Blog

At our recent kettlebell cert, the gym had some kettlebells they had bought from us and some pretty ones that are common in a lot of gyms because gym owners think they look nice. They were the stainless steel ones like this. I explained at the beginning that this isn’t a good kettlebell because the stainless steel handle makes it impossible to grip when your palm gets sweaty. To solve the problem, this particular kettlebell had an added grip so it wouldn’t slip. I explained that this made it even more useless since the kettlebell has to rotate in your hand when you swing and snatch it.

A couple of people nodded but it was clear to me that most people didn’t get it. Yet.

Some folks used our kettlebells for the techniques and some used the stainless steel ones but as the day went one, fewer and fewer people used the steel ones. The trainers started coming up to me and complaining about the stainless bells. They didn’t sit right, they didn’t rotate in the hand, they had a lot of problems. By the end of the day after the trainers had learned how to use the kettlebell, no one wanted to use the stainless steel ones at all.

So let me tell you a little secret — most people who design, manufacture, and sell fitness equipment don’t even work out, let alone use their own equipment. And it shows. Want more proof? Here’s the way a competitor suggests to use the kettlebell — theirs is made of plastic by the way.

Do you see anything wrong with their movements? Is that how the kettlebell is supposed to be used?

There’s a connection between having a quality tool and having quality movement. If you use junk, you will get junk movement. The problem is that most people don’t understand that, so some gyms and people buy garbage kettlebells.

Don’t get me started on the place that buys outrageously priced Kaiser bicycles and super expensive Hammer Strength equipment by the truckload but won’t buy anything but the cheapest kettlebells they can get. That’s a story for another time.

I see a lot of people taking the ice water challenge. If you’re having trouble losing fat, here’s the challenge for you: the soda challenge.
Take all the soda and sweet drinks in your house and pour them down the sink. Then, for the next 30 days, drink nothing but water, unsweetened tea, and/or unflavored milk. Overfat people drink a lot more calories than they think. Are you up for the challenge?

By Ima Idiot, fitness reporter

Champion bodybuilder and powerlifter Kyle Davis has worked out for years, but he always felt something was missing. “I did all the normal gym exercises that guys told me I should do like barbell back squat, heavy deadlifting, benching, curling heavy dumbbells, etc. but I wasn’t happy with the results. Something was missing from my training but I couldn’t put my finger on what that was.”
Then the day came when Davis first tried the TRX.
“I felt the result in my core right away. It was amazing! I never felt my core before when I lifted heavy and the TRX lived up to its advertising. Afterall, we all know that barbell squatting is just a bodybuilding exercise for the quads only. When I squat 400kg at powerlifting meets, I never use my core at all. It stays really relaxed the whole time and the weight just goes right up like magic. If I had never tried the TRX, I never would have learned to work my core!” he exclaimed.
Davis was inspired to switch from boring barbell training that had gotten him results in the past to TRX due to the widespread marketing of NFL quarterback Drew Brees getting great results with the suspension trainer.
“Yeah, Drew Brees was a nobody before he started doing TRX. He had only been a championship quarterback at the high school level, and the college level and the pro level before finding TRX. That’s it. Traditional athletic training had obviously failed him. After he started doing TRX, his athleticism increased 0% but his pocketbook just grew and grew. Awesome!” said Davies.
So how will Davis use this powerful new fitness tool that is revolutionizing the fitness world? “I’m going to stop doing all those boring pullups I’ve been doing and switch to TRX rows. I see them making people super strong. And to prepare for my next powerlifting world championship, I’m giving up training for the bench and instead, I’m going to do chest press on the TRX. There’s a great TRX video on Youtube with a famous trainer saying this is the best chest exercise ever since it takes the chest completely out of the movement. Sweet! I’m sure to win!”

(For the thick-headed, this is satire!)

By Dave Chesser
Face it, jogging is boring. I see people at the track do it all the time. Same pace, same speed, same distance…..zzzzzz. I’m asleep already. If jogging excites you then go for it. But jogging is not how I would choose to spend my time. Most of the people I have trained don’t have lots of time to exercise so they need the most calories they can burn and the most movement they can get in a short amount of time. So I came up with ways to get them that.

