by ~ggvic~

At Home Fitness consultant Aaron Dorksen’s blog deals with a variety of fitness topics, ranging from workout tips, motivational ideas and feature stories on how exercise impacts people’s lives. E-mail him with comments, questions or ideas for future blogs at aaron@athomefitness.com.

by Marek Joschko

Willie Owens has been an athlete for most of his life playing Football and Running track at the highest levels that one can achieve. Willie was educated at the Pennsylvania State University where he majored in Exercise Sports Science. After Willie finished playing Football he decided not to go to medical school and use his education to help people achieve their fitness and health goals. Willie loves athletic specific training, but specializes in functional injury rehabilitation. Willie also holds a patent for a functional workout apparatus as well a Trademark for an athletic clothing line, both which will be available by mid 2010.

Dr Mel C Siff

www.drmelsiff.com

Jamie Lloyd is renowned as one of the UK’s top Kettlebell Coaches and is the owner of Russian Kettlebells UK in London. He is one of only a handful of certified Russian Kettlebell coaches in Europe who is also a level 2 IKKF klettlebell Coach who has been trained under the watchful eye of Steve Cotter.He is available for personal training, kettlebell training, kettlebell classes, kettlebell courses and kettlebells.

http://www.russiankettlebellsuk.com

Aamir is a huge kettle bell enthusiast! Check out his kettlebell exercises blog at http://www.kettlebellexercises.net to find out more about kettle bells and how they can help you achieve your fitness goals!

If you haven’t heard of kettlebells yet, you must have been hiding under a…dumbbell. Kettlebells are one of the newest pieces of exercise equipment to hit the US and are growing rapidly in popularity because of the results they help others achieve in very little time.

For those in the know, kettlebells are new to the US, but they are not new by any means. In fact, kettlebells have been around for HUNDREDS of years. They were basically unknown in the West sans some pictures of strongmen using them in the last 1800’s and early 1900’s until exercise specialist and Russian ex-Special Forces member Pavel Tsatsouline re introduced them around 2000.

Kettlebells look like bowling balls with handles. They are effective because you have to actively move the weight through space in both linear and non linear ways that will help you work your entire body with just about every exercise. Below are 3 basic but VERY effective exercises that you can do with kettlebells to help you get ripped, strong, and dramatically increase your cardiovascular endurance as well.

The Kettlebell Swing-This is the core exercise done with the kettlebell. It basically involves your holding the handle with two hands and swing the bell through your legs and then thrusting forward with your hips to swing the ball up to eye level or just overhead. This exercise will work your ENTIRE body and is deceptively effective. Newbies will realize this the very next day…I promise.

The Kettlebell Clean-The clean is a popular power lifting move, but done with the kettlebell, you will be forced to stabilize the side of your body opposite of where the kettlebell comes to rest. You will use your lower body to power the bell up, and your arms to a lesser degree. This makes the kettlebell clean a super cool core movement. You can bring the bell up from a dead rest, or clean it from a swing. In either case, you will bring the bell up to rest on your forearms and tight to the body as if you were chambering your fist to throw a punch. Then, bring the bell back down to either rest, or swing to the other side.

The Kettlebell Snatch-I know you have heard the squat called “The king of exercises” but after you knock out a couple of kettlebell snatches with a decent weight, you may want to crown a new ruler. This movement involves thrusting the kettlebell from the ground straight overheard, and then bringing it back down again. The kettlebell snatch effectively incorporates almost every muscle in your body, and if done for reps, will have you dripping in sweat and breathing like a dying dog in no time. You might be surprised that one round ball looking piece of equipment can do this to your body. Make no mistake, the kettlebell is EFFECTIVE.

Now that you have a bit of understanding about these exercises, DON’T DO THEM! Well, that is until you can do at least an initial session with a certified kettlebell instructor. Because of the ballistic movement required for kettlebell lifts, it is easy to injure yourself if you don’t know what you are doing. Once you get familiar with the kettlebells though, you won’t ever want to put them down again!

