#23 Why Kettlebells Are King For The Home Gym
Do you want to get stronger and fitter? Haven’t got budget or room for big equipment? The Kettlebell is King for training from home!
There is a degree of mystery around this strange looking tool of strength and conditioning.
On this episode the boys breakdown all the elements that make the Kettlebell great, how lifting with skill makes you a better grappler and why the dynamic nature of kettlebell lifting makes you more athletic in less time.
There are some hidden gems as to the origin of both JT & Joey’s introductions to Kettlebells, how it made an impact on them and how it can change your BJJ life.
Speaker 1: 0:04
Very careful a good martial artist does not become tense, but ready, essentially at this point, the fight is over. So you pretty much flow with the goal who was worthy to be trusted with the secret to limit the spot .
Speaker 2: 0:30
Welcome to another Bulletproof for [inaudible] podcast. I am JT. Hey guys, I’m Joey.
Speaker 3: 0:35
And today we’re talking about why the kettlebell is
Speaker 2: 0:38
King for your home gym workouts. So possibly one of the most versatile things that you can have in your arsenal at home in your living room in your garage is a kettlebell. Uh , super convenient does so many things for you. And we’re going to break down. Why, if you don’t have one, you should get one.
Speaker 4: 0:59
You know, what about other home training ideas? Pull up bars . Barbells. Are we going into that stuff?
Speaker 3: 1:04
Yeah, we can speak to that. Definitely. I , I feel people
Speaker 4: 1:07
Will probably listen and be like, well, but what about pull up ? It’s the best? Yeah. What about the app? What about that one?
Speaker 3: 1:13
Talk, stick talks , thick talk , stick. All that one. I would make strong hands. Oh yeah. Chest expander.
Speaker 4: 1:19
Yeah. The thing Charles Atlas with the Springs. Yeah. Amazing.
Speaker 2: 1:23
I’m not sure if that’s what actually made him so jacked, but whatever. Let’s not get bogged down in the details. There are many great things, but I guess, you know, if we were to reduce it down to, if you could have one thing, don’t get me wrong. I think pull up by is an amazing thing. But some people live in apartments, literally for body corporate. They are not allowed to have the pull up bar. Like you are not allowed to put screws in your doorways or any other such business. Yeah . By the same token, it’s quite funny to me that in a lot of people’s homes, they don’t have a horizontal, don’t even have a spot where they could hang off. My surely there’s on your veranda or your people getting messages. People going can do pull ups . Can’t hang rings. What do I do? So it’s like, okay, there are things that you can do. I think the reason why we’ve chosen to speak about the kettlebell today is because some people are knocked down. Uh , so they’re at home and they need to get a good workout. And then also some people don’t necessarily have big budget to be able to afford barbells and plates and all the other things. And with a single kettlebell, there is so many things you can do. So I think it’s an economic thing. I think it’s a convenience thing. And it’s also simplicity. So that’s, that’s where I’m speaking to it. And how about for yourself, Joe? You’ve been playing around with the kettlebells for a little while. How do you see them being beneficial? I agree.
Speaker 4: 2:45
I I’ve. I got given my first two kettlebells when I was coming over how old I was turning, my brother and sister gave, gave me two adjustable kettlebells. Cause yellow and green ones. They’re in the gym now. It’s still. Yeah. And they, you know, you unscrew them and then put the plates on and off. And I think they go from maybe 16 to 30, two kilos or something. Amazing. I got those when I was mid twenties, say 24. Yeah . I’d come back from traveling overseas was getting into the training thing and not like he had these , I’ve never used them hugely like very intensely for any one period, but I’ve used them kind of here and there for many years. And the beauty of them that I’ve found is that they’re always there. And because they don’t take up much room and they, I mean, now that I have a gym, I don’t need course stuff at home as much, even though we do have a couple things, but that’s why they’re here. But having something around like a kettlebell, the beauty of it is they’re quite small. So it can be sitting there as an acting as a doorstop classic, or it can be, you know , on the inside of the hallway next to way , keep your shoes. Sure. It’s within arms reach. Do you like, I’m gonna do some deadlifts. I’m gonna , I’m going to swing this thing for a few minutes. You can do it. Whereas the barbell or the rings or whatever, for the most part, they need to, you don’t need to go and grab them. You need to bring them into the room. You need to set it up. You need to create space for it. Yeah . It’s really, you know, depending, I think for most people with most home setups, you just, the convenient factor of a kettlebell is just second to none. Yep .
