International Kettlebell and Fitness Federation (IKFF) and myself, started free video lesson series focusing on Human Biomechanics, Posture, Athletic Performance and Functionality.

Below is the first lesson, talking about what posture is and why it has such great effect.

It is the only way to get stronger.

Lets be honest here - working on a weakness is uncomfortable, painful and agonizing.

Unfortunately, the only way to address a weakness is to work on it and go through the discomfort and shame.

Why is it so tough, anyway? My guess is that a along with legitimate physical discomfort there is much mental distress - our ego gets uncomfortable. We ignore our weaknesses to feed ourselves a story of how awesome we are. Focusing on a weak link, brings us to a reality that we may not want to see.

Regardless of what we want, our weak links are here to stay unless we look at them, examine weakness in detail and address it.

What is your weak spot and what are you doing to address it?

Workout IQ releases a new kettlebell training DVD: Kettlebell Training for Beginners, The Only 4 Kettlebell Exercises You’ll Ever Need

The DVD is for true beginners to kettlebell training.

Why only 4 exercises?

This approach makes kettlebell training easy and effective.

• Stop wasting time searching through hundreds of exercises, wondering which ones are right for you
• Four Kettlebell Exercises You’ll Ever Need is all you need to get in shape today

For more information or to order your copy please visit http://workoutiq.com/russian_kettlebell_training_for_beginners_DVD.html

Enjoy!

It will be a two day workshop that will take place over a weekend and we will focus on:

• GS Snatch form
• GS Jerk from
• GS Long Cycle form

Each participant will get a chance to have their form analyzed and corrected.

Date: June 20th (9am-5pm) and June 21st (9am-5pm)
Where: Sylvan Park, Mountain View, CA
Price: $400 (4 month payment plan is available)

Participant number is limited.

Our Guarantee: If you are not satisfied with information/experience at our workshop - we will promptly refund your money.

To register, visit Events Page or email denis[at]workoutiq[dot]com

[Kettlebells as a sport?! ???]

Yes, Girevoy Sport is a real sport and the rules are as brutal as they are simple:

• 10 minutes to do as many lifts as possible without putting the bells down
• Men use 32kg kettlebells
• Women use 24kg kettlebells

Competition takes place in two categories:

• Biathlon (Total score = Number of Jerks in 10 min + Number of Snatches in 10 min)
• Long Cycle Jerks (whatever number of lifts you do in 10 minutes = your score)

Success at Girevoy Sport requires:

• Strength
• Endurance
• Mental Toughness

Although kettlebells have been around for a while, GS began in Soviet Russia in late 1940s. First Girevoy Sport championship took place in Moscow in 1948.

The sport is young but it is growing and little by little is taking over the world. You can find GS competition and training taking place in many countries and regions including Europe, United States, England, Finland and Norway.

In 2005 new rule have been implemented, forcing to hold kettlebells for longer duration at lock out position. The change lead to improvements in techniques of Girevoy Sport (GS) athletes. Improved quality and time of lock out position. These changes led to changes in breathing pattern of GS athletes.

Beginners to GS and even some Masters of Sport in Kettlebell Lifting tend to hold their breath and flex breathing muscles while holding kettlebells at lock out position. It takes 6-8 breathing cycles to recover from such needless exertion and get ready to next kettlebell jerk (S. Mishin, V. Tixonov 2009).

Diversion of breathing and movement patterns lead to extra movement of arms, legs and torso, which lead to early onset of fatique and poor performance (A. Votorinzev 2002).

Since January of 2005, breathing patterns of GS male athletes of various qualifications were analyzed.

The study revealed: read the full article at www.girevoysport.us

Are kettlebells as effective as running, sprinting, jogging and other cardio activities when it comes to developing cardiovascular capacity?

The short answer is “kettlebells are on par with running”, long answer is… well, keep on reading for the long answer

Kettlebells are great for improving cardiovascular capacity. It works, there is no argument.

I would even recommend kettlebells over any other cardio activity like running, jogging or aerobics class (I apologize to all the aerobic class enthusiasts - you’ll have to give your stretchy pants a rest…)

Why?

Kettlebells are much safer on joints than any other kind of activity.

[gasp…]

It’s true.

The exercise that (in my opinion, anyway) is one of the best exercises for improving strength and cardiovascular endurance and capacity is kettlebell swings.

[Why swings and not snatches or jerks or cleans?]

• While swinging kettlebells there is no resting point, the bell is always moving, demanding attention and cardiovascular output
• Kettlebell swings is a foundational movement that is simple. Everyone, including beginners, can benefit from it
• All major joints (ankles, knees, hips, shoulders) are moving and engaged through proper planes of motion
• Back muscles are engaged (usually a major weak point in most people) and strengthened

For an average person, should swings replace running?

Absolutely!

Keep in mind that an average person is a dis-functional person containing many muscular imbalances and suffering from numerous postural deviations.

Now take this off-balance, mis-aligned body and make it run. What do you think will happen? Compensations leading to pain and injury are inevitable.

Kettlebell swings, on the other hand, will move all joints in proper planes through proper range of movements and help muscles find the much desired balance.

Does that mean that you should never run? Nonsense!

Humans are made for movement, running and walking and not sitting (shocking!). So if you are consistent in your kettlebell training you can attempt running but be careful and listen to what your body tells you afterward. If you experience any pain (soreness does not count as pain) you may want to put running on a shelve until your body is more ‘connected’.

The topic originally came up three years ago while discussing function of various exercises with Geoff Gluckman (my mentor in anything that has to do with muscle balance and function).

The outcome of that discussion was that regular push-ups, and bench press exercises are useless.

[??? no way!]

