Hi and welcome to the Crossfit London kettlebell page.
Why not learn kettlebell skills at home by buying the Crossfit London Kettlebell training guide Only £3.51
The first item is a shameless plug for our masterclass, below this are some exercise descriptions and a few video tutorials. We hope you find it helpful.
THE CROSSFIT LONDON 3 - HOUR
KETTLEBELL SKILLS MASTERCLASS.
You have to ignore all of the hype, kettlebelling will become popular because its easy. Almost everyone can master the major moves in about three hours. Hence Crossfit London's easy-to-access kettlebell skills master class, for beginners (normal people like you)
Our three hour class is just £30
What you will learn
Apart from being a Crossfit certified instructor, he also studied with Stan Pike, the head of the UKKA
We always have a copy of Stan Pikes "Kettlebell Bible" available so you can have a quick flick through it before ordering it from Stans site
KETTLEBELL MOVES
THE SWING
The kettlebell swing is the rock upon which the advertised magic of kettlebells is based. This one move combines phenomenal increases in cardio vascular endurance. If you learn one thing about kettlebells, learn how to swing it.
Basically it combines a squatting motion with the energy of the rise being transmitted to the kettlebell in your hands, raising and lowering it in the sagital plan with straight arms. If you compare the move with a garden swing, the kettlebell is the seat, the ropes the arms, where the rope ties to the cross bar or tree bough is the shoulders. But this swing is not powered by a push from behind by your mum; the energy comes from squatting down to load the muscles, then standing up and projecting the energy through your body.
The potency of the swing is partially based in a form of training called “peripheral heart rate training”. In essence the heart is required to pump blood to the legs to fund the squat, and then immediately push additional resources into the torso and arms to maintain and control the upper body swing.
With the swing it is important to assume a wider squat stance. This will allow the kettlebell to pass between the knees without any risk of injury and also allow more momentum to be generated on the up part of the swing action. The feet can be parallel or slightly angled out and at least shoulder width apart with the knees placed out above the feet. To reduce stress to the back region, aim to sit and stand rather than lean and use the lower back to swing the kettlebell. When picking the kettlebell up from the floor, just use the legs as in a deadlift. Prepare with a partial swing to hip height to reduce the risk of straining or over exertion, then continue to head height. The kettlebell should be fixed in the hand/s so it does not move about during the swing action. The grip is tight/loose/tight to reduce fatigue - relaxing slightly between the top and bottom part of each repetition. Once the two handed swing is mastered, the one armed swing should be attempted.
UPPING THE WEIGHT YOU CAN HANDLE
I have little doubt that sometime in the future, most gyms will not only have a kettlebell rack, but in that rack will be nicely stepped weight sizes, not just the "quite hard to handle" leaps from 16k to 25k to 32k that we seem to have at the moment. But lets say you can snatch a 25k, but the 32k seems awfully heavy. What am I saying!
A 32k kettlebell is awfully heavy.
How do you make the leap?
Of course you should build up the amount of snatches you should do with the 25k, and if you come to one of our seminars we will show you a host of drills to nail the snatch and the clean. But its not always enough on its own. So my trade secret, get some 1k ankle weights and tied them around the handle. Convert your 25k into a 27k, or a 29k in seconds. You may wish to wrap a bit of gaffer tape around to be safe (but it's a bit ukky when taking it off, but safety first)
We got a set of ankle weights from our local Argos for about £4.
THE CLEAN
The aim of a clean is to get the kettlebell to rest on your upper body so you can practice front squats, or be in a position to press the bell overhead. The clean is complete when the bell rests on your forearm which lies diagonally across your body (elbow points down, fist rests on the upper chest) the wrist remains strong. The finish position is frequently called the racked position. To begin the move, a wide stance is important to prevent contact with the knees during the exercise. The aim is to pull the kettlebell from between the feet to a resting point on the front of the upper body. Two tips for this are to use a partial squat to generate momentum and also a shoulder shrug action to assist with this momentum. When the kettlebell reaches chest height, quickly tuck the arm close to the body with the elbow touching the lower ribs and the hand in the centre of the chest. It is important to displace the weight in this way to prevent tendon damage to the shoulder and elbow. Like the swing the body is upright and the legs are used rather than the lower back. Grip should be maximal to pull the kettlebell, relaxed to allow it to rotate while the arm tucks tight to prevent the kettlebell making forceful contact with the forearm.
