What Kettlebellers Can Learn from Bodybuilders and Old School Russians

Hardstyle kettlebell training is notorious for its goals of strength and power, short training sessions, using compound lifts, practicing the same movements over and over again, and using low rep ranges: 3-5 sets of 3-5 reps being the standard format.  Bodybuilding is notorious for its goal of muscle hypertrophy, ultra-long training sessions, employing both compound and

Kettlebells vs Bodybuilding

(Thank you to Francheska for the great question) Can I keep the muscles that I built through bodybuilding style training when I move to solely kettlebells and bodyweight training? Short answer: no Long answer:Kettlebell training and bodybuilding training have very different objectives. Bodybuilding is first and foremost about the appearance and aesthetic proportionality of the

How to Kettlebell Train Outside in the Winter

There is always temptation to spend the entire winter training indoors, but such a temptation is a false friend. Being outside in winter is even more important than it is in summer. In general, outdoor training boosts energy, allows us to reconnect with nature and escape the electronic and concrete jungle, improves creativity and induces

Painful forearm during the TGU?

Does your forearm feel painful during the TGU on the Deep Six complex? If yes, you might find my answer to one of our subscriber's questions useful. Orlando: "The Deep Six killed me. In the TGU my forearm was on fire. Especially after round 3" Kat: Ouch! That is never pleasant. I and my students

Sore hips? It is and isn’t ‘old age’

I have heard many times people as young as 40 blame old age for their painful joints.  Here's the reality check.  Sore joints have less to do with age and more with lifestyle. As we get older, lifestyle becomes more important because the body is simply less forgiving of stupidity. Our joints, when used well,

The Art of Kettlebell Recycling

Backswing for hardstyle Swing, Clean and Snatch What is kettlebell recycling? It is efficiently recreating identical reps (e.g. of deadlift, squat, swing, press, clean, snatch) one after another without movement quality deteriorating and without wasting excess energy.  Your ability to recycle well determines not only how long you can last in a training set, or

Girevoy Nationals 2020: reflections

10 min Long Cycle @16 kg This is the face of intense struggle and realization from the Girevoy competition this past weekend. It was fantastic and there's a huge lesson here! I didn't train for this event. I had a VERY nice relaxing winter 🙂 and I don't regret it for a second. But I

Why Kettlebells are like Olympic Lifting 2.0

I love Olympic Lifting. It is supremely satisfying to hoist a heavy weight over your head. Plus, it builds power, strength, mobility, coordination, lean muscle, core strength, ability to use the body as one solid unit, and mental focus. However, I've always found five downsides to traditional Olympic Lifting (using a barbell) when it comes

3 (actually, 7) reasons NOT to Exercise for Fat Loss. And 3 Things to Do Instead.

Over the past few months including COVID lockdown, I have been getting an increased amount of questions from you, all about weight loss:What exercise should I do more of to lose the belly?Should I start training twice a day?Why isn't my weight decreasing even though I walk twice as much every day?Is it better for weight loss if

Consistency and Function.

Stair climbing boosts brain performance, slows down the aging process, revs up metabolism, improves fitness and lower body strength. As a teenager living in the north-west city of Perm, Russia, I was not very active. One day at a wise old age of 14 I noticed that my flabby butt was beginning to creep down