KETTLEBELLS FOR ALL SPORTS & FITNESS NEEDS

by Chris Woodman, Sport Science (HONS) BA, BComm

"I am going to get fit!" a statement uttered by many.

A statement that has the best of intentions, but misguided actions.

What is fitness?

Ask average Joe and he will probably reply: "Anne is super fit she runs 10km every morning!" Or  "Mike is a machine he can do 50 push ups and 200 sit ups he is really fit."

Now I'll drop the bomb; being able to run far doesn't make you fit.

"What?"

"How can that be?"

"It doesn't make sense!"

It does make sense if you understand the concept that fitness is highly specific, for your sport, or for your general health and well being.

Who is fitter?

The super-middle weight boxer, the ultra marathon runner, the professional arm wrestler, the powerlifter, the 400m athlete, the 1500m athlete, the figure skater, or the sumo wrestler?

The correct answer is all of the above.

Confused?

You should be.

The problem with the term fitness is that its highly ambiguous at best, and its a term coined by the western world.

The most sophisticated principles in sport science were developed and perfected in the countries of the former eastern block.  This is because they spent an awful lot of money in developing this field as the medals they were going to take home from the Olympic Games would prove the power and success of their political ideologies and systems.

Fitness is highly specific to what you do.  Being fit enough to run a marathon doesn't give you the the conditioning (regardless of technical ability) to fight Oscar De La Hoya in a boxing extravaganza at the mirage in Las Vegas.  Likewise you might be able to skate the whole of Holiday-on-ice, 5 days a week, but good luck trying to pull 3 times your body weight at a powerlifting deadlift meet.

The legendary strongman of the 1990's, Magnus Ver Magnuson, has a 22 year old nephew, Benedikt.

Now I have seen a video clip of young Benedikt pulling 440kg. I assure you a 440kg deadlift is welded to the floor and will be for most strength athletes.

As fit as Benedikt is to deadlift, and probable to move small buildings from A to B, I would wager more than I can afford to, that he won't have the fitness to skate Holiday-on-ice five days a week.  Not that he can't skate!  I am sure every healthy inhabitant of Iceland can, but he doesn't have the physical conditioning to skate at that intensity without injury, because it isn't specific to his training.

The Western World's sport science wasn't and probably still isn't nearly as effective as our comrades from beyond the former iron curtain.

One common example of this, is to be found in a sport science textbook that is currently being used at tertiary level.

In this book (and almost all experiments in similar textbooks) they use sedentary young adults in exercise experiments.  The findings, conclusions and recommendations are then gleefully made public as a scientifically proven concept, then an uninformed public gleefully accept these findings as the gospel truth.

An example might suffice.

In one of these textbooks used by post graduate exercise science students, the researchers (all with a string of PhD's ) took 30 sedentary, healthy young men and women and made them perform some useless exercise, like leg extensions, using the top secret formula of 3 sets of 10 reps, every other day for 6 weeks, in order to increase leg strength.

Needless to say the results were spectacular. Increases of no less than 50% and up to 150% in leg strength were recorded.

The conclusion was therefore: "an effective and scientifically proven protocol for increasing leg strength is to perform 3 sets of 10 reps using the leg extension machine, every other day for 6 weeks."

Ummm! I assure you that recommendation is as credible as the promise made by the merchants of fat loss products sold on the shopping channel.

Sure the above protocol will work for somebody whose level of physical exertion hasn't surpassed flipping channels with the TV remote, but you try convince the powerlifter who has an official squat of 300kg that the above nonsense "is the best way to make your legs strong, cos my professor says so", and wait for the warm hug of appreciation he bestows on you .

It doesn't work, people!

"Why not?", you may ask.

Because we all need a method to exercise or train at, that is appropriate to our level of physical preparation, and the physical goals we set ourselves.

So what does this have to do with kettlebells?

Everything!

I am going to make a bold statement here.  A statement not unlike one you will hear on the shopping channel, but I guarantee you, regardless if you are a morbidly obese person, a slightly overweight person, a sufferer of hypokinetic disease, a cage fighter, rugby player, cricket star, special ops soldier, 100m athlete, powerlifter, or an ABBA enthusiast who wants to dance continuously to all their greatest hits, kettlebells will make a significant contribution to achieving your physical goals (and mental ability, but that's an article in itself).  Sometimes all you will need to achieve your goal is a kettlebell and a bizarre appetite for hard work.

And sometimes a kettlebell must be used as just another weapon in an arsenal used to wage war on your athletic and physical shortcomings.

A real example of what a kettlebell can offer a strength athlete might look like this:

I trained the 3 powerlifts, the Olympic lifts and a few of their variations for years.

I was bored and in a rut. My strength was going nowhere and my General Physical Preparation (GPP a basic level of all round fitness) was poor.

Enter kettlebell.

I started with the 16 kg bell and did various swings, cleans and presses, snatches and squats.  After a couple of weeks I moved up to the 24 kg bell. I trained on average 3 or 4 times per week for about 20 min, resting not longer than 1 min between exercises and doing as many reps as I could, stopping just as my skill started to break down.

So what happened?

Quite a lot actually!

After training like this for about 3 months, I went back to two of the powerlifts and tested how strong I was.

I hadn't touched either of the lifts for the entire period I trained with the kettlebell.

My deadlift went up the first time I performed it, by about 5%.

Not bad in my book!

My bench press went down by 5 % the first time I trained. The next day I benched light, and day 3, I tried again.

The result?

An overall increase of 5% from 3 months ago.

So why the decrease and 3 days later an increase?

The golden rule of specificity.

I had lost my skill at performing the lift.  After a little groove greasing and practice, my lift increased from the initial test.

The most significant thing I developed from playing with the kbell is a Trojan-like capacity for lactic acid inducing resistance training.

I found when I returned to powerlifting, that I could almost double the amount of weight I lifted per unit time. Not only that, but I can recover as if I am using banned substances. It also gave my body a change of stimulus which is always productive.

The biggest shock for me came, one Saturday morning when I decided I was going to do a 3 km time trial.

That in itself is fairly disturbing!

But what was more disturbing was the fact that I hadn't run a meter in about 9 months.

The utterly shocking result was that I shaved 1 min off my best time ever!

This means what?

It means kettlebells contribute at improving all the factors that make you a better athlete at your chosen sport.  In laymen's terms it makes you a fitter person.

The next instalment looks at what factors influence physical conditioning, what are the conditioning requirements for your sport, and how can the average person wanting to improve their health and appearance use a kettlebell to achieve this. 

Till then, civilise the mind, savage the body ... !

Chris Woodman: BA, BCom (HONS) Sport Science, specialises in strength training and sport conditioning . He is consultant to various professional athletes including; rugby players, boxers, track and field athletes, combat athletes and many folk who have a deep desire to alter their physical appearance and ability.  His methods, are practical, scientific and gimmick free.  Chris is available for consultation exclusively through kettlebellsforafrica.co.za

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