Why do I like Kettlebells?
A Shift from Traditional Weightlifting
It has been close to a decade since I last performed a bench press, and I am never going back.
There was a period in my life where bench pressing was the main course in my buffet of exercises. My friends and I, in college, would always start off with the bench press every time we went to the gym. We’d take a day off if we were too sore and work our “backs and bis”, or legs, rarely, but the moment we were in less chest pain, we were right back underneath the bar, repping out 3 sets of 10 of 225lbs.
The aim was to always increase how much weight you could lift. It was during this time that I found my body was highly responsive to physical training. I’d always been an athlete. Soccer had always been my main source of exercise, but I’d never paid attention to how it affected my body’s aesthetic development. Not until I began weightlifting, did I realize that the strain from each training day was taking a very positive toll on my muscles. That was the first time I remember really paying attention to the size and definition of my muscles. I saw the effect my appearance was having on the opposite sex but also, the effect it was having on my male friends.
For whatever reason, dare we say genetic, my body seemed to respond much more favorably to weight training than any of my friends did. Unfortunately, I was not conscious enough of how insecure it made them feel around me and was often confused at certain things they would say about me. I remember being accused of being gay simply because I chose to walk around the apartment that I shared with these guys, shirtless.
It baffled me, in my naïve and oblivious mind, men didn’t look at other men that way, especially if they were friends. I was obviously ignorant of the complexities of human interaction at that point in my life. What I have come to realize now is the fact that they were projecting their insecurities on me.
Now, trust me, this is not a diatribe on male-male relationships or the halfway point of a personal biography; my intent is to truly elucidate my journey from bench pressing to kettlebell swinging.
A Turning Point
One evening, while working out with friends at the bench press, of course! We were testing our one rep max, and I had made it all the way to pressing 315lbs. The manner and relative ease in which I lifted the bar wowed my onlooking friends, spurring them to suggest that I add five more pounds to the bar and go for 320lbs. I of course obliged and, with slightly more strain, lifted the bar. Upon sitting up on the bench, after the lift, I had an epiphany or perhaps it was more of an epiphanic question. Now that I’ve hit 320lbs on the bench press, do I just continue to increase the weight that I can lift?
Why? And for what purpose would I need to lift that much weight while also laying on my back? I couldn’t fathom any likely scenario in life requiring me to have to express my strength in such a manner. I did not desire to increase my muscle mass to such a degree to where my stature morphs into one of a muscle-bound hulk. It was at this moment that I began to ask myself, “why do I exercise?” This is what led me down a path that would eventually steer me in the direction of kettlebells.
Seeking Purpose in Exercise
I hope I’m not giving the impression that it was an immediate transition from weight training to kettlebells because it wasn’t. I still trained with dumbbells and barbells for years following my epiphany. It served more as a seed in my psyche. A question that I sought to answer, “why do I exercise?”.
This was a question that I had never consciously sought to answer, nor had it ever been posed to me by anyone. What was my reason for working on my body? Was I seeking to become big and strong? No. Was I seeking to look like a fitness model? No. So then what did I want? One thing I did know is that I wanted to maintain my athleticism. By athleticism, I mean being able to run, jump, climb, throw, lift, and defend myself and those I care for, even at a more advanced age in my life. That desire led me to CrossFit due to the total body exercises and the challenge of it. It felt great to come out on the other side of a grueling workout, though I began to find issue with CrossFit as I began to learn more about the body, not to mention the propensity for injury prevalent in the regiment at the time.
It was at this time I began to learn about the fascial system. For people who are unfamiliar with what the fascial system is, in short, a web-like fluid system that surrounds, penetrates, and connects the entire body allowing for all systems to operate in concert with each other. In essence, to my current understanding, the fascia is the conductor of the body. In this context, I learned that the fascia is the conductor of movement.
Discovering the Fascial System
I have Naudi Aguilar of Functional Patterns for introducing me to Thomas Myers of Anatomy Trains. It was listening to his lecture that began to create an awareness of fascia and the comprehension of the significant role that fascia plays in my body and how thoughts, traumas, and daily habits affect the health of our fascia and therefore the body. It wasn’t long before I determined that CrossFit styled training was not truly beneficial for me and my goals.
