Kettlebell Instruction
Sarah Riedl, RKC-Certified Kettlebell
Instructor, since April 2011
Interested? Contact Sarah for an introductory kettlebell lesson to experience kettlebells first-hand
or Join the mailing list to receive email notifications about new kettlebell class opportunities and Real Fitness Solutions blog updates.
What's the big deal about kettlebells?
For me, the answer is simple: It's fun. But here are five more reasons that you might want to consider adding kettlebells to your fitness program.
A kettlebell workout is an efficient workout and a calorie incinerator. Pavel Tsatsouline, the man who introduced kettlebells to America, has been known to say that “kettlebells melt fat without the dishonor of dieting or aerobics.” Different studies will tell you different numbers, but what it comes down to is roughly equivalent to running a 6-minute mile, or cross-country skiing uphill at a fast pace. That’s about 20 calories per minute. Now, I don’t know about you, but if I’m doing a 20 minute run, I can’t keep up a 6-minute-mile pace the whole time; and I’m not a skiier, but I bet I wouldn’t enjoy climbing a hill for 20 minutes at the fastest pace I can handle. So you can stick with your regular strength training or low-intensity cardio if you want, but it’ll take you an hour to burn the same 400 calories I’ll burn in 20 minutes with kettlebells. How’s that for a time-saver?
Kettlebells are the closest thing I’ve found to a “silver bullet” in fitness. Everyone wants to know: “What’s the one thing I need to do to get the body I want?” I hate this question, because there is no such thing as a silver bullet. There is no single move, or single muscle group, or single type of exercise that will do everything. But kettlebells come awfully close. They are aerobic (cardio/calorie burning), high intensity/power training, endurance training, core training, strength training, and flexibility all in one. If I could only pick one exercise to do for the rest of my life, kettlebells would be it. It's the only type of exercise I've found that delivers the body shape, the strength, and the endurance I want. Kettlebells do it all, and they do it fast.
Kettlebells work for different fitness goals. Because of the flexible nature of kettlebell workouts (see #2), you can use kettlebells whether you want to lose weight, gain muscle mass, or just tone up. They simply “fix” your body composition, whichever way it needs fixing.
Kettlebells will give you the strongest core you’ve ever had. I’m a huge advocate of making sure your core muscles (abs, upper and lower back, glutes, shoulders) are involved in almost every movement. In the past I’ve used Pilates techniques and exercises to teach my clients how to engage their core muscles, but I’ve always found Pilates, well...boring. Why lay on a mat and barely move when I could be throwing heavy things around, getting my heart rate up, and using my core muscles? Pilates is incredibly useful, but kettlebells are just more fun.
Kettlebells require the use of your entire body. While free weights are great (I have no disrespect for dumbbells), most free weight exercises don’t require the use of more than a few muscle groups. Even Olympic lifts like the clean-and-jerk are more challenging with kettlebells than free weights. Kettlebells are also much more functional; the movements are great practice for real-world activities, like shoveling snow or moving your air conditioner from the basement for the summer. You can make huge gains in strength and coordination, without having to practice specific drills.
Interested yet? Contact Sarah for an introductory kettlebell lesson to experience kettlebells first-hand
or Join the mailing list to receive email notifications about new kettlebell class opportunities and Real Fitness Solutions blog updates.
While kettlebells provide an opportunity for amazing achievment, they also present the possibility of major injury. Because of the dynamic movements you’ll do with kettlebells and the stress on the core, you want to be absolutely certain that you are doing the exercises correctly. DO NOT just pick up a kettlebell and start swinging. Your first session or two, at the very least, should be in the presence of a certified kettlebell instructor. This warning goes double for anyone who has preexisting back, shoulder, or wrist problems. Kettlebells can help strengthen these areas and may even solve these problems, but you must be supervised by someone who can teach you to stabilize these areas first.
