Istand corrected on the value of the Kettle bell weight, my apologies, I had a bad day, it happens to uss all. As Steve has pointed out there are many virtues associated with the kettle bell. I guess I still like the good ole dumbbell, but my reasons are likely kinda dumb I guess, first I like working out at home I dread paying a gym membership because Im always broke ok lols, second I can change the dumbbell to whatever weight I want and its not a big deal the kettles are fixed weight. But I realize a lot of folks like the kettle and in all honesty if it keeps you motivated go for it. 110%
icefield - I think a lot of your beefs can really be attributed to one organization. The wife and I train at a gym where they have Kettlebells from 4kg all the way up to 48kg. We also own a few of our own which weren't prohibitively expensive to get. We train sport style rather than hardstyle so the snatch and C&J are the main emphasis. When my wife got her certification through the USAKL/IKL it was only a few hundred bucks for the training. It all depends where you look.
Actually what is the deal with the kettle bell, I see a lot of guys swinging them around but I never consider using them because I think they cost too much like icefield was saying, and remember Im freakin poor so I cant afford a bunch of stuff. But I see that the range of motion for the kettle bell is different than the dumbbell is that the big hype?
from steve maxwell himself so which ones were original and which they came up with together is anyones guess of course the other telling point is that outside of using them for throwing purposes and jumps squats the big russian coaches never used them for conditioning purposes, it seems they were like a fringe sport like highland games over here which simply got a very good press officer
I got a 16kg one for about £25. It tucks away in the conservatory and is very handy for knocking out a few swings, presses, adding weight to some squats etc. I'm tempted to do something Kuma recomended and put it in my rucksack and take it over the playing fields to add into sprint sessions. Why does it have to be either/or? Why not do weights and K.bells?
i got a 16kg for £3 for my girlfriend and sometimes use it for tempo intervals and jumps etc, i never said not to use them all i said is its a nice to have not a must have, and they are over priced and over marketed Personally when it comes to conditioning the tool isnt nearly as important as ensuring you are using the right method for your desired outcome
the range of motion is largely the same, kettlebells flip and when pressed rack differently and thus offer a different stability issue, whether thats important or not is another matter
nice typing but the question should be how did they modify dumbbell exercises to fit kettlebells since the dumbbell swing was one of the original strength tests they used to include way before powerlifting was ever a sport
Frankly Im like this about the whole deal, if you like to use it than I think its fine, but I don't see where my training is suffering due to the fact I don't use them. I mean I do push ups, pull ups, dips, and a few assorted dumbbell exorcizes everyweek in addition to my martial arts training and I can admit Im not a championship caliber athlete but Im not a weakling, how does the kettle bell help me, I think if I was shown how the kettle bell would improve me in a way that nothing else would then I might endorse it more but until then Im not a believer per say.
If they were that cheap here I would get one, but they are $6 a kg here, so a 16 kg kettle bell is $96.
One thing I noticed is that kettlebells make me sweat a lot whereas I barely break a sweat with barbells or dumbbells the same weight.