By: Emile A. Jarreau

About the Author:

Kettlebell swings are one of the best exercises for firming your buttocks, hamstrings, quads, abs and pretty much everything else. The dynamic loading and unloading of the weight trains you to you your entire body to generate the force necessary to move the bell from between your legs to chest or shoulder height. Proper form is imperative to keep from hurting yourself.

These tips will help you maximize the fat burning potential of the kettlebell swing!

The hips go BACK not down! I can’t tell you how many people have come to me saying swings hurt their back. Inevitably the reason is they are squatting down instead of pushing the hips back.

Try this – Place your hands on your hips with the forefinger of each hand in the hip crease and use the hands to tilt the pelvis. Let the knees unlock, but don’t bend them, just unlock them.

Keep pushing the hips back. At the same time keep the chest lifted and shoulder blades pinched, chin up.

Pop the hips forward and straighten the knees. The hamstrings, glutes, quads and abs should all be tight at the moment of full expansion. The pelvis should be forward.

If you are doing swings with 1 kb (2 handed or 1 handed) the forearm(s) should be touching the inside of the upper thigh through the bottom portion of the movement. If the forearm(s) go between the knees you are squatting (or you have longer arms than me which is saying a lot)

If you are practicing with a more relaxed style you can let the arm relax a little and round a bit through the mid & upper back but the lower back stays flat!

Activate your lats to keep the shoulder down and packed

Shins stay vertical – Do not allow any movement below the knees. This results in scooping and is usually caused by shifting the weight from the mid foot/heel to the ball of the foot. You should be able to lift the toes off the floor at any time during a swing.

Going deeper into the backswing (back NOT down) will generate more power by loading the posterior chain more. You can’t go as deep/back with 2 handed swings.

Swing to shoulder height or forehead height, unless you are specifically working on high pull variations. The variation that I have seen some do, two handed swings overhead can be dangerous, you are better off snatching

At the top of the swing don’t arch the back to get it higher. You may lean back onto the heals to counter-balance the bell but the back remains flat.

Save your grip and hands. Do not squeeze the handle in a death grip. For all but the heaviest (for you) bell you should be able to hold the bell in the fingers by just keeping them curled and only tightening a little through the back swing. Holding the bell tight at the base of the top of the palm below the finger will lead to much pain and suffering from blisters and torn callouses.

Breathing should be natural. Don’t force it. Find a rhythm that works for you. Personally my breathing pattern changes depending on how much work I’ve already done. I tend to inhale on the downswing and exhale on the upswing when fresh, but when I get tired I do a double breath. Exhale on the backswing, quick inhale on the way up, exhale at the top, quick inhale on the way down. It takes a bit of experimentation, but that  really is your natural breathing pattern.

That’s it for now. I hope you find these pointers helpful in fine tuning your swing so you can get the most benefit from this tremendous exercise!

By: Dave Randolph

About the Author:

Workout Tips

Cycle your workouts – vary the intensity, volume, exercises and tools Work for time not reps – :20 sec work :10 sec of rest for 4 minutes (Tabata Protocol) is very effective in burning fat and increasing work capacity Learn new lifts or movements and practice them Try to do something everyday, even if it is just a brisk walk for active recovery

Cycle your workouts but make sure they all focus on reaching the goal(s) you are trying to reach. If you are training for a power lifting meet, you need to make sure all your work is focused on the lifts you will be competing in. The 1st 4 days of the cycle focus on the your deadlift but do some lighter work on the squat and bench press. The 2nd week make the squat the primary lift, the 3rd week hit the bench press harder.

