ENTER THE KETTLEBELL!: Strength Secret of the Soviet Supermen

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StrongFirst instructor trainees come from all walks of life: champion athletes, special operators, elite coaches, medical professionals, and strong-minded regular folk. Almost half are ladies. Jon Hinds: Gold Medalist Pan Am Games – Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Over ten years of training in BJJ. NBA strength and conditioning coach LA Clippers. MLB strength and conditioning coach, Owner of Monkey Bar Gymnasium and VP of Lifeline USA-Fitness Equipment, Madison, WI A system for the really ambitious man… the cyclical nature of complex phenomena… constructive corrections and waving the loads… the function of variety days… working your “in-between strength”… schedules for the RKC Right of Passage. Nothing gets lost on the professional and serious amateur level. Everything gets lost in the mass market. It does not bother me. People who buy pink kettlebells and similar nonsense live in a parallel universe I have no interest in. They are flakes drifting from one "build muscle fast" and "lose fat tomorrow" scheme to the next. They will never achieve their goals, and I have no intention of wasting my time motivating them. I preach to the choir.

Once you have succeeded in making these two straight lines, you are ready for the regular swing. But better finesse your timing first. You will soon notice that there is a time lag between the driving force of the hips and the kettlebell’s flight—like in a punch. The towel reveals this important subtlety of the swing. Keep swinging, and pay attention to the timing of your efforts. Try to make the kettlebell hover weightless for a moment at the apex. Drive your hips explosively, but don’t rush the kettlebell. Let it catch up as your hip drive goes up your body like a wave. Hurrying the kettlebell is like punching with the arm—ineffective. Work some more on your timing. Try to make the kettlebell go a certain height between your waist and your head without scooping your body or pulling with your arms. I did the singles with my 32kg kettlebell and the rest of the work with my 26. When I felt ready I did doubles with it, and then triples and so on. When I could do 5 reps per with the 32kg I moved on to that one. I did pull ups with a 15kg weight vest. It’s also unclear which weight you should choose for your snatch-sessions, I decided to do the stupid thing and go with the same weight that I pressed, so I snatched with my 32kg most of the time. I saved the 24kg for test days and did the swings with 40kg. I thought I understood ladders, but the book has me all turned around. To make sure I understand this right, it should go something like this: 3 ladders=Ladder 1, 1 rep. Ladder 2, 1 rep, then 1 rep, 2 reps. Ladder 3, 1 rep, then 1 rep, 2 reps, then 1 rep, 2 reps, 3 reps. Or do I do all the rungs like in Ladder 3? It just seems a little unclear from the book, or I am just missing something.

Strength Secret of the Soviet Supermen

These [stren gth athletes] are the people of the future. A tim e will come when everyone wil l be this strong. This is the essence of the country’s ha ppiness. —Anton Chekh ov Este libro te enseña lo necesario para usar las pesas rusas (kettlebells) y sus ejercicios básicos. Excellent book. Gives very detailed instructions on how to begin kettlebell training. Here are some scattered takeaways. Propels you to a Special Forces level of conditioning and earns you the right to call yourself a man.

When I first began this program I was only able to do 1.5 Getups/side. By the end I was doing 6/side. I also started out doing 140 swings in the twelve minutes and my last swing day I did 225. Doing sets of 50 was brutal on my forearms. Sets of 40 was much more manageable, but my grip strength will continue to increase. I also finished with a resting heart rate of 52bpm (resting heart rate is best taken while still in bed in the morning before getting up for the day). I have experimented with different ways to put swings and get-ups into a routine, but I could not do better than Steve Baccari, RKC. Steve has designed the following “simple and sinister” S&C routine for the grapplers he has been training with. He suggests using ladders, starting low. Switching hands, resting. Then slowly building up to fifty repetitions, one hundred repetitions, in a short period of time. Eventually, as one progresses, one will build 1 ladder (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.) to 2 ladders, 2 ladders to 3 ladders, and so on. This can take a few minutes, a few hours, or even a full day. eneral get-up is a g The one-arm th which had test of streng st appeal to mo considerable ... f yesteryear. strongmen o e a hit with th e d a m s y a lw It has a as blic, for it w theatrical pu t t magnificen a th em th to obvious ed when being display strength was et-up a one-arm g an athlete did bell. with a heavyWith just two kettlebell exercises, takes you from raw newbie to solid contender—well-conditioned, flexible, resilient and muscular in all the right places.