thing about swimming is that it allows you to build more strength, more size and more cardio endurance – but also that it allows you to improve your muscle control, muscle fiber recruitment and functional range of movement.

How to Use Hand Balancing to Build Incredible Strength and Control

/in , ,

What is missing from your current training program? Probably just about everything. When you work out normally, the problem is that you are repeating a simple range of motion to build up microtears and metabolites. This is what stimulates growth and if all you’re interested in is developing muscle size and aesthetics, then that is the perfect way for you to train.

But if you’re interested in improving your actual strength and power. If you’re interested in becoming faster and more agile. If you want to be healthier then there’s a lot missing.

strength

And what’s more, is that this type of training is incredibly boring. Is it any surprise that we struggle to stick at this kind of training when it’s so repetitive and so mundane?

The good news is that the fitness community is starting to wake up to this reality and demonstrate some solutions. One such solution is to use kettlebells. Another is to use hand balancing…

What is Hand Balancing?

Hand balancing is the forgotten art of… well… balancing on your hands. Simply put, this involves performing movements like hand stands, like planche and like v-sits. The beauty is in the way you transition between these movements and the various different variations you can eventually pull off to demonstrate not only muscle power but also muscle control, balance and precision.

Those who become truly adept at this kind of training will eventually learn to do things like clapping handstand press ups, planche on just two fingers and all kinds of other fantastic feats.

This can also be combined with bar work, as demonstrated by a lot of ‘street workouts’ found on YouTube (look up ‘Bar Starz’ or ‘Bartendaz’). This then incorporates more pulling movements like muscle ups, like one armed pull ups and like levers.

Why It’s Amazing and How to Get Started

So what is so good about this form of training? Well, for starters, this type of training encourages you to be much more present psychologically and to really stay focussed on what you’re doing and how you’re doing it. To perform well at this, you need to concentrate hard and this strengthens the ‘mind muscle connection’.

At the same time, like kettlebell training, this form of training forces you to use smaller supporting muscles in order to hold your body at different and less expected angles.

Finally, this kind of training is fun and highly rewarding. Not only do you get a huge amount of reward out of being able to pull off these movements but you also find there is inherent reward in being so engaged with the movements themselves.

So how do you get started?

Actually, it’s very easy. All you really need to get started with type of training is a set of push up stands that will make hand balancing easier for beginners. A pull up bar is also a great tool. As you become more confident and skilful, you can then progress to training with things like parallel bars (cheap and easy to comeby), gymnastic rings and more advanced tools.

How to Use a Chair Like a Kettlebell

/in , ,

What does the recent popularity of the kettlebell teach us about training? For many, this may seem like nothing more than an interesting new tool for us to work out with. In reality though, the kettlebell simply sheds a light on a different approach to working out. By using tools other than dumbbells, you are not in fact cheapening your workouts – you’re actually making them that much richer and more powerful.

The less ‘conventional’ the type of tool you train with, the more you are able to keep your body guessing and the more you are able to keep developing new muscle control, new awareness and new power. The kettlebell’s effectively lies not in the fact that it is a kettlebell but in the fact that it is an unusual shape and size and this forces us to adapt.

kettlebell

So what else might you be able to use to train? Take a look around your home and you should find that practically anything can become a powerful training tool!

How to Turn Your Chair Into a Powerful Training Tool

Take a standard dining table chair for example. This has a shape and size that makes it quite unwieldy and very unbalanced – perfect for the type of training we’re interested in.

A simple way to use this, would be to grab the back of the chair at the top with two hands. Now, hold the chair over your head and proceed to press it. This is a simple shoulder press movement, with the added challenge of the awkward angle and weight that forces you to adapt.

Better yet, you can use this to perform something akin to a tricep extension mixed with a front raise and bicep curl. In this same starting position – legs pointing toward the ceiling and hands gripped onto the top of the backrest, allow the chair to drop down behind your back so that your arms are bent over your shoulders. Now extend using your triceps, so that the chair is back to the starting position. Then lower your elbows and extend your arms, so that they are pointing out straight in front of you.