Work for time. When you focus on going for reps you limit yourself. If you say I will do 50 pushups today you will find yourself doing great up until 40 or so then your sub-conscious kicks in and the last 10 are a struggle with number 50 being all you can muster. However if you say I will do pushups for 3 minutes and you just start and do as many as you can, pause briefly, resume, etc when you reach 3 minutes you should have done a LOT more than 50 reps. Try it, it works

Don’t get stuck doing the same things, your body adapts quickly to whatever is thrown at it. To keep improving, whether getting stronger, losing weight or building muscle we mus continually vary our routines to prevent adaptation. Varying our workouts and using different equipment also helps prevent boredom. So if your are a body builder, go learn to use kettlebells and incorporate them on your “cardio” days. If you only do aerobics, the treadmill or other non-resistance training pick up a weight, prefereably a heavy one. A light one wont do anything for you.

Be active every day. If you train every day you will reach your goals faster. Now this doesnt mean hit it hard every day. Instead of taking a day off, do something light such as Tai Chi or joint mobility or a nice walk. Nothing strenuous, nothing that will get the heart rate up or make you breathe hard, just even to get the blood flowing.

Here’s a template that you can use to cycle your training over a 28 day period.

Day 1 – lift something heavy (very heavy) for a few reps and do a lot of sets with adequare rest between sets. Focus on strength, don’t get the heart rate elevated, it isn’t supposed to be cardio. Heavy dead lifts, or squats for example.

Day 2 – Crank it up a notch or 5. This is high intensity, your HR should come close to maxing out, you should be sweating bullets, you should be breathing hard. This is a metcon a good hard training day. Lots of sweat, lots of volume.

Day 3 – Active Recovery – joint mobility, a nice easy walk, Tai Chi. Day 4 – Moderate day, kind of in between days 1 and 2. Some yoga or moderate intensity body-weight stuff or easy kettlebells lifting such as snatches for 20 minutes with a very light bell. 50 to 60% RM on your deadlift or squat, but low volume also.

 

You can adapt this protocol to any training goal. Run the cycle for 28 days (4×7) and re-evaluate. If necessary you can run the same plan again, or you may create a new goal and tune your cycle to meet that goal.

If something comes up and you miss a day or two, or even a week, just pick up where you left off.

Using this template (the 4×7 is originally from Scott Sonnon – http://www.rmaxinternational.com) you can practice every day, make gains faster and still have plenty of recovery time.

 

By: Dave Randolph

About the Author:

Tabonga2001 asked:

Dr. Courtney Mizuhara-Cheng, RKC II, is shown demonstrating Pavel Tsatsouline’s Kossack technique with two (2) 12 kg (26 lb) kettlebells in the rack position. The toes should be pulled up and the heel should be pushed outward on the extended leg. This is a prime example of kettlebell training’s multifaceted nature, improving strength, endurance, and flexibility all at the same time! For more information on this or other kettlebell training sets, please visit www.kettlebellslosangeles.com…

After 14 years as a successful chiropractor I have finally discovered what I believe to be the very best tool for improving the back-strength and overall health of my patients. That tool is the kettlebell – something I had never heard of until two years ago. I have to admit that initially they intimidated me… until I needed them for my own injury.

The Doctor Becomes a Patient

Growing up I was always extremely athletic in high school and college. I lettered in volleyball, softball, and basketball, and I became a Doctor of Chiropractic because I knew firsthand how important a strong and well-aligned body is for physical activity.

As an athlete and a doctor I never experienced any problems with back pain – until about 5 years ago. I was adjusting a very large male patient (6’3″ 300lbs), something I never had a problem with in the past because of my use of proper techniques.

Somehow this time was different. When I applied my force into this patient’s body to adjust his hips – nothing moved. I felt like I had just attempted to pass my hands through a pillar of marble. The resulting wave of resistance immediately reverberated through my entire spine. At that moment I knew I was injured.

I did everything I tell my injured patients to do. I stretched, iced, went for massage, received chiropractic care, physical therapy, and acupuncture treatments. Being in the healthcare profession, the treatment I received was the best available. At times I was in the offices of other providers 5-6 times per week.

Frustration with Traditional Methods

The treatments kept my back functioning so that I could do my job but the repair and healing of my body did not progress. If I sneezed it would throw my back into spasms. If I slept wrong I would have to wear a back support for a week. This was more than pain and inconvenience – my very livelihood was at stake! Nobody wants to put their trust in a chiropractor who clearly has a bad back herself. So I did everything I could to hide and mask my pain from my patients.