Speaker 2: 4:20
I definitely agree with that. I think being an obsessive person, I did get quite obsessed with kettlebells.
Speaker 4: 4:27
I know you’re in my phone as James KB. What’s funny.
Speaker 2: 4:32
Yeah . You mentioned it. That was actually my first nickname when I came to jujitsu , uh , Peter to bean just called me kettlebells. Yeah. And
Speaker 4: 4:41
I think you told me that and I was like, Aw , kettlebell . Yeah . Yeah . That’s me. I’m
Speaker 2: 4:45
Just that round shape with that weird handle, which is my head. Um, yeah, I think it was because I’d done a lot of training and I’d heard about them when I first did my cert three at like , uh , the fitness Institute Australia in , uh , north shore Sydney off military road there. And I remember oh , like St
Speaker 4: 5:05
Leonard’s. Yeah. That’s where I did mine. Yeah. Right. It’s like green and black. Yeah. Super lame . Oh, well, I mean, it
Speaker 2: 5:12
Was at that time for me, it was 2001 it’s transformative mate. It was , uh , I was the youngest person in the room. Right. And , uh, you know, it was like a room of 20 people and I think it’s feel Schwartz. He was a professional bodybuilder. He became a physio and he told this story about going to the circus in Europe. And they’re these Russian strong men. And they’re all doing, you know, feats of strength. And then they started throwing these kettlebells at each other, like juggling them. And he’s like, these things are like 20 kilos plus. And they were moving further back away from each other. And he’s like, they’re flipping them across the stage and they weren’t dropping them. And he’s like, imagine holding 20 kilo plates and throwing them, you know, five, six meters to your partner and trying to catch them. Don’t your fingers. Like he was trying to explain just how dynamic kettlebell lifting could be and I’d never heard of him . And so I was like 18 and being like, what the hell is he talking about? Never heard of him again for a period of time. Then it was kind of later in the piece I was doing TaeKwonDo and I was my kind of last competitive year of TaeKwonDo, 2007. And I was like, man, I’ve got a dial up. And I’d seen some videos talking to some TaeKwonDo, friends of mine. They’re like , oh, have you seen this guy? Steve Cotter , he’s an animal. And I was like, all right, or whatever. And Steve Cotter was doing, you know, pistols with 2 30, 2 kilo kettlebells. It was crazy. He was doing all kinds of stuff. And I was like, wow, this is next level. I want to know more. So I tracked down if him through the Australian kettlebell company and I started doing some PT with him, track down her, if [inaudible] , who is like my everyone knows him, his film. It’s very easy thing to do.
Speaker 3: 6:50
Take some of the natives . Yeah. Because
Speaker 2: 6:52
I mean, it’s, it’s obviously shorter. No. And uh, yeah, it sounds the same. Not really. Um, but basically I found this guy, this man who’s wider than he is tall, just operating out of his garage in kind of south Corfield and men. The first workout destroyed me. And I was like, I’m a fit strong person. I’ve been lifting weights forever. How can this thing hit me so hard? And the thing that just absolutely in the same way, jujitsu revolutionized my life in three weeks as that much stronger. And that much fitter from training kettlebells two or three times a week, it blew my mind. I’m like, this is serious. I’ve got to get around this. And now I pulled my mate, Chris in on it, shout out Chris mewling AKA bill who? Um , yeah, Tony.
Speaker 3: 7:39
Okay, James. Well , they were involved
Speaker 2: 7:43
And there. And then what was great was the shared suffering of, I already had four weeks training under my belt. Right. And then , uh , if him put him through the same workout, he put me through the first day and he died and I got to witness him crumble, which isn’t a great feeling right on . And then he was like, man, this is great. And so yeah, kind of went from there. And the simplicity of it got me, I couldn’t believe a movement like a swing or a Turkish. Get-up just hit you on so many levels. Grip core shoulders, hips back. I was, I was like, what the hell? I would come home from that training and just collapse on the couch and fall asleep. I sleep for a couple hours and wake up, whoa, that killed me. And that’s so funny. Cause I hadn’t, hadn’t done any super serious grip training. Cause TaeKwonDo doesn’t really involve that. I hadn’t done really serious dedicated pulling work, but there is that incredible training. But having a year of kettlebells under my belt, when I came to jujitsu, I was very conditioned and it made me think this is good for jujitsu. Right.
