Over the years I have messed around with a lot of different exercise routines and styles. I have bounced around a number of gyms and ultimately never really found anything that clicked for me.
All that changed when I picked up a kettlebell for the first time. Something about the simplicity of it just struck me. These things really are “simple and sinister” as Pavel Tatousline would say.
They make you feel like a warrior poet. Every exercise and routine is fluid and functional yet for how simple these exercises are they are really fun and the workout is amazing.
So how did I get here, completely in love with the kettlebell?
It really began a few years ago when I first got serious about getting strong. I had turned 30 and I was terrified that if I didn’t get myself into the physique I always wanted the moment would pass me by and I’d forever be a halfway fit man. So I picked up Starting Strength by Mark Rippletoe.
That book really started me on my journey. It is the foundational and seminal book on barbell basics. It covers the 5 lifts any strongman should be proficient at and I was ready to learn. The book covers the squat, deadlift, clean, overhead press, and bench press.
I dove into the lifts and the recommended routine. It was fun to start to watch the weight climb and feel my muscles actually develop. After years a=of half hearted commitment and no actual routine Starting Strength really helped me develop a training mindset.
But after a few months it became apparent that this style of strength training was not going to fit with my overall fitness goals. I didn’t want to be the guy that has bulk and lifts big weights. I wanted to become, what I call, a mountain athlete. I wanted to run and climb and be a ripchord. The idea in my mind was to be light and fast and strong as hell around moving my body across rugged terrain, not massive loads of iron up and down.
So I went back to flailing around in the gym and trying to take what I learned from Mark Rippletoe into calisthenics. I researched and learned about all the ways you can use your own body weight to develop strength and I started evolving my workouts.
Calisthenics is great, but…
Don’t get me wrong, I love calisthenics, but the time it takes to move through a calisthenics routine is not really doable on my schedule. I mean 12 sets of 5 reps with a minimum of 3 minutes rest between sets comes out over 40 minutes of time per exercise. Want to train for 4 hours a day 5 days a week???
So what did I do? Damn the rest just power through the workouts hitting pullups, rows, dips, and pushups. That worked for like a month. Pretty soon I wasn’t making any gains I was just beating myself down and not getting the rest my body needed to translate my workouts into strength.
Honestly I’d probably still be doing this making marginal gains and otherwise feeling like I would never get strong if it weren’t for a random YouTube video.
The Joe Rogan Experience
Yep I watch JRE from time to time, mostly whenever he has a tech entrepreneur on. I happened to watch his podcast with Pavel Tatousline and was really drawn into the wealth of strength knowledge Pavel was sharing on the show. That YouTube video led to about 7 million more all about Pavel and his favorite exercise tool the kettlebell.
Coronavirus and the great kettlebell shortage
I had just decided to invest in a kettlebell when the entire world shut down in March of 2020. It was a cruel joke. Where weeks earlier while doing research and figuring out which brand to buy and what weight I had tons of choice. Suddenly everything was sold out everywhere!
I remember finding a used 24kg bell for sale on Facebook Marketplace the seller was asking $275!!!! He probably got it…
Overnight kettlebells and basically every type of home fitness equipment was gone. As if a massive Hoover vacuum had attached itself to the internet and sucked all the iron off the web. I was pretty disappointed.
However economic turmoil is a great time for market disruption. All the big brands had their kettlebells manufactured in China. This led to a whole slew of American made kettlebell manufacturers. I decided to purchase a bell from Brutus Tools. The bell arrived and I fell in love immediately.
Stay tuned for more info on my Kettlebell journey but seriously guys these things are legit.