Working out with kettlebells is a great way to get in shape. Using a kettlebell the right way, you can significantly increase you strength, endurance, and flexibility.
Many great exercises have been developed for use with the kettlebell. These exercises can be done with a dumbbell or barbell but the kettlebell offers a slightly different workout.
Kettlebells are made with thick handles so that means that they challenge your hands, fingers, and forearms more than usual. This can help to channel your focus, because we tend to pay more attention when the bar is harder to grip.
Swing Your Way to Better Fitness
One of the most popular exercises that is performed with a kettlebell is called a Swing. To do this exercise stand with your feet slightly wider than shoulder width apart, and hold one kettlebell with one hand.
Bend your knees so that the kettlebell hangs down between your legs only a few inches off of the floor. Now keep your back straight as you swing the kettlebell upwards keeping your arm straight.
Once the bell is slightly above head level then let it drop back down between your legs. If done right, the kettlebell swing will go along way to developing your hamstrings.
How to Make the Most of Kettlebells
Just like with other exercise modalities, you can use lighter weights to develop endurance, and heavier weights to develop strength. The best way to do this is to workout in a way that challenges you but doesn’t over work your body.
Whether or not you want strength or endurance, you should still use a relatively heavy weight in relation to the amount of repetitions that you are performing. For example, let’s say that your goal is maximum strength.
You start out by testing yourself with a 35 lb. kettlebell and end up maxing out at 10 repetitions. If you want to train for max strength then you’re going to want a heavier weight, but not much heavier because you have to take into account all of your sets and how often you train.
Use Appropriate Volume and Frequency
Training frequency and the amount of sets are very important things to take into consideration. Let’s focus in on one specific exercise for now. Let’s say that we did 1 set of 10 repetitions with 35 lbs. in the Clean and Press exercise.
The Clean and Press is one of my favorite exercises because it works a lot of muscles. If we are aiming for a 3 day a week workout then we want to use slightly less weight and sets then we would if we were only doing that exercise one or two days a week.
A good program for this training frequency is 3 sets of 3 repetitions with a 40 or 45 lb. kettlebell, depending on the individual. This is a great workout for strength, but you can also use kettlebells for endurance training as well.
To Sum it Up
There are many great exercise training modalities out there, and I think that the kettlebell is one of them. It has subtle differences from a dumbbell that can provide great variety in our workouts.
These thick handle bells originated in Russia and were traditionally measured in poods, which are a Russian measurement of weight. There biggest proponent is probably Pavel Tsatsouline, who is an incredible strength coach.
It’s incredible to realize that this fantastic workout device was created over 300 years ago. For hundreds of years wrestlers, strongmen, and general fitness enthusiasts have been using kettlebells and getting great results. And now you can as well.