When teaching kettlebell skills, I always notice that the clean is the one thing very few people get first off. In the masterclasses that I have given, people get the swing, snatch the press but struggle on the clean. I must point out that a two-handed clean normally gets the bell in the right position. Look at the following clip, and use a mirror
But, the kettlebell clean as an exercise is not a patch on cleaning an Olympic bar: frankly, it's a bit of an insult to have the same name.
Interestingly, Crossfitter James makes these points
THE SNATCH
The snatch is an exercise where the kettlebell is lifted from the ground to the overhead position in one smooth action. As with the other ballistic exercises, the preliminary action is to squat, maintaining a straight back with a tight arch, swinging the kettlebell between the legs. In one explosive action the bell is pulled upwards in as straight a line as possible. Once it reaches head height the lifting arm “punches” through towards the sky and locks the bell overhead. When punching through, it is advisable to drop into a quarter squat to help lower the body under the Kettlebell. This is essential when snatching a heavy Kettlebell close to your strength limit. There is a variation of the snatch that is technically less challenging but presents a greater strength challenge. The “swing” snatch. In this variant, the snatch is initiated exactly the same way as a one armed swing. However, instead of allowing the bell to come to a halt and descend, the swing continues until the bell flips over the hand and ends up locked overhead. A dip into a quarter squat can be a useful tool to absorb the impact.
Once again, a great exercise, but shouldn't be confused with the Olympic lifts: kettlebell snatching, does not prepare you for snatching an Olympic bar.
Feel free to contribute to the debates on this page email Andrewstemler@aol.com with comments observations, great injuries... whatever
here are a few more snatch hints
is it time to give up on kettlebells?
( Andrew Stemler)
I quite like my kettlebells, but, as the hype begins, I wonder if its time to pop them into the back of the wardrobe with the other expensive stuff and forget about them.when the Daily Mail writes (July 10th 2006)"Enter the kettlebell the latest Hollywood trend and an express route to turbo-charge fitness and some serious fat-burning... They now come in woman-friendly sizes (about 8kg) and everyone from J-Lo to Penelope Cruz, Kim Cattrell and Kim Basinger has been swinging ,snatching and pressing with them" it has to be bad news.
On the whole its very difficult to loose weight by exercising: its better to stop shovelling loads of crap into your mouth. ( which is easy to say, and sometimes not so easy to do)
Accreditations
by Andrew Stemler
Learning how to use a kettlebell is an interesting and worthwhile personal skill.
However, if thats the only thing you have, its not enough to be a stand alone instructor. Whilst its possible to argue that many fitness instructors are poor quality, nevertheless, to gain a REPs 2 qualification, they have to put a fair amount of study in, understand the heart, basic physiology, have a first aid certificate, and have been examined. I think to roll out of an accreditation and then storm around the market place as a qualified instructor is misleading and wrong. Check that your instructor is basically qualified first.
Kettlebells In General by Crossfitter Gary Dickinson (April 16 2007)
Forget the hype!
Kettlebells are not the one stop solution for speed, power and fat burning as I’ve seen claimed over the last few years. I seen a claim recently that a seasoned power lifter added 50K to his deadlift by doing nothing but kettlebell swings for three months. I tried and was sadly disappointed. I find that my grip is worked harder doing snatches with a dumbbell and Turkish getups with a barbell. In fact when I went back to doing these exercises after a few months with kettlebells, my wrists and forearms were sore for a few days and I’d lost 5K from my best dumbbell snatch. Any Crossfitter who has tried Grace or Izabel know the effect of high rep weightlifting so kettlebells aren’t unique here either.