Two years into this constant pain I knew I had to try something different. I hired a personal trainer (a former N.F.L. player) who I hoped would whip me into shape. After 6 months, although I gained arm and leg strength, my body did not tone up the way I expected and my back pain did not improve. In fact it got worse. There would be times when I would spend half an hour on the treadmill in the evening and not be able to get out of bed the next morning.

Impressing A Skeptic

About this time I came across a book titled Beyond Stretching, by Pavel Tsatsouline. There was something different here. There were stretches in this book that I had never seen before. Even my physical therapy associates were impressed with this new and cutting-edge material. I had a feeling that Pavel could help me with my back, and hoped this might be the answer to restore my health and the future of my practice.

Fortunately I live close to Seattle because at that time Pavel was visiting the city twice each year. I took his stretching, strengthening and abdominal class. I was impressed – not something easily accomplished because I do body work myself, but also because I had experienced so many disappointments.

After attending Pavel’s classes my stretching improved and my pain was decreasing. In fact, I was so impressed that I encouraged all of my patients and colleagues to attend Pavel’s seminars.

I had patients drive 70-80 miles one-way to attend Pavel’s seminars, and I would bring no fewer than 10 people with me each time. I always made sure to bring my most acute patients – the ones I knew would experience the most benefit by attending.

When Pavel witnessed my third trek to Seattle with patients in tow, he was impressed with my commitment and suggested that I train with kettlebells – round cast-iron weights, like cannonballs with handles. He even implied that I should become certified as a kettlebell trainer to assist my patients. Well, I was more than slightly intimidated – in my mind there was no way I could throw around this big piece of iron without inflicting further injury. But everything Pavel had showed me so far was helping, and I was intrigued. I ended up purchasing a kettlebell, but picked it up maybe five times before it began to gather dust at home. I was so out of shape that I would get winded swinging the kettlebell only twenty times. Being an athlete, I think it hurt my ego more than anything else!

One Demonstration Makes All the Difference

Then in October 2004 I was fortunate enough to attend another one of Pavels stretching and strengthening seminars that included a quick kettlebell demonstration. One of the people who spoke was Dave Werner, RKC. He related his experience with severe lower back pain, nerve damage in his leg, and using a cane to walk.

I couldn’t believe it – this man had recovered and looked like an Olympic athlete! Right then I knew I had to give kettlebells another chance. I not only needed to try them for myself, but for the benefit of all my patients that were in the same predicament as me.

I hired Dave to show me what to do, and one month into my training I sneezed — and had NO PAIN!! For almost five years I had been in pain from the slightest movement, and after one month of training with kettlebells I was able to sneeze and not have pain. That may not seem like much to you, but for me it was a miracle. I started training harder and signed up for the April 2005 RKC. People must have thought I was crazy because I hadn’t exercised in well over a year due to my pain and now I wanted to go and subject myself to three days of Russian boot camp!

The more I trained in preparation for the RKC the more my fitness improved, and my back pain quickly became a thing of the past. I made it to the RKC and survived – believe me, I had lots of sore muscles, but never a twinge in my lower back. I had been given my life back!

Sharing the Secret

When I returned from the training I soon began working with one of my worst back injury patients. The type of patient I see has extreme back pain and most of them have such poor body mechanics and muscle tone that they can’t even do a squat correctly. They’re afraid to move their body, believing they can prevent spasms by not moving, so I start them out slowly. This particular patient had constant pain and couldn’t do even simple household chores such as vacuuming or cleaning dishes

.

I started her out with the 4 Kg. bell, doing squats and swings in 5 sets of 5 reps each. If you’ve ever lifted the 4 Kg. bell, it weighs almost nothing, but it was heavy enough for her body and started improving her strength. We continued her chiropractic adjustments twice per week to control her pain and prevent spasms. After three weeks I introduced an 8 Kg. bell for one of the five sets, and her spine was starting to hold so I reduced her office visits to once per week. I have been training her now for five weeks and she has only minimal pain. She recently vacuumed her whole house without assistance – something she had not done in three years. You’ve never seen someone so excited about being able to vacuum the floor!