Speaker 4: 8:47
I remember when I was quite into the bar bell kind of CrossFit style realm and Olympic lifting and all sorts of really getting into the Olympic style lifts for awhile . And , and it was never particularly good at them, but I was into them at that time. I remember, you know, listening to podcasts that are talking about that. And you kind of get to this point when you’re in that realm where you just, you can’t see past the barbell , it gets a bit myopic. Yeah. You’re like man, barbells, everything. It is like the claim. Wow. The push press. Wow, wow. Lifts with a barbell. Like that’s the. And it’s all about like how heavy can I get my five rep max? How heavy can I get my one rep max? And then I remember at that time, not really having much respect for kettlebells. Yeah . And at the time Joe Rogan, you know, he’s always talking about his caliber. Sure . Well, he sells him . Right. He did. Yeah. But he’s , aren’t as good as ours. And if you’re looking for the Bulletproof kettlebells go to coming soon. Yeah . But I , I remember thinking, I just had this , uh , latest view and Jones was talking about it and I’m like, when you and your kettlebells , it’s like, and one thing that has always stood out to me as the side of kettlebell stuff that I don’t like is when I say just people, I won’t say trainers. But when I say, and it happens a lot on Instagram who are individuals who really don’t possess much strength at all or coordination and they’re holding a really like kettlebell and they’re doing a kettlebell flow and they’re like doing like one rep of like 75 different movements. And like, we’re gonna throw it behind my back. And then I catch it on my butt and then I hip it and then I catch it again. And then, you know, and it’s like that to me, like I still think is lame short and it is, it is. And I figured you would agree, but, but looking now since primal soldier throttle ,
Speaker 3: 10:39
Slow job . Oh my
Speaker 4: 10:41
Yes. Yo , if you ever hear this primal soldier come at me. you. Right . This guy with the hat. Yeah. Just show us your headline . Just show us your headline , man. We’re all getting older.
Speaker 3: 10:50
It’s okay. It’s not good. Kind of roll with the hat on . Um,
Speaker 4: 10:55
But the, but so anyway , um, I came back around to them really in recent years and I think I got to a point with my training, with the barbell staff where I was like, man, why am I dead lifting twice a week trying to get to 200 kilos? Like how much is enough? Yes. Because there’s a point and we’ve spoken about this on other episodes where it’s like, okay, that’s strong enough. It is like as a one rep max and we, what did we sign off on for the deadlift? It’s like, if you can dead lift double your body weight. Yeah . For a handful of reps, they have three be at five. You’re good. Yeah . Like you don’t really need to do any more deadlifts. No like that at that intensity, you probably need to put some time with something else. Yeah . Like get a bit mobile , like fix your squat. Right. Like all this stuff. So, so as I started to come around to that stuff, thinking I came back to the ketubah, like, you know what, it’s actually a really good tool because I think it was the barbell drew me towards maximal efforts. Sure. And obviously there are maximal efforts you can do with a kettlebell , but I feel like their true power of a kettlebell is in the ability to build, to do like a moderate to high effort, but capacity like doing more repetitions than just definitely, definitely.
Speaker 2: 12:02
And that’s the thing. I think what a lot of people don’t realize is there is a insane depth to kettlebell training that most of us don’t know about because it’s very obscure, which is a gear, a voice sport, which is the marathon running of kettlebell training where people are doing multiple, multiple clean and jerks, you know, for 10 minutes at a time, as well as snatching, you know, very heavy kettlebells, you know, 24, 28, 32 killer kettlebells nonstop for five minutes on one side, five minutes on the other,
Speaker 4: 12:32
It is brutal. 10 minute rounds. That’s what it is. It doesn’t change.
Speaker 2: 12:35
No. I mean, they do do marathons so you can do half an hours and oh my God, it’s rough. Right? The other side of this is almost like a, is it Ariel ? Jeanette ? What’s the gymnastics where they have a ball and then
Speaker 4: 12:47
Ribbon and eyes at , um , rhythmic, rhythmic
Speaker 2: 12:51
Gymnastics. There is a kettlebell category, which is kettlebell juggling, ah, and it’s performance art , uh , dudes will come out in like helmets and swords and musical play. But when they’re juggling, they’re juggling 32 kilos is not messing around. You could kill yourself, you could flip it and drop it on your head. So it is a show of strength. The only issue here is that we’ve gotten, you know, Instagram has been like, yeah, I can, I can flip this eight kilo , all kinds of ways .