What I’ve found is that kettlebells seem to work the core harder but safer than anything else I’ve tried. I’ve suffered back problems since my early 20’s and now in my mid 30’s I’ve been without pain for the last 2 years. Kettlebells lend their selves perfectly to complexes i.e. a few exercises grouped together in a giant set. I find clean and press variations more of a challenge with the Kettlebells.
Hand to hand drills are brilliant for explosive strength and hand to eye co-ordination and pretty much impossible with other forms of equipment. Kettlebell training is great fun and can drag you out of a rut better than anything else I’ve tried. Kept in context kettlebells can be a worthy addition to any ones training equipment.
Mailing List
If you want to be kept up to date, join the Crossfit London mailing list
Why not learn kettlebell skills at home by buying the Crossfit London Kettlebell training guide Only £3.51
The first item is a shameless plug for our masterclass, below this are some exercise descriptions and a few video tutorials. We hope you find it helpful.
THE CROSSFIT LONDON 3 - HOUR
KETTLEBELL SKILLS MASTERCLASS.
You have to ignore all of the hype, kettlebelling will become popular because its easy. Almost everyone can master the major moves in about three hours. Hence Crossfit London's easy-to-access kettlebell skills master class, for beginners (normal people like you)
Our three hour class is just £30
What you will learn
Here's a taster of what you'll learn in the Masterclass:
- The Swing. The foundation of Kettlebell training, stength, "cardio", core stability
- The Clean. An interesting but over hyped drill. An essential half way stop before pressing
- The Snatch. Develop co-ordination, power, balance and awesome levels of fitness. Once you have mastered high rep snatching all other gym machines seem, erm, silly. ( except the Concept 2)
- The Turkish Getup. There is nothing more exhausting than being thrown on the floor and then getting up again. its the same with the TGU, except with weight
- Presses. For a strong, muscular upper body, the various kettlebell presses cannot be beaten ( well, they can, but we will tell you a bit more about that at the event
- The Windmill sure, its nicked from yoga, but, with an off centre weight above you, windmilling becomes way more fun.
We supply a whole range of kettlebells for you to train with, so you can compare those that are on the market. We also show you sneaky tricks with teddy bears, hose pipe, shin protectors and pocket mirrors.
We only allow people to teach, who CAN TEACH : ie know their stuff (well most kettlebell instructors do) and can actually teach (and have some qualifications to prove they can teach) Our events are always supervised and led by accredited teachers, Andrew Stemler, for example is a qualified English (TEFL) teacher, Olympic weightlifting teacher (BWLA), swimming teacher (ASA), an ABA boxing tutor, athletics leader (UK ATHLETICS) and advanced fitness instructor (REPS) kettlebell instructor (UKKA) - and part time trainee sports scientist. So you get the best, not a well meaning neanderthal who can do it, but cannot tell you how he does it.Apart from being a Crossfit certified instructor, he also studied with Stan Pike, the head of the UKKA
We always have a copy of Stan Pikes "Kettlebell Bible" available so you can have a quick flick through it before ordering it from Stans site
Incidentally, kettlebelling is not Russian, its British: Great British!
KETTLEBELL MOVES
THE SWING
The kettlebell swing is the rock upon which the advertised magic of kettlebells is based. This one move combines phenomenal increases in cardio vascular endurance. If you learn one thing about kettlebells, learn how to swing it.
Basically it combines a squatting motion with the energy of the rise being transmitted to the kettlebell in your hands, raising and lowering it in the sagital plan with straight arms. If you compare the move with a garden swing, the kettlebell is the seat, the ropes the arms, where the rope ties to the cross bar or tree bough is the shoulders. But this swing is not powered by a push from behind by your mum; the energy comes from squatting down to load the muscles, then standing up and projecting the energy through your body.