It’s now been almost two weeks since she needed an adjustment and I’ve added a figure eight with the 8 Kg. bell to expand her range of motion. It’s important for those with chronic back pain to expand their abilities so they don’t give in to the fear of triggering a back spasm. Kettlebells allow this incremental increase, and it builds confidence in patients like nothing I’ve seen before.

Kettlebells – the Missing Ingredient?

I’ve seen the kettlebell workout help one of my associates with his asthma. Another eliminated her wrist and knee pain after 6 weeks of doing kettlebells. Like me, she was very worried about her career as a chiropractor because her wrists kept giving out. Now she is stronger and more confident that she can do her job for years to come.

I’m still amazed at the improvement in back stability that comes with kettlebell training. I feel like a kid again! I can honestly say I am in the best shape of my life – after only 8 months! I now work a full day in my practice and then train people with kettlebells one-on-one and in groups 4-5 nights a week.

I now believe kettlebells to be the single most important tool that can be added to a recovery training schedule. There are too many people out there who cannot enjoy life, who are merely existing because of their back pain. Their abdominals and back muscles are so weak from repeated spasms that they fall apart with any activity. I believe all of them can be helped with kettlebells.

It’s important to start slowly, primarily because of the weakness and lost muscle tone that develops from repeated muscle spasms, but also because of the mental block created by the fear of pain. Kettlebells allow you to do this. I know, because I’ve been there. But at 39 years old I now feel better than I did in my twenty’s, and I can’t wait to see how I will be a year from now. Thank you Pavel for giving me my life back!

By: Dr. Wendy Schauer, Dc, Rkc

About the Author:

Russian martial arts flexibility and strength training techniques such as kettlebells have been available to Western Special Forces for many years from Russian masters of martial arts. Russian territory reaches from the west through middle Asia to China, and they have the benefit of the best of self defence and aggressive techniques from all of these territories within their armed forces.

Both before and after the destruction of the communist ways in parts of the USSR, Russian fitness experts crossed to Europe to provide us with the benefits of their knowledge of self defence and strength training, and both UK and American forces have reaped the benefits of this specialized Russian knowledge. Much of this knowledge is now available online to ordinary people with an interest in improving their strength, flexibility and relaxation techniques in order that they can attain the highest levels possible in their chosen sport or game. That means you!

Take Russian kettlebells, for example. Russian power lifters and martial arts experts are available online to offer you instruction in how to use these simple weights to build exceptional power and strength throughout your whole body. For those not familiar with kettlebells, they are simple heavy balls with a handle so that you can lift them. They are very simple but can make a person stronger, more explosive, and with unbelievable endurance and coordination: just what is needed in any martial art, and used extensively in Russian military training.

Many martial artists, especially in the initial stages of study, are unaware of the true importance of strength, speed and power. In very simple terms, strength + speed = power. If you strike with great strength and high speed, you will generate great power. It is for reasons such as this that great Russian exponents of fitness and martial arts training such as Pavel Tsatsouline have been employed by the American special forces, police and other organizations to teach techniques such as those that enabled Russian Cossacks to slice a man from shoulder to saddle with nothing but a light saber (not a ‘light saber’ as in star Wars, but a saber that is not heavy!). This is spelled ‘sabre’ in Europe, where it originated.

They could do this through relaxation techniques, gained by repeatedly slashing into water while standing waist deep in a lake. This sounds easy, but not after doing it for hours, and needs total relaxation until the instant of strike. This is exactly as a martial artist or boxer should be totally relaxed until the arm snaps straight with maximum forward momentum and power, and then relaxes immediately after strike until the next strike which could be a fraction of a second later.

