Formosa Fitness

And no, I'm not kidding.

I've been experimenting for the past 6-7 months with many protocols to get an ideal workout for what I want to achieve. I wanted something that will work muscular hypertrophy with the kettlebells, provide conditioning and core work, and is doable in a fairly short amount of time. It took A LOT of experimenting and playing with the variables, but I've now found the combination I've been looking for.

This is an advanced double kettlebell circuit. Exercises are done for 1:00 followed by :30 of rest. The exercises are:
1. double snatch
2. double squat
3. double clean and press (narrow stance)
4. double swing
Notice that the upper and lower body is alternately worked.

I chose the narrow stance for the clean and press because it works the core more than wide stance. Also, I try to only rest in rack position when I need to.

The workout is four sets of the above circuit three times a week. On the off days, try to get out and do your 10,000 steps of walking/hiking.

I've been doing this workout three days a week and the results so far have been amazing. I love this workout more than anything else I've done. It's all in there: muscle building, strength training, conditioning, core training and all in 24 minutes!!!

The workout turns out to be 4 sets of each exercise and the rep range stays around 8-20, so that puts me solidly in the hypertrophy range. The fact that I'm doing 1:00 of work followed by :30 of rest keeps the conditioning factor high, so I'm not losing my conditioning. Core work is included by staying in rack for so long. The only time I'm not working or in rack is in the rest periods.

Being under the double bells for this length of time does wonders for the whole body and i think that's a key to what i was missing before. You're stressing the whole body for 1:00 in each set. That primes the body for growth. Simply put, I'm getting better results from this workout using the double 16 and 12kgs than I did using the double 24kgs in other protocols.

Another thing I was missing was taking a day off in between sessions. i had fallen into the typical kettlebell volume trap and had been training 5-6 days a week. I've been primarily interested in muscle building the past 5-6 months and it just wasn't happening working out that many days a week. Taking a day off in between these workouts gives my body a chance to grow. That's extremely important.

One more thing i was missing was keeping the workout very intense, but very short. My previous kettlebell workouts were WAY too long. My hormonal response to this workout is quite different. I can literally feel my body growing.

I call this the holy grail for men because most guys i know want muscle building along with their kettlebell work and that's proven to be fairly hard to do. The kettlebell is a natural conditioning tool but muscular hypertrophy is possible with the bells through this kind of protocol.

Try this out for two weeks and let me know how you feel!

For a limited time only I'm offering the competition kettlebells for the same price as my regular bells. Considering they cost me 33% more to buy, this is a substantial savings! I have two models in stock: the 16kg will go for NT3000 and the 24kg will go for NT4000. That's the same price as my basic kettlebell model so now you can have the pro model at the same price as the basic model!

The pro model is the choice of many top trainers around the world. The handle thickness and bell size does not change as the bell gets heavier making it ideal for competition training. Therefore, these bells are known as the "Ferrari" of kettlebells.

I don't have a large number of these so it's first come, first serve.  And as always, thanks for your patronage!

...I'd be buying my kettlebells from Kettlebells USA. They have great prices and from what I've read they put out a great product that is made in the US. If you need a new kettlebell, try them out.

I always tell people that they don't necessarily have to buy a bigger kettlebell to get a great workout. They can still use the one they have in new ways. This is an upper body circuit using the kettlebell as an unstable platform for upper body work. The circuit is:
5L/5R Partial One-arm Pushups
10 Alt. KB Pushups
10 KB Pushups
:30 KB Plank
Go through the sequence 3-4 times with a short break in between circuits and your upper body will be squashed.

This is Lorna Kleidman and she's probably the highest ranked kettlebell lifter in the States. This is her warmup. Killer, isn't it? For most people that would be a full workout. Great work ethic and that's what we're looking to build with this style of training. Great job.

 Wow, what a week. Glad it's over. I capped off the week with this killer circuit:

double snatch

double squat

double clean and press

double swing

I attempted to do each one for 1:00 and rest :30 in between each. I did four passes back to back through this circuit. I attempted to use double 16kg but wow was that hard. I didn't even make it through the first minute of the snatches. I tried to do double 16kg through the first pass of the circuit but it was a killer. On the second pass, I switched to double 12kg and did the best I could. Even then it was difficult to make the full 1:00 on each and I only suceeded on the squats and the swings in some of the circuits.

Total workout time besides warmup and some stretching was 24:00 and I was wasted. I'm thinking of doing this every other day for the next month.

Try it out.

I created this workout for women beginners. Many of them have trouble pressing the 8kg kettlebell so the 4kg is usually what they want to buy. But 4kg is way too light for anything other than one arm pressing. That little weight won't engage anyone's hamstrings, making swings, etc. practically useless.

The solution is for the ladies to buy two 4kg kettlebells and do the workout as above. Doing double kettlebells will challenge them even when light weights are used because the body is under constant tension. This goes against the concept of single sided weighting that is so useful in kettlebell training, but who cares? You have to know when to break the rules. And double kettlebell work is pretty hard.

The sequence and set/rep scheme was deliberately kept as simple as possible. This is for beginners. I usually recommend this be done as a circuit and then repeated as needed. Rest can be taken between exercises but should be kept to a minimum. A break between circuits is highly advisable, especially at the start of training.