To bring the chair back, curl it using your biceps and then pull your elbows up so that they are pointing to the ceiling and the chair is behind your back.

This is a highly complex movement that will train the shoulders, the triceps, the lats, the biceps and more, all while requiring forearm strength, balance and control in order to keep the weight steady.

And of course that’s just one potential move. How about swinging the chair around your head in a ‘halo’ motion?
And the chair is just one example. The point we’re making here is that any item in your home can be used for training. And actually, the more unconventional and awkward it looks, the better it’s going to be for your training goals!

Get creative and think outside the box. Your gains will thank you!

How to Train Like an Old-Time Strongman

/in , ,

When setting out to get into a shape, a good starting point is to find role models. Who are your fitness heroes? Whose physique would you like to emulate? Whose training philosophy most closely resembles your own?

Get this right and you can find yourself with a blueprint to follow and ample amounts of inspiration and motivation. Get it wrong and you’re asking for disappointment and frustration.

fitness

An example of a ‘wrong’ fitness role model might often be found on YouTube. While there are some great personalities on YouTube in the fitness community, there are also some destructive forces that you must contend with. In particular are those who spout unhelpful training advice and use steroid-driven physiques in order to sell us on its merits.

They tell us we can look like them by training like them. What they leave out is the chemical assistance that helped them get there, or the crippling back pain that is the cost of developing all those ‘mirror muscles’ and approximately zero ‘functional strength’.

Why Old-Time Strongmen Are Great Fitness Heroes

So who might we choose to look up to instead? A good alternative might be one of the legendary ‘old time strongmen’. These are individuals who trained long before we had protein shakes – let alone steroids and yet they achieved physiques that are well beyond many of our modern YouTube stars!

What’s more, they could actually use that strength and would be able to do incredible things like bending iron bars and lifting huge amounts of weight. These strongmen trained using completely different tools and methods and the results more than speak for themselves.

So if you want muscle that’s not just for show and that has an amazing historical heritage, that is a much better way to train.

How to Train Like an Old Time Strongman

So with all that said, how do you go about training in such a manner? What tools and techniques did they use that you could replicate?

The first trick is to use functional tools that train your body from multiple angles and that require you to use supportive muscles and balance in conjunction with brute strength. These force us to use our bodies as intended: as a single unit, working in unison. This is how we are able to generate the most strength and actually use it in ways that are useful.

Some tools that you can use to train this way include kettlebells, Indian clubs, ropes and barbells with especially thick bars. Training with one handed movements is also a particularly useful exercise, as well using more unconventional lifts, like the Turkish get-up and ‘anyhow lift’.

Another tip is to make sure that you are training your grip. This is the secret weapon of any old-time strongman and anyone interested in building truly functional strength needs to give it serious consideration in order to ensure no energy is wasted and that all of it is directed at moving the wei
ghts.

Finally, combine this with a protein rich diet and if you want to go truly old-time: lots of raw eggs!

(Although maybe a little cooking to avoid a biotin deficiency… not everything was better back in the day!)

Building an Unconventional ‘Functional’ Home Gym

/in , ,

In the last few years, the face of fitness has changed a great deal. We’ve seen a move away from very static, single-joint movements like the bicep curl and a move towards more adventurous and engaging forms of training. These include things like kettlebell training, TRX (suspension training), Indian club training, weighted stretching, squatting, deadlifting and more.

These types of exercises effectively allow us to use our body in the way it was intended: by using all of our muscles together rather than in an isolated fashion. The result is that we produce more growth hormone and testosterone (triggering greater muscle growth) and that we build a more stable and functional body.

kettlebell

 

The problem is that this type of training often doesn’t extend to the home gym. It’s not easy to fit a squat rack in your front room… so what can you do?

Here are some items that will allow you to build an awesome, functional and unique home gym that might be a little different from the other gym bros…

Kettlebell

The first thing you need to make your home workouts more functional is a kettlebell. This will immediately challenge you more by providing a more dynamic workout and by moving the center of gravity in unpredictable ways.

What’s more, is that kettlebell training allows you to perform movements like squats, deadlifts and more that you couldn’t train on your own otherwise.