Relaxation can become second nature through the use of Qigong or Tai Chi training, the Chinese art of relaxation. Many people regard it as an exercise for wimps, yet the greatest martial arts exponents in the world use it for relaxation, as do many of the world’s elite martial forces. Meet these guys face to face and call them wimps!

Through a combination of kettlebells, relaxation training and flexibility, the Russian special forces were among the most feared in the world in unarmed combat, which is why they were employed to train the armed forces of the USA. Their techniques are available online if you know where to look, and relaxation that leads to speed, endurance and flexibility appears to be one of their main skills.

Its opposite is tension, which is composed of strength and power. At the moment of a martial artist’s strike, speed and power are backed up with mass, but an instant later the fist is totally relaxed as it snaps back to guard. Many sports other than just martial arts depend on tension and relaxation, the two aspects of the expert sportsman.

Russian training techniques offer opportunities to improve your tension and relaxation. Strength is increased through the use of kettlebells, power through dynamic and kinetic training, speed through flexibility training and relaxation through qigong and other such techniques. Those that laugh and claim that they do not work would shudder at seeing the power and capabilities of the Cossack, as did the opponents who would rather run than face them. They were more powerful that their horses and the most feared opponents in the known world at the time.

If you want to improve to your ability at most sports, but especially in martial arts, learn from the Cossacks and Russians. Learn from their martial arts flexibility techniques, and kettlebell strength exercises. They are simple to understand, and the equipment is inexpensive

By: Peter Nisbet

About the Author:

Russian Kettlebells are amazing! These kettlebell workouts may be the answer to maintaining a home gym or having an expensive club membership.

With Russian kettlebells you can develop superior gains over traditional workout methods and save lots of space in your home.

The man who teaches Russian Kettlebell training is Pavel Tsatsouline. He is a former Spetznaz trainer. For those who may not know, Spetznaz is the Russian equivalent of the CIA or special forces.

As every high-risk agent would wish for, after studying some of Pavel’s books you can definitely find out how to have explosive instant power ready at all times.

But, not everyone is a spy; in fact very few of us are. So what benefits does kettlebell training have for the average woman or man?

Kettlebell training can be a great way to lose weight, tone up the body, and stay in shape once you get it there with the added benefits mentioned above.

And not only that, kettlebell workouts may be better for you than weights. In one of his books, Pavel mentions some of the fitness tests that were used to compare kettlebell training to traditional workouts.

The kettlebell trainers seemed to be in much better shape according to Pavel. And Pavel would know – You can see a picture of Pavel on his web site. The guy is well muscled and toned for someone that avoids weight training like the plague.

Speaking of muscle and tone, check out the incredible Ab muscles that Pavel can show you how to develope. Pavel, being an expert in physical training combined with his unique experience and insight is fully qualified to show you all about physical fitness.

Whether you are female or male, Pavel can show you the way to fitness. He has also collected for our benefit, what he believes to be excellent advice in nutrition.

Another thing I think that is interesting about Pavel and his work is that he brings his colorful and interesting Russian personality into play. For example, just think of the title of one of his books, Power to the People.

Me? I find that title humorous, but if I had to explain why I think it’s funny, I’m not sure that I could. It might be the underlying but subtle notion that liberation is in order for someone. Come to think of it, I guess liberation is in order.

Pavel wants to show us a better way to fitness and free us from our need to spend an inordinate amount of time in the gym and spend it more wisely and effectively, so that we can have great physical fitness and time to enjoy it as well.

As you can see by glancing at his pictures, Pavel not only knows how to develop an amazing physique but he also knows how to keep himself flexible at the same time.

Maybe now you can understand why I think this man has some answers to fitness that we might not be able to find anywhere else, nor all in one convenient location either.

As always, consult a primary care physician before embarking on any fitness regimen. This article is for information purposes only and is not to treat, prevent or diagnose any physical condition

By: Richard Bond

About the Author:

Kettlebell exercises have the potential to turn your training routine on its head. Fat loss, muscle building and conditioning can all happen simultaneously with balance and stretching ability being improved too — If you don’t have kettlebell exercises in your regime, you’re missing out.