I learned how the body preferred and had grown accustomed, over the course of millions of years, to operate in rotation to stabilize, move and generate force efficiently and that our modern ways of living, including how we exercised, was counter to our corporeal nature. Once I began thinking along these lines, I began to seek out a methodology that suited this idea, the idea that our bodies naturally rotate therefore our training methods should incorporate more rotation. None of the traditional exercise equipment such as dumbbells, barbells, or machines, served my need for rotation unless used unconventionally. Enter the Kettlebell.
Embracing Natural Movement
I found the kettlebell to allow for natural and easy rotation of the body when used. As a matter of fact, when used isolaterally which I mean to say used with one arm at a time, it seemed to require the body to naturally rotate to facilitate a smoother transfer of force throughout the body. What I discovered through using a kettlebell is that I could train the entire body, in rotation, without feeling the major effects of DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) as I did when weight training. I trained my body, just as I used it every day, preventing the concentration of tension in one muscle group that would then require me to take time off to rest; I could train my body with kettlebells, every day if I so desired, without the need for much recovery work.
Kettlebell training allowed me to elastically move from an eccentric (load/charge/stretch) phase to a concentric (release) phase of movement. In essence, it allowed me to bounce and flow from one position to the other without much conscious thought, without the need to start and stop at each position, consciously, as is commonly practiced with free weights. With kettlebells, I am able to train the movement and not just the muscle; thereby enhancing my expression of strength throughout the movement.
Benefits of Kettlebell Training
When you train a movement, you are working every muscle, tendon, ligament, bone, nerve, blood vessel, and fascia responsible for the facilitation of that movement in conjunction with the rest of the body that you think isn’t involved. The difference between this and traditional weightlifting is that there is a proportional amount of strain placed on the involved body parts thereby strengthening the body in relation to those proportions. Traditional weightlifting does not facilitate proportional improvements as easily. Incorporating kettlebells, I also experienced fewer personal injuries as well as fewer injuries with clients while using kettlebells.
Traditional weights began to appeal to me less and less, to the point where I have not trained with a barbell or dumbbell since 2017. Strength training with a barbell, dumbbell, and machine were designed to train the body in a very one-dimensional manner and did not account for the need for rotational strength and mobility. In essence, traditional weightlifting was not very well suited for athletic performance, which requires its participants to be prepared and able to maneuver in unpredictable patterns placing uncertain strains on the body in which traditional lifting did not and could not account nor sufficiently prepare the athlete for.
Current Practice and Advocacy
To this day I am still heavily engaged with kettlebells and train all my clients in the use of them. I will be honest though, there are plenty of exercise equipment that I would love to play with, that can be maneuvered in a similar fashion. By my observation, if the apparatus allows for smooth multidimensional movement of the fascia and safe transfer of force and energy, I am open to playing with it. “Playing”; that’s what I like to call it because that is what it is to me. The opportunity to explore various ranges of motion is like playtime and I look forward to observing my body traversing various planes of movement.
Enhanced Fitness and Enjoyment
The fact that my refusal to engage with other fitness equipment has not reduced my fitness ability but in identifiable cases, has enhanced it. I’ve seen improvements in my range of motion, punching power, and even my endurance has improved. For those familiar with the planes of movement, sagittal, frontal, and transverse, the kettlebell is constructive in all three. The human body has so many natural trails of tension that line the body. To me, playing with Kettlebells is akin to observing the constellations in the sky, the possible lines of tension in which each move with the Kettlebell traverses are already just waiting to be explored. Feel free to visit my Instagram or youtube shorts page, @iuniversol, if you would like to observe some of my Kettlebell movements.
The Versatility and Benefits of Kettlebells
If you don’t already own a kettlebell, I highly implore that you get one. Possession of a kettlebell is possession of your own personal gym. With a kettlebell you are able to increase your strength, increase your endurance, improve your body composition, improve your posture, improve your range of motion, improve your coordination, geometrically align your muscles and connective tissues, and more. What I enjoy experiencing the most is the flow of tension that each new movement creates.
I have created a Kettlebell fundamentals course, available on my website, set up to teach those who are unfamiliar with kettlebells to how to easily be familiarized with the fundamentals of kettlebell movements. I am positive that once you take this course you will never need to be coached on the fundamentals of kettlebell movements ever again.