Speaker 4: 13:23
Hey guys, home workout . Give it a try comment below. Yeah .
Speaker 3: 13:27
Thoughts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s crap.
Speaker 2: 13:29
That’s the thoughts. It’s one of those things that it’s just, it gets mixed. Right. And there’s plenty of people who will say, oh, you’ve got to have more freedom and expression and stuff. Sure. People can use things how they want, but there’s definitely a lot of science behind the way kettlebells are trained. We’re just not necessarily privy to it. So I’m bringing this back to you guys , training at home. The reason why I was such an advocate for such a long time was I got a lot fitter and a lot stronger with the same tool, just doing kind of different approaches to that. I think it’s always beneficial to have like a lighter kettlebell kind of medium one and a heavy just so you can have a variety. I actually think you should have a pair of all of them and just have them in your garage. But that’s me that said you can get a lot of benefit out of one kettlebell. That’s why I’m going to say, if you give me one tool, just give me a good medium-sized Kettlewell cause you can press that sucker. You can do a get up. You can do clean swings, snatches, you know , squats. You can do so many movements provided. You’ve got the knowledge and the understanding of how it works. And , and the thing that really changed up training for me was working for time. I always used to do sets and reps and then it was like, no, no, no, you have to swing this thing for five minutes. I was like, what? Five minutes? So yeah, that’s some work capacity go. And so you, obviously, when you start, you might only do two minutes or three minutes and in your lower back is like burning your glutes, blow out . And you’re like, I can’t do this. Um , I’m blown out smoke here, but over time you do build work capacity. And that’s the great thing. And um, the thing where we really lack , um, if you’re sitting at home, you’re on the couch or you’re , you’re working from home, you’re on, on the laptop. If there’s one thing that’s going to help undo that seated, rounded, crappy posture kettlebell swings the kettlebell swing in my opinion, other than say a snatch, which has a bit more technical, pretty much everyone can do a kettlebell swing is just like one of the best things for developing your posterior chain. So that’s why I would say that’s a great move. That is something that we should all get around. And if you’ve got bad knees or bad ankles, for whatever reason, and you want to get your heart rate up, that is a great way to get fitter standing on the spot. That’s how I look at it. Yeah. Right .
Speaker 4: 15:46
Um , I liked the kettlebell swing. Did you ever read , um, I might’ve been Tim Ferriss in the four hour body talking about someone who did, I think it was 10,000 swings in a day or something like that. Yeah. And he had the method of the pocket full of coins.
Speaker 2: 16:01
No, I don’t remember that, but I, I do remember mention of that in the book.
Speaker 4: 16:06
The method intrigued me. I remember. And I tried it for myself. Okay. So the method was, he didn’t want to set a number yes. And say, well, I’m going to do 10,000. Cause that’s just, it seems insurmountable. And you’re going to psych yourself out of it. Sure. So what he did was he grabbed a pocket full of coins and then he just assigned a value to each coin. So I think one coin was 10 reps. Okay. So he didn’t know how many coins are in these pockets. Just a handful pulls one coin out, puts it on the table. It does 10 balls . Another coin does 10 and just keeps going until there’s very few coins left. So then he , you could feel there was very few coins. So we kind of just gauged roughly how many he thinks there are . And then he’s like, all right. It’s like 30 reps for one coin now. Right. And made it to the end. And then he went back and counted the coins. Oh wow. And it equaled yeah. Whatever 10,000 reps or something.