Now, before getting on to the bread and butter of the article – the exercises themselves – I feel it’s important to explain what a kettlebell is.

The training tool of choice for the Russian elite forces, kettlebells have been in prevalent in Russian society for a very long time. Shaped like a cannonball with a handle on the top, kettlebells allow for compound movements that work the body as a whole with a large amount of muscles and muscle groups being worked in each workout.

When buying a kettlebell, it is important to make sure that you start off with the correct weight. Too heavy and you could risk injuring yourself; too light and your training will suffer. Men who are new to the world of fitness training should start with a 16kg with more experienced athletes opting instead for a 20kg or even a 24kg kettlebell. Female trainers should start with an 8kg weight with more experienced athletes picking up a 12kg or 16kg instead.

Unlike dumbells, kettlebells do not increase incrementally in small jumps. This is compensated by variation in the exercises performed. As strength and conditioning is increased, more difficult kettlebell exercises are deployed that push the body harder and further.

The first exercise any aspiring kettlebell athlete (or girevek, as they’re known in Russia) should learn is the two handed swing. Despite it’s relative simplicity, the swing is an amazing exercise as it targets the back, the legs the abs all the while increasing flexibility in the hips and increasing cardio vascular endurance. The swing epitomises all that is brilliant about kettlebell exercises.

To perform the two handed kettlebell swing, you should start by placing your feet shoulder distance apart with your toes pointly slightly outwards. The next step is to squat down and pick up the kettlebell gripping the handle with both hands while sticking your bottom out in the air. Next, stand up and swing the kettlebell in front of you, pushing your hips forwards at the top of the swing. Finally, let the kettlebell fall down between your knees while you squat down. Rinse and repeat.

It is important to manage your breathing while carrying out the swing. While the kettlebell is rising, the girevek should be exhaling gradually with a sharp exhale at the top of the swing. The girevek should then inhale as the kettlebell falls and swings down between their legs.

A simple workout that can be carried out with the two handed swing is as follows:

- Warmup for ten minutes, doing a variety of bodyweight exercises. I recommend jogging for thirty seconds, then doing thirty seconds of pushups, thirty seconds of squats and then thirty seconds of ab crunches. Repeated five times at a moderate pace, the body should be warmed up and ready for action.

- Alternate between one minute intervals of swings and active rest for twelve minutes, i.e. one minute of swings followed by one minutes of jogging followed by another minute of swings followed by one minute of pushups, and so on and so forth. Active recovery is not supposed to tax the body greatly and should thus be carried out at a moderate to low pace to keep the body active.

The next morning after completing the workout, you’ll definately feel it!

Once you’ve masted the two handed swing, you can move on to other variations of the swing such as the one handed swing and the DARC swing where the kettlebell is released by one hand in the air and caught by other.

Beyond the swing, there are hundreds of kettlebell exercises to experiment with. To get the most out of your training, I recommend picking up the book Enter the Kettlebell! by Pavel Tsatsouline.

Good luck in your training!

 

By: AamirKB

About the Author:

Russian martial art training and kettlebell training involves elements of strength, flexibility and relaxation. Many would argue that speed and technique should also be included, but given that you have trained in all three of these disciplines, then speed will come naturally. Technique is immaterial: it is related to what you do, not how you do it.

Training, on the other hand, is how you do what you do. The what is irrelevant. It is the how that matters. A boxer cares not what a karate student does, but only what he himself does. A man or woman facing opponents is not concerned with what others can do, but only with they do themselves. It is not the ‘what’ but the ‘how’ that matters, and the ‘how’ is related to training, practice and knowledge.

The training of Russian martial artists is designed to improved the ‘how’. Russian martial art has no need of pre-orchestrated movements or katas as Japanese and Chinese martial arts have. Much has been written about Russian martial arts and their means of attack and self defence, a lot of which is based on the popular view of the Russian Special Forces. Most Special Forces can employ the techniques used by their Russian counterparts, but it is the Russian methods of training that make the difference.

