I bumped into a former student a while back whom I know is deeply involved in Chinese martial arts and I was glad to see him. He seemed like someone that got it and I thought it would be good to catch up with him. So I asked him how his work with the 24kg kettlebell he bought from us is going. He replied that he wasn’t using it much, especially for snatches. I was surprised and asked why: he told me he didn’t want to get big.
Sigh.
Listen, it’s HARD to get big. So many people seem to think that you snap your fingers and muscles just get huge overnight. Believe me, there are thousands of skinny guys that wish that were the case. It just doesn’t happen.
Why is it next to impossible to get big while snatching the 24kg?
First, 24kg just isn’t a lot of weight. For weak people, it might seem heavy, especially if you’re used to moving nothing but air. But it isn’t enough weight to make you look like the Hulk. Most people really just don’t know how much weight it takes to look huge. 24kg (around 50lbs.) just ain’t gonna do it.
Second, kettlebell snatches and similar exercises have very little time under tension. Time under tension is how long the muscle exerts force to lift the weight. Bodybuilders who want to build bigger muscles use slow tempos, especially when lowering the weight, to keep the muscles under tension longer, forcing them to adapt by growing big. This is what that looks like:
Now let’s look at a kettlebell snatch using the 24kg:
Notice that the time under tension for the shoulder is only at the very top and it’s extremely short — much too short to make the muscles huge. Does she look huge? She does more snatches with the 24kg than most anyone who will ever read this post. If she isn’t huge, then what are your chances of getting huge? None.
Kettlebells are ideal strength and conditioning training for martial arts but you have to have an open mind to their potential to realize that.