The potency of the swing is partially based in a form of training called “peripheral heart rate training”. In essence the heart is required to pump blood to the legs to fund the squat, and then immediately push additional resources into the torso and arms to maintain and control the upper body swing.
With the swing it is important to assume a wider squat stance. This will allow the kettlebell to pass between the knees without any risk of injury and also allow more momentum to be generated on the up part of the swing action. The feet can be parallel or slightly angled out and at least shoulder width apart with the knees placed out above the feet. To reduce stress to the back region, aim to sit and stand rather than lean and use the lower back to swing the kettlebell. When picking the kettlebell up from the floor, just use the legs as in a deadlift. Prepare with a partial swing to hip height to reduce the risk of straining or over exertion, then continue to head height. The kettlebell should be fixed in the hand/s so it does not move about during the swing action. The grip is tight/loose/tight to reduce fatigue - relaxing slightly between the top and bottom part of each repetition. Once the two handed swing is mastered, the one armed swing should be attempted.
 |
UPPING THE WEIGHT YOU CAN HANDLE
I have little doubt that sometime in the future, most gyms will not only have a kettlebell rack, but in that rack will be nicely stepped weight sizes, not just the "quite hard to handle" leaps from 16k to 25k to 32k that we seem to have at the moment. But lets say you can snatch a 25k, but the 32k seems awfully heavy. What am I saying!
A 32k kettlebell is awfully heavy.
How do you make the leap?
Of course you should build up the amount of snatches you should do with the 25k, and if you come to one of our seminars we will show you a host of drills to nail the snatch and the clean. But its not always enough on its own. So my trade secret, get some 1k ankle weights and tied them around the handle. Convert your 25k into a 27k, or a 29k in seconds. You may wish to wrap a bit of gaffer tape around to be safe (but it's a bit ukky when taking it off, but safety first)
 |
We got a set of ankle weights from our local Argos for about £4.
THE CLEAN
The aim of a clean is to get the kettlebell to rest on your upper body so you can practice front squats, or be in a position to press the bell overhead. The clean is complete when the bell rests on your forearm which lies diagonally across your body (elbow points down, fist rests on the upper chest) the wrist remains strong. The finish position is frequently called the racked position. To begin the move, a wide stance is important to prevent contact with the knees during the exercise. The aim is to pull the kettlebell from between the feet to a resting point on the front of the upper body. Two tips for this are to use a partial squat to generate momentum and also a shoulder shrug action to assist with this momentum. When the kettlebell reaches chest height, quickly tuck the arm close to the body with the elbow touching the lower ribs and the hand in the centre of the chest. It is important to displace the weight in this way to prevent tendon damage to the shoulder and elbow. Like the swing the body is upright and the legs are used rather than the lower back. Grip should be maximal to pull the kettlebell, relaxed to allow it to rotate while the arm tucks tight to prevent the kettlebell making forceful contact with the forearm.
When teaching kettlebell skills, I always notice that the clean is the one thing very few people get first off. In the masterclasses that I have given, people get the swing, snatch the press but struggle on the clean. I must point out that a two-handed clean normally gets the bell in the right position. Look at the following clip, and use a mirror
But, the kettlebell clean as an exercise is not a patch on cleaning an Olympic bar: frankly, it's a bit of an insult to have the same name.
Interestingly, Crossfitter James makes these points
Before the master class the final position of the clean was really the only thing about kettlebells that I wasn't comfortable with. I'd watched dozens of videos on the subject and read lots of text but it all comes down to what feels right for you. I think it is probably more 'natural' with 2 kbs.
This is obviously contrary to the nature of weightlifting where the correct position is often the one that doesn't feel right for you. Learning the correct rack for the clean is vital for the front squat (and vice versa) and for the transition to the jerk. Kettlebelling does not hinge around the rack of the clean, there is little variation in bio mechanical advantage/disadvantage depending on exactly where you rack it.
Or can I say this because I am strong enough to throw the things around without much fuss?