Pavel Tsatsouline, trainer to the Russian military and then the American Special Forces and other military personnel, teaches you the secrets of the super-strong and of attaining supreme martial arts power. He does this through use of Russian kettlebells and the tension and relaxation techniques used by the Cossacks who could slice a man from shoulder to buttocks with only a light one handed sabre.

The Cossacks trained by standing in a lake or river up to their waist and then slicing into the water with their sabres for hours on end. The secret was to be in total relaxation until the moment of strike when all the power of the body was concentrated in the one blow, and then reverting to total bodily relaxation immediately after. In that way, strength and stamina were maintained while the blow itself was imparted with the maximum possible strength of the whole body.

Flexibility is the true secret behind supreme martial art power, and the one bodily attribute that is most ignored and misunderstood by the majority of martial art exponents. Russian martial art techniques make best use of supreme strength and absolute power through the understanding of how to properly relax between blows. The supreme power of a martial art punch is used through a total understanding of the levers of the body, the muscles that move them and the relaxation that allows these muscles to exert maximum power to the levers.

A powerful punch is a rapid snap with maximum power and then total relaxation until the next punch. Russians are trained in dynamic relaxation exercises in all athletic training, and the fast and loose techniques they use are ideal for the rigors of absolute mastery in martial arts.

Russian martial art training and kettlebell training is not the theatrically disciplined art of the Chinese and Japanese, but a technique designed for maximum power and effect in attack and not just self defence. The use of the power of the human body can be maximized only by developing the supreme strength possible through kettlebell exercise, and the flexibility and relaxation techniques as taught by the master of the Russian martial art, Pavel Tsatsouline, master teacher of Russian and American Special Forces personnel.

By: Peter Nisbet

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To lose fat and build muscle we need exercises which work the whole body using enough weight to signal to the body that it needs to get stronger and also trains the cardio-vascular systems to get more efficient.

Heavy Squats are well known for being one of the best muscle-builders with a serious a fat-shredding effect. What is even better than the squat is performing a combination movement that has the squat as one of the components. An example is the thruster, either with a barbell, dumbbells or kettlebells. There are many others

The way it works is the more muscles you use in an exercise the more energy is required to do the movement so you burn more fat and get stronger as well.

I will be perfectly honest, these combination exercises suck. They are hard, they may make you feel like you want to puke, and you might, so don’t go crazy. You have to build your work-capacity over time or suffer the consequences!

So here are my favorite exercises for fat loss and lean muscle gain:

Exercise#1- Swing, Flip and Squat or any Squatting Combination Exercise- Squat Thrust/Burpee Variations, Squat to Overhead Press,  squat thrust to snatch etc.

Exercise#2- The Swing- Kettlebells, Med Balls, or Sandbags

Exercise#3- Any Lunge Combination Exercise- Alternating Lunge and clean to Press, Alternating Lunge plus Twist, etc.

Exercise#4- Any Push-Up Combination Exercise- Push-ups plus Knee-Ins, Push-up Rows, Spiderman Push-ups, Burpees, staggered, walking etc.

Exercise#5- The Chop- Med Balls, Bands, or Sandbags

Exercise#6- Olympic Lifting Variations: Kettlebell Cleans, Snatches, High Pulls and Jerks

Exercise#7- Renegade Rows and combination such as a pushup a Renegade row to a double clean

Exercise#8- 1/2 kneeling overhead press or Windmills for core activation

Exercise#9- Turkish Getups for total body control, ab work, leg work, shoulder stabilization and strength

Exercise#10- one leg deadlift with kettlebell or barbell. Try it with the weight on the same side as the working leg (ipsi-lateral) and with the opposite hand (contra-lateral)

Try these out and add at least on of them to your workout and see how much more effective your training becomes.

In the weeks ahead I will be sharing more great exercises like those above and I will be posting videos of them on my site as well as YouTube, so stay tuned.

By: Dave Randolph

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