About Kettlebells

Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough.

– O. Mandino

History of Kettlebells

A kettlebell is a centuries-old Russian physical training tool; it even appears in a 1704 Russian Dictionary (Cherkikh, 1994).  It looks like a cannonball with a handle on it.

Russian Kettlebells from the history books

It appears that kettlebells originally were counter-weights used in Russian markets. The people started throwing them around and eventually they became very popular in Russia as a physical conditioning tool. In 1913 a Russian magazine called Hercules reported “Not a single sport develops our muscular strength and bodies as well as kettlebell athletics.” A Russian strong man was referred to as a kettlebell man –girevik. Girya is Russian for Kettlebell.

Although kettlebells develop strength, a kettlebell-trained body is not bulky like a bodybuilder. Russian athletes and regular individuals have been using kettlebells for centuries. Tsarist Russia declared the kettlebell as the conditioning tool for the masses. The 1980 Russian track and field team anchored their training with kettlebells and went on to sweep the gold medals in all throwing events.

The Russian Military has long used kettlebells for conditioning and do not test using push-ups; rather they use a kettlebell snatch test. The Christian Science Monitor reports: When Russian and US Special Forces started competing against each other after the Soviet Union broke up, the Americans made a rather disturbing discovery. “We’d be totally exhausted and the Russians wouldn’t even be catching their breath.” says… a Secret Service agent…”it turned out they were all working with kettlebells.” Because of that the United States Secret Service has now instituted a 10-minute kettlebell snatch test.

How Kettlebells are used
Kettlebells are primarily used in ballistic or swinging movements or used in press and pull exercises similar to those one would use with a free weight. The displacement of the weight of the kettlebell from the hand requires that the stabilizer muscles engage more with each movement than would be required of the similar movement with a weight such as a dumbbell or barbell. Kettlebell exercises are whole-body exercises requiring full body integration and core stabilization. There is no isolated muscle work in Kettlebell training.

Personal Trainer Jin Kim with a client in the Redwood City facility

Why full-body exercises are important
Muscles in our bodies do not move independent of each other. Our body’s movements are integrated. We do not do isolated movements in everyday life. Therefore we would want to train the body in movement patterns that are natural to the body.
Full body exercises are functional exercises. Functional movements replicate motor recruitment patterns that are found in real life movements. Thus they strengthen what we call the kinetic chain. Functional movement patterns have been shown to elicit high neuroendocrine response, a vital component for fitness improvement. In short, better, efficient results.

The Benefits of kettlebells
As the long history of the Kettlebell proves, it reaps many benefits to offer those who use it on a regular routine. These benefits include:
• The increase in endurance.
• Toning of virtually every muscle of the body.
• Muscular strength.
• Increase in flexibility.
• Promotes fat loss.
• Gives you the freedom to get an intensive workout from home.

How do Kettlebells compare with other modalities in terms of functionality?
Paul Check, a well known expert in the field of corrective and high performance kinesiology has found kettlebell training to be superior to other forms of training when rated in terms of biomotor richness. Biomotor means “life movement”, so biomotor abilities are those abilities that are necessary for functional human movement. These can be defined as Strength, Endurance, Speed, Coordination and Flexibility. Power is the combination of strength and speed. The combination of flexibility and coordination produces agility. For instance, when comparing the squat movement and comparing biomotor richness, Check finds twice the results with an advanced KB squat over a machine squat, and 1-1/2 x the results over an olympic squat.

The carry-over effect of training with kettlebells is staggering. There’s something in the training world known as training specificity. That is, if you want to do better at something you need to train specifically for it. If you want to run faster you have to keep running faster. If you want to jump higher, you need to keep jumping higher. The interesting thing to note is with kettlebells there is a great carry-over effect into other physical activities.

Renegades using kettlebells

The Voropayev study in 1983 involved 2 groups of subjects studied over a few years and tested with a standard battery of armed forces physical agility training tests. The tests consisted of pull-ups, standing broad Jump, 100 meter sprint, and a 1 kilometer run. The first group, the control group, followed a typical university physical education program that emphasized these events or tests. The second group, the experimental group, just lifted kettlebells ONLY. In spite of a lack of practice on the tested events, the experimental group that just trained with kettlebells showed better scores in every exercise!
That is why you see kettlebells being used today by virtually all professional and collegiate sports teams such as football, baseball and hockey. Even PGA professional golfers implement kettlebell training in their workouts.

Are Kettlebells for you?
Are you a competitive athlete that wants to perform at your physical best? Are you just a weekend warrior that wants to go out and perform and not get hurt at the same time? Are you someone that’s looking to get rid of a few, or even several pounds of fat and tone up in a short period of time? Training with kettlebells are not only for top level athletes but for anyone who wants a great workout that’s more efficient and effective than many other forms of training out there. Give kettlebells a try. We’re confident that you will find them challenging yet creative and fun.