Speaker 2: 16:53
It’s huge . Well, I mean, look, I’m James Ross, a good friend of mine, geoscience from Melbourne , uh , Richmond gym . He is a guy who will train for three or four hours at a time. Wow . His trainings insane. And he will be doing jerks and snatches and swings. But he will do like on the minute, every minute type like six reps on the minute, every minute for two hours or something like something crazy. But he’s coach like he’s mentor. I hope I get this right. I think it’s Valarie Gingko . This there’s a few different Russian world champions and kettlebells, Tony, Tony, that guy, the Russian bots of Tony, that guy who was his coach has the world record for like most squats with a hundred kilos. Wow. Like
Speaker 4: 17:37
With 102 fifties. No, no, no , no. Like
Speaker 2: 17:39
A barbell . Ah , okay. So this guy say, oh , don’t go running. If you want to get fit for kettlebell training, this is just, he’s a psychopath. But just putting it out there guys , uh , this guy would do, he weighed about 80 kilos. I put 80 kilos on a barbell. I can squat at three and a half thousand times. And he does a rep every six seconds or something. Wow. Continuously psychopaths stuff. The reason why I say this stuff, guys is a lot of people feel that strength and endurance are separate. And what I love about the kettlebell is it really taxes your grip and it really works your core. And this is something that really surprises people once they’ve done, it started to a bit of training like, oh man, my back muscles, I’m really feeling this in my, my abs. It’s like, yeah, you’ve got to really brace. When you do a kettlebell swing, you know, you do a Turkish. Get-up one rep takes awhile. You do, you do one rep on each side. You’re like, well , I can be working out for ages. Cause you’ve got a lot of time under tension. I think this is the thing that really gets underestimated. That most people, when they do a rep, they don’t count how long it takes them to do it. They just do it. I’ll just do a rep. But when you get into deeper and deeper into kind of strength, conditioning, there’s tempos and you know, slower centrics and all this stuff. But let’s translate this to you guys working. If you spend more time doing one rep, you are doing more work. It is harder. Slow reps are really hard and a Turkish get up is not something you should do fast. And for those of you out there, if you’ve never heard a Turkish get-up or a TGU with a kettlebell, you start on the ground, you bring the kit, you press the kettlebell up, you’re lying flat on your back and you bring yourself to a standing position. And then you bring yourself back down to the ground. And this can be done in a number of ways. This works your whole body in a way that pretty much no other move does. And I feel like if you guys understand you did so , and you’ve done a technical standup , it is like the weighted version of a technical standup . So in that way, I just go, you know, what if there’s one move that translates to jujitsu other than a dead lift or a pull-up it is a TGU talk
Speaker 4: 19:46
To me about the, the submaximal idea and the more the , the leaning towards high volume. So you know, more like higher repetitions. Yup . And the carry over to digital
Speaker 2: 19:58
Strength and endurance. This is the thing that’s really underestimated , uh , strengthened Durance is probably the most important thing in combat sports. It’s your ability to produce force continuously over time. And if you’ve ever done those really long rounds where maybe your coaches forgotten to start the time,
Speaker 3: 20:15
The five minute round turns into a 20 minute war , it’s really the person. Yeah . Who
Speaker 2: 20:20
Just keeps going. That’s the person who’s going to win. And the person who’s just like, you know, we can all be strong when we’re fresh. Right. But they , the same goes, you know, fatigue makes cowards of us all. You, you can’t be strong when you’re tired. Like when you gas, your nervous system depletes, it takes a fair bit of training to build that work capacity. And the reason why we’re talking about kettlebells today, guys is , um, specifically your grip and your core, your grip is the first thing to go. You know, like if you start to get tired, your grip will weaken introduce it. Yeah. Yeah . And also in , in sports, in general, it gets one of the first signs of nervous system. Fatigue is your grip weakens. Right . And we know how important that is when you’re doing five minute rounds of swings or you’re , you’re alternating you build it up
Speaker 4: 21:08
To me , even higher. Even if you just do it like 15 to 20 reps
Speaker 2: 21:12
Or 20 reps really gonna feel the weakest link go first. And for most people it’s grip. It’s not grip. It’s usually lower back. Yeah . Cause this is not something that we train to be enduring. You know, we don’t pick up heavy bowels of hay and we don’t carry things the way we used to you. Might’ve experienced the guys when you , if you’re like me and you want to carry all the shopping at once. I’m not a two trip guy . Yep . It’s
Speaker 4: 21:34
A grip on your lower back. Yeah. You feel it
Speaker 2: 21:37
Traps for your low back. You feel your grip and that’s, that comes from carrying things over, you know , for an extended period of time holding weight in your hands. Yeah . So in terms of building your work capacity, the, the idea is that you work with a weight that you can work with for, you know, 15, 20 plus reps. And you build that and what this does in terms of like actually localizing, you know, helping the endurance in the localized muscles is phenomenal. Like it does things for you that just doing pure cardio stuff will not do. And then ultimately over time as you build your work capacity, you’re like, oh, I can last five minutes doing swings. Oh , I’ll progress from this 16 to this 20. And then as you do this over time, it doesn’t actually take that long guys . Like if you work on this consistently, after a while you swing in a 24 for five minutes, you are stronger and you are fitter. And so this is like an amazing double benefit
Speaker 4: 22:33
Who tries to Jitsu can identify with you playing some kind of open God , you got slave grips or whatever. Yeah . And you’re trying to control that person. Maybe you’re playing spices for me. I’m projecting right now. He’s trying to play spotty. God . Cause you’re like, I know I can make it work. And then like two minutes in you’re like, my grips are fried. Yes. It’s not worth it. I’ve gotten back to close God . I’ve got to death . Yeah. Clench. But you know , if you look at what happens in that moment, it’s muscular fatigue of your grips shuts down progress. That’s it? Your change plan. But then we also, but we
Speaker 2: 23:08
Also know a person who’s got that killer spider guard. Who’s great . You just don’t get tired. And you’re like,
Speaker 3: 23:13
Why can’t I break these grips? It’s so annoying. Yeah.