I suggest running instead of jogging. How is running different from jogging? Go jog for about :30. Does that feel nice and comfortable? It does, doesn’t it? Well don’t do that!! Running gets you out of your comfort zone. Running is about making an effort and getting somewhere. Running is for predators, jogging is for prey.

For this program, you need to be able to tell the difference between running and jogging so if jogging leaves you out of breath, then this isn’t for you. You should be able to kick up the pace a bit and be able to hold that for :10-:20 in order to do this program.

Here’s how it works: you will exercise for 20-30:00 but we will pick 20:00 to show you how it’s done. You will run for an interval of :10-:20 and then walk for the rest of the minute (:40-:50) and repeat that without stopping until you reach 20:00. So walk to the track or wherever you plan to run and do this:
interval 1 – jog
interval 2 – jog
interval 3 – jog
interval 4 – 6 run faster
interval 7 – 20 run fast

The first three intervals are a warmup so jog them and stretch you legs. Intervals 4-6 are where you start ramping up the effort. On interval 7 – 20, you want to run these. You should be uncomfortable by the end of the interval. If I choose to do :20 intervals, my effort should be enough that I want to quit by the time I reach :17 but I keep running for another :03. If you reach the end of :20 and think it was easy, then it was and on the next interval, you should run faster. Remember, the clock continuously runs on this workout. At the top of the minute, start running!

Using this interval method, you can do a lot of real running instead of jogging and burn crazy calories in the process. Interval training like this is a much better way to train your conditioning if you’re lifting weights since intervals rarely interfere with strength training. They are similar so you could think of intervals almost like doing sets of weight in the gym.
So add this to your training program if you’re looking for a little more fat loss or conditioning on top of what you’re already doing.

By Dave Chesser
I’m not an English teacher but today I want to teach you some American slang. In America, we love our barbeque, especially in the South where I’m from. And everyone who knows barbeque will tell you the secret is a really great sauce. Now tastes will vary. Some people like it more sweet, some like sweet and spicy, and a lot of people like different types of hotness in their sauce. But whatever the flavor, a thick and strong sauce is always preferred.
So with that background, I want to introduce to you the American slang phrase “he brings the weak sauce.” Trust me, you will get lots of chances to use this phrase in discussing weight training.
If a good barbeque sauce is thick and rich then anything that weakens the sauce is not desirable. It’s considered weak. So if someone says about another guy “he brings the weak sauce” then the meaning is no matter what the group does, this one guy always tries to reduce the effort. He doesn’t contribute to the group and make it stronger, his presence weakens it. If as a group you want to race to the top of a hill, he will say it’s too high and his legs hurt. If you want to see who can do 100 pushups the fastest, he will complain that’s too hard. This type of person says “wo mei you liqi” and “wo hao lei” a lot. Yuck, just hearing that makes me want to take a shower to wash the weakness off me.
If you discuss strength training or other hard types of training with anyone in the general population, you will run into this immediately. “Why do you work so hard?” “Don’t you know that will hurt you?” “Why don’t you come to my yoga class, instead?” They “bring the weak sauce.”
I expect this from the general population, but hearing it from so-called trainers really makes me sick. Where’s the hard effort? Where’s the pushing to get a personal record? I want someone to scream at me and tell me I can do another rep. I want to see people trying so hard that their face is red. I want to hear grunting and see people straining to get to the next level.
But what do I see instead? Foam rolling instead of exercise, poorly done TRX half rows instead of pullups, toy kettlebells that my 7 year-old daughter wouldn’t use, and quarter squats being taught by “weight training experts.”
Basically, I see a lot of people that “bring the weak sauce” even within the fitness industry.
So you have two choices, you can “bring the weak sauce” or you can man up and make an effort by killing it in the gym. If you choose the latter, you will join us in making ourselves and our community stronger. And boy do we need it!