Someone much wiser than myself, once said “The only time bench press is useful is if one has a really heavy spouse that that they need to lift off of them in order to go to sleep…”

There is truth to that statement.

Bench press is a bodybuilding exercise designed to make chest muscles bigger and I’m not quite sure how it became the staple of upper body strength (somebody was smoking something that day..).

Here is a radical thought of the day for you - you don’t need bench press.

From pure functionality standpoint, when was the last time you pressed anything away from you chest other then doing bench press at a gym? I’ll give you few minutes here, so take your time…

Unless you do have a heavy spouse with tendency to fall asleep on top of you, I’m afraid that you will find bench press movement of no use to you whatsoever.

[What about martial arts? Punching? Doesn’t bench press and push ups help make the punch stronger?]

If you ask any black belt, you will learn that energy for punching is generated by whole body. Hips, legs, back - everything is involved. (If you’ve been boxing or punching things consistently perhaps you can share your opinion of chest involvement in punching). As far as my analysis goes, bench press/push up combo is useless when it comes to punching.

Here is the real deal with chest muscles (Pectoralis major muscle):

Our chest muscles are primarily postural muscles.

[???]

Postural muscle is a type of muscle that does not change length despite forces and tensions acting upon it. In other words our chest muscles are there to help us maintain proper posture and balance.

Here is the real kicker - you don’t need to work your pecks (chest muscle) because these muscles are already always on.

Whether you like it or not, your chest muscles are working while you:

• sit
• stand
• walk
• jog
• move

The moral of the story? Leave your chest muscles alone and focus on your back (Read Russian Kettlebells, Physical Education, Back Strength and Injuries) It needs it.

Let me know what you think and be my friend on Facebook

[Tree climbing?! Are you insane? Do I look like a monkey to you?!]

I’ll be honest, I’m starting to get used to odd looks (disbelief?) from my clients when I ask them to do certain things like climb a tree.

Why do I ask these nice people who trust me with their health and fitness to regress to a monkey-like stage?

You see, tree climbing is a shockingly effective test of body strength and function. Not only that, tree climbing is a downright fantastic way to further develop strength (especially upper body strength), function, and flexibility.

Can you climb a tree? If the answer is ‘probably no’ then you need to work on your strength, flexibility and function.

What exactly do I mean by ‘tree climbing’?

There are few ways of doing it.

• My favorite way to Tree Climb is to climb around a tree without touching the ground (see the video below, featuring one of my clients, Paul Dickinson - black belt in Aikido, currently living in Tokyo, Japan)

• You can also literally climb a tree so that your feet are resting on a branch
• You can go around a tree (see that video) but without using your legs. Think of using the tree as glorified monkey bars
• You can also do all of the above with a kettlebell attached to you (fun, fun, fun… trust me on that one)

Enjoy!

My results were superb (I’m way above suggested fitness level of a 15 year old boy). In addition to giving yet another boost to my self esteem, the test got me thinking about the adequacy of Physical Education and such fitness tests.

Here is what I had to endure:

• Sit and Reach (aka Flexibility Test)
• Sit Up test (aka Core test)
• Push Up test (aka Upper Body Strength and Endurance test)

Sounds nice, right?

After all, we test all the important aspects of fitness: flexibility, core and upper body strength and endurance. There is something missing in the list.

Back strength!

I know, I know.. I may sound like a crazy old man but back strength is critical to our health and not enough time is spent educating, testing and developing back strength.

“You shouldn’t be lifting that”, “It’s too heavy for you”, “stop it, you going to hurt your back”, mothers around the world scream in unison. From the very beginning we believe (most of us, anyway. I was kind of a ‘thick’ child when it came to lifting things and never listened to my mother) that our backs are as fragile as peace in Middle East.

Our Physical Ed teachers are not helping either. You are considered strong if you can press much weight above your head, bench press a lot (or do a bazillion push-ups) or climb a rope well, although most schools can’t even afford a rope these days. So we are stuck with push-ups/bench presses, crunches and touching toes.

As we go through college, we repeat same mantras that our school teachers, magazine workouts and ‘buff’ friends told us. Bench press, leg press (occasionally), pull-ups, lots of bicep curls (if you are a guy) and hours of treadmill walking/running if you a girl.

As a result of such disjointed exercises, back muscles are engaged only partially at best. Back muscles become the weak link, making it difficult to walk, sit or stand for very long without discomfort and pain.

Those who are considered ’strong’, suffer even more and are prone to more back injuries.

Why?

They believe that they are strong and thus far more likely to lift something heavy. Since lifting a heavy object (be it a couch, mattress, or a pony) heavily involves back muscles (even if you ‘lift with your legs’) these ’strong man’ break in half from pain.

If I had a dollar for every time a ‘buff’ guy came to me with a complaint that when he walks around a mall with his girlfriend his back is killing him, I could pay for college for both of my kids with that money.

As a result of such misguided effort, back pain is more common than ever.

Strong back muscles are critical to our health, vitality, function and quality of life. Those muscles are responsible not only for bending and flexing of the spine but also for spinal stabilization and support.

How to reclaim back strength:

• Start Russian Kettlebell training
• Do yoga and pilates
• Do deadlifts and squats
• Walk and hike regularly
• Stop going to the gym and enjoy more natural movements

Russian kettlebells are very effective at creating a bullet proof back.

Without getting in further details, training with kettlebells involves much bending, directly engaging lower, mid and upper back muscles. Through out an average training session, kettlebell lifters do 400-600 bends without realizing it.

How did kettlebells help you with your back strength? What back problems did it address and solve?

What’s next?

Comment and subscribe. Like this post? Link to it!

Be my friend on Facebook