Speaker 2: 23:17
Gives them an advantage because I’ve seen this actually at a very high level, a friend of mine, I won’t name them. They, it was Abu Dhabi Charles . And they had this plan on how they were going to pass this person’s guard. And they said, look, I’m going to , they told me beforehand, look, I’m going to get in there. I’m going to break groups. I’m going to do this big fatal floor . They could not break this. Person’s grips in the whole match. Wow. They got swept. They got their back . And they got choked because their whole strategy was based on, I break this guy’s grips. They couldn’t, their grips are too strong and this just totally fazed them. Their game plan went out the door because the grip was so strong. Yeah . And anyway, also the thing for us in jujitsu is we spend a lot of time flexed, right? We add curl crunch position, and a lot of the kettlebell training, whether it’s a swing, a clean, a snatch relies on really powerful hip extension and it really gets your glutes and hamstrings working. And that’s a fantastic thing. If you can build strength and also insurance in those muscles, you’re going to be a much more athletic human, because I think you can see it in a lot of athletes. They might be quite built in their upper body or they, you know, they look fit. But when you look at them from side on, a lot of athletes are kind of flat. The Mo the most athletic ones, they’ve got a big booty, they’ve got really strong erector muscles. You know, you can see they’re meaty hamstrings. You’re not talking about Ron Holly. You’re not talking about Ryan
Speaker 3: 24:48
Hawk . Got it. I love Ryan Hall, man . So why are you going
Speaker 4: 24:50
To sleep ? What are you going to do like that, man, I do love Ryan alter that just doesn’t look athletic at all, which is the best. He’s the least,
Speaker 2: 24:57
He was voted the least threatening MMA fighter in history, right on which he does look that way until he twists her leg off. But it was just, ah, I just wanted to get him to get his game going, but it just didn’t have his appointing. It was sad.
Speaker 4: 25:10
So building that athletic base glutes, hammies. Yeah. Yeah. I mean that , that stuff, like, I think what JT is touching on there , like it’s, it’s universal, isn’t it having, having a strong posterior chain glue Tammy’s muscles of the lower back like that area. And you see it, like the pinnacle of that kind of development is amongst the sprinters. Yes . Power . Like Jesus Christ. Like they look like Clydesdales. Yes. Um, it helps in jujitsu . It helps in life. It helps for your posture. It helps for general health, like having strong muscles of the backside of the hip is really kind of essential. Yeah. So kettlebell allows you to tap into that, doesn’t it? Yeah. It
Speaker 2: 25:47
Really, it ticks a lot of boxes in that way. If we think about bang for your buck, because I actually had a trainer ask me this many years ago, so I was like, oh, what is, what is the one move? If you could do one exercise and that was the one movie you could do forever, what would you do? And I said, TGU because I think you can do it for strengths and you can also do it for conditioning. And then second to that, I would say like a kettlebell swing or a deadlift that’s me. Right. Cause I have my biases, all those things involve having your feet on the ground,
Speaker 3: 26:19
But you know, pull up so
Speaker 2: 26:20
Amazing as well. But that’s the thing. If you can’t have a pull-up
Speaker 4: 26:23
Bar, I do the , um , I do this mad flow that I saw on Instagram where it’s like a backflip and then two clap pushups. And then you swing the kettlebell two times and then you pull yourself around the bar and then it got kicks you in the stomach three times, but you would take it amazing. Yeah. I like that exercise. You felt like that would , that would be your ultimate. Yeah . If I had to choose one, that would be the only way
Speaker 2: 26:47