Parallel Bars

Here is a simple tool that everyone can use in order to train and that not enough people have in their home. Parallel bars usually cost about $40 and allow you to perform dips, hand stands, planche, inverted push ups, neutral grip pull ups and much more.
They’re fun, easy to store and build incredibly dynamic strength.

Gymnastic Rings

Gymnastic rings can be used for many of the same exercises as parallel bars. The big difference is that you have to balance them and hold them steady while you train. They cost a lot less than TRX and have the added bonus of letting you perform dips too, so they are far superior in that sense.

Indian Club

Indian Clubs are the lesser-known little brothers of kettlebells. These let you train with similarly unconventional shapes and another uneven center of gravity, this time using a tool that looks a fair bit like a bowling pin! Grab onto the end and swing, push, lunge and generally sword fight an invisible opponent. That’s a fun way to build strength!

Balance Board

If you want to make any movement more challenging, more functional and more interesting then simply perform it while standing on a balance board. This will force you to balance while also moving the weight, which is much more challenging for your entire body.

Rope

A rope can be used for all manner of exercises. One of the simplest ways to train with it is to hang it over a pull up bar and then perform neutral grip pull ups with it. This will build grip strength as well as allowing you to train your biceps and lats. Otherwise, you can perform rows or even wrap it around your weights and pick them up that way!

Kettlebell Use Offers Impressive Benefits For Users

/in , ,

Kettlebell training offers additional richness to an exercise program. A kettlebell is an exercise tool that resembles a bowling ball with a handle. Made of cast-iron, kettlebells come in a variety of weight options, from 8 pounds to 105 pounds. Historically, evidence of kettlebell use in Ancient Greece has been found. Since the early 1700s, Russian athletes have developed kettlebell use. Beginning in the late 1990s, kettlebell use has become more popular in the West.

Beginning users may find the movements involved to be awkward and difficult, but with proper training and practice, kettlebell use offers many benefits including cardiovascular, strength, and flexibility training. Kettlebell training typically includes a series of many repetitions of movements. Exercises may include the typical movements involved with barbells and other conventional weights.

kettlebell

Additionally, movements specific to kettlebells include snatches, wings, cleans, and jerks. During these movements, several muscle groups come into play. This combination improves strength and cardiovascular strength simultaneously.

Research shows that a twenty minutes workout with a kettlebell burns the same amount of calories as a person who runs a 6 minute mile. This level of calorie burn indicates a high level of cardiovascular exercise. Users of kettlebells also improve flexibility. They typically see improvement in mobility and range of motion. Core strength is also improved. The combination of all three aspects of exercise combined into one activity is unusual and speaks to a high level of efficiency for the programs using a kettlebell.

While kettlebell training is a highly efficient workout, it also provides benefits that make it more likely to be a consistently used program. The kettlebell is a single, compact tool that can be stored in a variety of convenient places. Workouts can be performed anywhere without the cost of a gym membership. Travelers can carry their kettlebells, making it less likely to miss workouts. Kettlebell workouts typically take less time because of the efficiency of movements. Users benefit by being able to workout when they choose for a shorter period of time.

In addition to time management benefits, the workouts with kettlebells are stimulating compared to conventional workouts. Users are not as likely to be bored and give up. The exercises require focus. The routines inspire a feeling of success that can not be gained on a treadmill. Kettlebell users experience efficient exercises, efficient use of time, and stimulating workouts.

Finally, kettlebell workouts are relevant. The movements within the workouts lend themselves to real life. For example, carrying groceries, picking up children, performing chores, and various other daily activities can be seen within the movements of kettlebell exercises. The workouts strengthen the core as well as other muscle groups that are needed in life.

This relevance makes the exercise mean more and inspires consistent use. The use of a kettlebell becomes a lifestyle, not just an exercise. Considering the many benefits of kettlebell use, it is no wonder that the tool is gaining popularity. Any tool that includes all three aspects of exercise in one workout, can be stored and used anywhere, banishes boredom, and relates to real-life needs is sure to become a staple within the exercise world.