In weightlifting poor positioning in the power clean should be ironed out early on. 17 years after being taught the movement I am struggling to train myself to do it properly now. I think the end position of the KB clean is
not worth the fuss.
James
THE SNATCH
The snatch is an exercise where the kettlebell is lifted from the ground to the overhead position in one smooth action. As with the other ballistic exercises, the preliminary action is to squat, maintaining a straight back with a tight arch, swinging the kettlebell between the legs. In one explosive action the bell is pulled upwards in as straight a line as possible. Once it reaches head height the lifting arm “punches” through towards the sky and locks the bell overhead. When punching through, it is advisable to drop into a quarter squat to help lower the body under the Kettlebell. This is essential when snatching a heavy Kettlebell close to your strength limit. There is a variation of the snatch that is technically less challenging but presents a greater strength challenge. The “swing” snatch. In this variant, the snatch is initiated exactly the same way as a one armed swing. However, instead of allowing the bell to come to a halt and descend, the swing continues until the bell flips over the hand and ends up locked overhead. A dip into a quarter squat can be a useful tool to absorb the impact.
Once again, a great exercise, but shouldn't be confused with the Olympic lifts: kettlebell snatching, does not prepare you for snatching an Olympic bar.
Feel free to contribute to the debates on this page email Andrewstemler@aol.com with comments observations, great injuries... whatever
here are a few more snatch hints
is it time to give up on kettlebells?
( Andrew Stemler)
I quite like my kettlebells, but, as the hype begins, I wonder if its time to pop them into the back of the wardrobe with the other expensive stuff and forget about them.when the Daily Mail writes (July 10th 2006)"Enter the kettlebell the latest Hollywood trend and an express route to turbo-charge fitness and some serious fat-burning... They now come in woman-friendly sizes (about 8kg) and everyone from J-Lo to Penelope Cruz, Kim Cattrell and Kim Basinger has been swinging ,snatching and pressing with them" it has to be bad news.
On the whole its very difficult to loose weight by exercising: its better to stop shovelling loads of crap into your mouth. ( which is easy to say, and sometimes not so easy to do)
Accreditations
by Andrew Stemler
Learning how to use a kettlebell is an interesting and worthwhile personal skill.
However, if thats the only thing you have, its not enough to be a stand alone instructor. Whilst its possible to argue that many fitness instructors are poor quality, nevertheless, to gain a REPs 2 qualification, they have to put a fair amount of study in, understand the heart, basic physiology, have a first aid certificate, and have been examined. I think to roll out of an accreditation and then storm around the market place as a qualified instructor is misleading and wrong. Check that your instructor is basically qualified first.
Kettlebells In General by Crossfitter Gary Dickinson (April 16 2007)
Forget the hype!
Kettlebells are not the one stop solution for speed, power and fat burning as I’ve seen claimed over the last few years. I seen a claim recently that a seasoned power lifter added 50K to his deadlift by doing nothing but kettlebell swings for three months. I tried and was sadly disappointed. I find that my grip is worked harder doing snatches with a dumbbell and Turkish getups with a barbell. In fact when I went back to doing these exercises after a few months with kettlebells, my wrists and forearms were sore for a few days and I’d lost 5K from my best dumbbell snatch. Any Crossfitter who has tried Grace or Izabel know the effect of high rep weightlifting so kettlebells aren’t unique here either.
What I’ve found is that kettlebells seem to work the core harder but safer than anything else I’ve tried. I’ve suffered back problems since my early 20’s and now in my mid 30’s I’ve been without pain for the last 2 years. Kettlebells lend their selves perfectly to complexes i.e. a few exercises grouped together in a giant set. I find clean and press variations more of a challenge with the Kettlebells.
Hand to hand drills are brilliant for explosive strength and hand to eye co-ordination and pretty much impossible with other forms of equipment. Kettlebell training is great fun and can drag you out of a rut better than anything else I’ve tried. Kept in context kettlebells can be a worthy addition to any ones training equipment.
Mailing List
If you want to be kept up to date, join the Crossfit London mailing list