I saw I’ve been doing proof on zoom with our, with our BJJ crew here at , uh , jungle brothers, exposing them to that, which has been really good. And some people don’t have a kettlebell and that’s okay. And so I’ve been getting them to kind of make, do with like pop plants and random rocks and just some weight to hold on to . But obviously they can’t do all the things I need them to do. So, you know, be keeping it more body weight ish. But here’s the thing, guys, if you would like to get stronger in your upper body, get a stronger core, develop your posterior chain and get fitter, which has a lot of boxes to tick. You can do it with the kettlebell. So that’s why I I’m , I’m always advocating for it. Now. I might’ve drank the Kool-Aid a bit because there was a point at which I went, you know what, same way you might’ve gone a bit hard on the barbell, speaking with other health professionals and people smarter than me. People talking about what dumbbells are good for, what is a barbell good for? What is a kettlebell good for? And then knowing a tool’s limitations. So you go , it’s just a tool, but if you’ve only got one Saul , it’s a good one. It’s multipurpose .
Speaker 4: 27:53
And obviously like everything has its merits. But if you compare to those like dumbbell barbell, which really are the sort of conventional tools of the west , um, I just said , um , and I said, I, wasn’t going to say I’m today. Shout out Kate white , shout out sound editor. You appreciate you. We do appreciate you. And all your edits, those, those tools are there. The tools of the west. And the thing is, is because you can’t swing them. Like there’s no rotational aspect to their use. The exercises are very linear. Aren’t that it’s like press poll , raise kind of hinge squat. Like there’s not too many options. Yeah. You can swing a dumbbell. Yes. It’s just not as convenient kettlebell . It just gives because of the way the handle’s shaped and where the weight sits relevant to your grip placement to the grip just allows for this extra level of dynamicism doesn’t it it’s like it brings another dimension to the training, which for a lot of people listening are like, I don’t quite get what the you’re talking about. If you look at, you know, if you look at those movements, I like swings and get ups and whatnot . There’s so much going on in them that say is not happening in Ababa , deadlift or an overhead press. And that extra stuff is really what’s preparing you more. So for the level of dynamicism on the mat.
Speaker 2: 29:08
Yeah. And that’s right. And as much as I am, I have a thorough belief that you need to have good body weight strength . There’s a point at which you actually need to start working on a weight external to yourself. Cause you’re going to have to wrestle a human that’s the most dynamic weight you can have. Like if a kettlebell was fighting, you, you know, that’s , that would be it. What I think is this relevant to all these things. And this is something which is probably, it’s not given credit for the kettlebell swing is apply metric activity. Cause you’re getting pre-stretch of the hamstrings and then you got up, boom, you got to contract them really strongly. You can’t achieve that with the bubble . You know, it’s giving you stretch and strength at the same time, which is quite tricky and ensure people are out there just making up moves and whatever and good luck to them. But if you just do some of the fundamental movements within kettlebell training, you will get stronger. You will get fitter, your grip will improve. Your core will go up. So even if you’re not doing any jujitsu right now, and you are able to train capables to three times a week, you’re going to come back to the mat and you, your , you know, your technique might be a bit off, but you’ll be crushing people.
Speaker 4: 30:18
Yeah . The foundation will be there. That’s
Speaker 2: 30:20
Right. And I think that’s why I’ve decided to bring this up because we’ve got some people here in Sydney on lockdown and they’re , they’re grasping for things to do. People are stuck at home and you need to get a kettlebell in your life. Yup . Take
Speaker 4: 30:35
Me to a recommendation, a general recommendation. Like we have say the kettlebell program that we run through Bulletproof . Yes . Has this progression of exercises and people get takes from beginner through to advanced what would be a starting point? Give me , um, like if, if I were a 65 kilo, female. Yes . And I’m like, Hey, I have like little to moderate strength training experience. Yes. And I’ve got, I’m going to buy like two or three kettlebells. Yes. What weights would you recommend for the 65 kilo female?
