How To Get Started With Russian Kettlebells To Lose Weight
Posted Aug 24 2008 2:58pm
Russian kettlebells are growing in popularity as a tool for weight loss and fitness improvements, and for good reason. A properly structured kettlebell workout will burn fat like crazy as well as build muscle and improve your conditioning. As the popularity expands to the main stream, I have been getting a lot of questions on how to get started with Russian Kettlebells. I have addressed this question before in wikihow.com and Shahtraining.com but I will write about it here as the questions will keep coming and that is great!
The key to getting started with Russian kettlebells is to start light and work on your technique for quite a while first. Once your technique is solid, you can progress to two kettlebells at a time or heavier kettlebells. For men I recommend one 35 lbs kettlebell and for women one 18 lbs kettlebell to start off with. This may seem light but I was a competitive powerlifter when I first purchased a 35 lbs bell and it was the perfect weight for me because I was able to do high repetition work right away. I always recommend you purchase a book or dvd to get you started, mikemahler.com is a great resource for kettlebell instruction material.
Once you have a kettlebell, the first exercise to learn is the two handed swing. It will not hurt your joints, there is no pounding on the body and it is fundamental to almost all the other lifts. Learn how to swing the kettlebell and not lift it by reviewing your resources and practising. Work up to very high repitions, like sets of 50 or even 100 as the high reps will burn fat off you like crazy! Once you have mastered the two handed swing, progress to the one handed swing and from there start adding dynamic moves such as the clean, snatch and high pull. There are plenty of other moves to learn from there as you expand your repertoire.
I think the most important factor to getting results with your kettlebell is to use it often at first. Don't worry about over training or anything, just use it every day for several weeks. If you keep the workouts short and snappy you will be fine. A 30 minute kettlebell workout is perfect amount of time if you are keeping the rest periods very short.
Once you are into a daily kettlebell routine, start watching videos on youtube.com and other sites to learn all kinds of new and fun kettlebell workouts. It is really endless so you should never get bored but if you do just come back here because I always have new stuff to show!
The key to getting started with Russian kettlebells is to start light and work on your technique for quite a while first. Once your technique is solid, you can progress to two kettlebells at a time or heavier kettlebells. For men I recommend one 35 lbs kettlebell and for women one 18 lbs kettlebell to start off with. This may seem light but I was a competitive powerlifter when I first purchased a 35 lbs bell and it was the perfect weight for me because I was able to do high repetition work right away. I always recommend you purchase a book or dvd to get you started, mikemahler.com is a great resource for kettlebell instruction material.
Once you have a kettlebell, the first exercise to learn is the two handed swing. It will not hurt your joints, there is no pounding on the body and it is fundamental to almost all the other lifts. Learn how to swing the kettlebell and not lift it by reviewing your resources and practising. Work up to very high repitions, like sets of 50 or even 100 as the high reps will burn fat off you like crazy! Once you have mastered the two handed swing, progress to the one handed swing and from there start adding dynamic moves such as the clean, snatch and high pull. There are plenty of other moves to learn from there as you expand your repertoire.
I think the most important factor to getting results with your kettlebell is to use it often at first. Don't worry about over training or anything, just use it every day for several weeks. If you keep the workouts short and snappy you will be fine. A 30 minute kettlebell workout is perfect amount of time if you are keeping the rest periods very short.
Once you are into a daily kettlebell routine, start watching videos on youtube.com and other sites to learn all kinds of new and fun kettlebell workouts. It is really endless so you should never get bored but if you do just come back here because I always have new stuff to show!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Lwme8rkzetg