who is your daddy?

feb 26th.

" Associate yourself with men of good quality, if you esteem your own reputation, for ti's better to be alone then in bad company".

George Washington.

session:

warm up, foam roller, abmat 100 reps, heavy bag. 10 mins.

5 rounds; no rest please; just suck it up.

500 meters rowing on c-2

30 box jumps:

30 40kg kettlebell sumo dead lift.

30 ab rollers: larger wheel and the most difficult of the routine. back got a little stressed.

30 kettlebell hack squats. ( KB in back of neck- 16kg not recommended for people with knee issues.)

32min.

2nd session: tabata on rollers5 min warm up and tabata protocol and 5 min cool down. Legs are fried.

Unlike many of the fitness experts of today who finally found that kettlebells, are not some obscure door stop, I knew what they were and how they can applied to any fitness regiment are far back as 1962. That was when I met Sig Klein of NYC who ran a body building gym, that used just basic weights, including kettlebells. Sig had a fine selection of classic kettlebells and always included in his training and promotion of his gym. Now I am glad that finally people are coming back to the real frictional world of basic strength training. However some of us know this trend to most of these fitness experts, is just a way of marketing the latest fitness mouse trap to bring in the public, regardless of weather they believe in the product or not. The picture of Sig Klien was at the age of 59. (ABOUT 1960)

HERE IS A NEWS FLASH: THERE IS NOTHING NEW THAT HAS BEEN INVENTED IN FITNESS WORLD IN MANY YEARS, SO WHEN GYM OR TRAINER SAY THEY HAVE A NEW SYSTEM, IT JUST THE SAME OLD BASIC RESISTANCE EXERCISES,PACKAGED DIFFERENTLY.

My first set of weights I purchased from York barbell co. in 1959 as a youngster wishing to be strong like John Gimmick. I received a set of weights which contained a set of kettlebell handles and exercise program to show how to use them, which was standard at the time. Note,kettlebells have been around long before that so they are nothing new, just maintained like some WWII battleship when things need some solid aggressiveness. Just look at my picture of my blog which is a turn of the century gym continuing......What! Kettlebells. who put them there?

I am happy to see the Kettlebells used by our self anointed fitness experts, which seem to grow by the hour. I have no problem with someone trying to make a buck in the fickle fitness business, but please stick with it after the party is over. Making a living in the fitness business today, is noting but smoking mirrors and deception. If the fitness business was doing its job, or meeting its objectives, we would have thousands of people fit and looking good as a force multiplyer. Instead we have people who show little progress nor results along with a country with and huge obesity problem.

After I left the military, I would travel frequently to York Pa. to the York Barbell co. where the Olympic weightlifting team would be training. that was when Bob Hoffman supported the US Olympic weightlifting team, because our government would not. Oh yes, they have a museum of weight lifting featuring old time dumbells and Kettlebells. Although, Kettlebells were not the primary fitness tool of that era, it was always present and used a part of training programs.

fast forward to the late 1990's when the strongman competition came in to the lime light. That type of training required the functional strength training, that required you to be able to lift uneven, off balance objects. That is when kettlebells started to be utilized more often to gain functional strength. Then this Russian by the name of Pavel Tsatsouline, came to the US to show what he had learned from training special forces in Russian, using kettlebells. Yes the Russians did use kettlebells for over a 100 years, and part of their history, but it was on a very basic level of activity or adjunct fitness. What Pavel did was bring it to a level, that can be utilized for basic fitness, or an Olympic contender. So it continues to be a work in process! So therefore none of us is an expert yet.

There are a few names that promoted kettlebells when everyone else was on fit balls and doing step aerobics. Mike Mahler, Pavel, Steve Maxwell, Steve Cotter, Jeff Mortone, David Ganulin to name a few who were at the fore front when kettlebells were being advanced to the public, by using their fitness backgrounds to show how fit you can become. these are most of the prime movers of the kettlebell industry who are continue to improve and advance themselves without the title of expert.

There is not a day goes by that I don't learn something new or improve on when using kettlebells. I guess I will never become and expert.