Speaker 2: 31:02
I’m going to recommend an eight, 12 and a 16, right on you need a lighter one to master your technique. I think you need to get around your technique on all fronts. Um, now eight kilos might be too heavy to press overhead, but then I would also recommend you probably have some five kilo dumbbells to the side to build up your upper body pressing strengths, but to master your technique for swings and cleans and , and the like you’re going to find that that eight feels pretty light pretty quick for lower body stuff. Once you’ve mastered your techniques, going to the 12 is going to be handy. And then once you develop that confidence, you’re going to find just within a couple of weeks are like, ah, this feels pretty light. And then you can go to the 16 and that’s when you’re going to go to work. It’s probably not going to be appropriate for overhead pressing, but this is what you’re going to find. Guys, you’re going to get strong, quick that , and that’s the great thing about it. And it’s not, that are , you’ll never use the eight again, but you really want to hone your technique . Well,
Speaker 4: 31:58
The eight would be like, you’d use that for the get ups and yeah , when you’re like single leg deadlifts , like as you get further down the track and do more advanced exercises, you need that lot of stuff again.
Speaker 2: 32:07
Definitely do. And I actually encourage people at a critical point. Once you have done kettlebells for say four to eight weeks, it’s worthwhile having a pair of kettlebells at a medium weight, not the heavy ones necessarily, but let’s say you’ve got an eight, you’ve got a 12 and you’ve got a 16, a pair of twelves will really sought you out in terms of doing the double kettlebell work. So with our kettlebell program online, you know, the first two cycles is like intro kind of, if you’ve never done it , it will really suit you. It’s a good place to start it. You’ve got a kind of , uh , intermediate, medium, harder intensity. And this is all single kettlebell stuff. But when you get into the advanced there’s doubles and by that time, you should, you should have invested in a pair of kettlebells.
Speaker 4: 32:52
And what weights would you recommend for 80 kilo male similar training experience? Yeah, I would
Speaker 2: 32:57
Say similar, but I would say we go 12, 16, 20, right. And scale it approximately if you’re a bigger human, if you’re a a hundred kilo guy and you you’ve dead lifted before still we want your technique to be good. So then we might say 12, 16 and 24. Yeah . For the hip hinge stuff. When you’re getting into kettlebell, dead lifts and stuff. Yeah. Definitely three kettlebells is enough, light, medium and heavy. And as you get stronger, it’ll feel easier making the investment in a couple of heavier kettlebells is a worthwhile investment because they’re forever.
Speaker 4: 33:32
They take no maintenance. Um , you know what else is cool about a ketubah ? I mentioned it before. They kind of, if you get some nice ones, they look pretty cool. Yeah . They make a great doorstop. They do. You could have your grandma’s so like a little cozy or something for them, you know, like a little teapot type by night . Um, but like when they’re sitting there, like you got kids in the house and you know, I’m not suggesting that your two year old tries to pick up the 24, but kids will come and pick them up and carry it . Like, look, look like a bit , you know, like it, it starts to bring the training thing, the culture to the family. Yes. And you’re yeah. And then you’re all playing with it. You’re on the back porch, whatever you do, some swings, your kid gets the carry it it’s , you know, your kid’s not really going to go and pick up the barbell plates. Cause it’s in the garage. It’s all very specific. You know, they require maintenance really with your care-abouts . It’s like, don’t let it get rusty. Right. If you’re using it, plenty of one , get rusty. If you leave it in the rain. Okay. Just give it a sand back and rub some tack on it. Right. Like , or chalk on it. Like they’re very robust, long lasting inexpensive tool to give you all of those benefits. Yeah. Definitely.
Speaker 2: 34:32
That’s as simple as we could have it. I reckon for you guys, if you’re at home and you don’t have a gym, get yourself Kettlewell and I think that will tick a lot of boxes for you. Love it
Speaker 4: 34:43
Guys. Thank you for tuning in today. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: 34:45
Appreciate you guys. If you want to know anything more about our kettlebell program online, go to www dot Bulletproof , bj.com killer program. It’s right there. It gives you a good amount of training and had some very good reports back on people loving the kettlebell training there. So get yourself a kettlebell and go check it out.
Speaker 4: 35:06
Love it. Cheers guys. We’ll catch you next week. Thanks guys. [inaudible] .