If you have any questions or comments, please let me know.

I've lost it and don't know where to find it. My pressing strength, that is. I was able to military press the 32kg kettlebell for 5L/5Rx3 sets a while back but no more. I tried twice this week and got 3R/0L. Ugh...

I don't know what happened. I guess maintaining this milestone got lost in the shuffle.

I put up the 28kg kettlebell for 4L/4Rx5 sets today no problem. But I can't get the 32kg out of rack position on the left. I tried again after the workout and managed 2 on the left but the second one was shaky.

Double military press is the same. I can do double 24kg kettlebells for reps but can't get double 28kg out of the rack position. If you can't do it even once...

Part of the problem in the double miltary press is likely the weight difference. Double 28's are about 20lbs. heavier than double 24's (8kg difference). That's one heck of a weight jump.

Back to the drawing board.

These are my updated prices as of April 4th, 2010. Edit: slight changes below. Please take note. These are CASH ONLY prices if you come pick the kettlebell up yourself. No shipping.

基本壺鈴

4kg 4公斤 NT$600 or 2 for NT$1000

8kg 8公斤 NT$1500

12kg 12公斤 NT$2500

16kg 16公斤 NT$3000

20kg 20公斤 NT$3500

24kg 24公斤 NT$4000

28kg 28公斤 NT$4500

32kg 32公斤 NT$5500

Competition models 專業壺鈴

16kg 16公斤 NT$4000

24kg 24公斤 NT$5000

One of the best kettlebell resources I've seen and it's free! This is a must-have even if you don't do kettlebell sport. Enjoy.

What kettlebell should you buy? What about for your wife or girlfriend? Confused about different models? I clear up some of the confusion and make my recommendations based on my experience here in Taiwan. Hope you find this useful. To purchase kettlebells here in Taiwan, please email or call me. Thanks!

There are a lot of fat loss circuits on youtube but the setup is a bit contrived. It almost never actually shows the instructor working out with the circuit. Instead, they're not sweating or usually even breathing hard and look like they're making no effort. Form is immaculate because they are totally fresh.

This clip is my effort to get away from that. This was my workout for the day. I had done 30+ minutes with the kettlebell at that point and that's without putting it down. I didn't plan on doing this 5th rep of the circuit but the 4th didn't record well. Grrr...

So here's me sweating my butt off, breathing hard and heavy, and having my form slip a bit as I get tired.

You can use this circuit for fat loss at home. Just follow along and try to do 3 or so reps of it with the bell. 20 minutes is your goal. Have fun.

http://www.acefitness.org/getfit/studies/Kettlebells012010.pdf

This is some research conducted by ACE on kettlebell training. Specifically, they looked at the :15/:15 snatch protocol that I've been doing for fitness. They found that on average, participants were burning 272 cals. in 20 minutes.

During the 20-minute workout, the average calorie burn was 272 calories, not counting additional calorie burn due to the substantial anaerobic effort. “We estimated oxygen consumption and how many calories they were burning aerobically, and it was 13.6 calories per minute. But we also measured the blood lactate, so anaerobically they were burning another 6.6 calories per minute,” explains Porcari. “So they were burning at least 20.2 calories per minute, which is off the charts. That’s equivalent to running a 6-minute mile pace. The only other thing I could find that burns that many calories is crosscountry skiing up hill at a fast pace.”
Researchers credit the brisk calorie burning to the fact that the kettlebell snatch workout is a total-body movement that is also done
very quickly due to the interval-training format. “We knew it would be extremely intense,” says Schnettler. “It’s a quick workout, and
you do get a big bang for your buck in a very short amount of time.”

This is great news for kettlebell lifters and shows what many of us knew all along. Kettlebell training offers results through the combo of strength and endurnace training that other training can't touch. 

I also personally experienced the fat loss through this exact interval training as documented here on the blog.

But notice that the results came through intense training. So grab a kettlebell and ramp up the intensity. :)

The following are two questions I got from a reader and I thought I'd share the answers here. These are fairly common queries so these answers may be useful in addressing concerns that friends and family may have about kettlebell training.

"First, is what makes kettlebells so special from lets say free weights and medicine balls? "

Kettlebells have many unique attributes. First is the unilateral training that we do. Most people don't load the body on one side for extended periods of time. Doing so means you have to stabilize the body more than in bilateral training (like barbells). Second, the shape of the kettlebell is forces the weight to be off center. The bell shape means you always have to be pulling against the kettlebell to keep your posture upright. This fires the core more than dumbbell training, for example. Third, kettlebell uses methods far beyond the sets/reps that most weight training uses. We use things like ladders, breathing ladders, tabata protocols, circuits, complexes, etc. to mix up the workout. It's a different way of training.

"Also Ive talked to fit expats who are 40 years and Ive heard them say kettlebells are great but its too dangerous to start to learn them when youre older coz you could hurt your back."

Not true. My oldest client is 66. Poor form hurts your back and that's why you need instruction. Properly done, there's nothing better for your back and the rest of your posterior chain than kettlebell training. The kettlebell training effect starts with the posterior chain then works the core and finally the extremities. It works from the back to the front and inside to out. The training effect rehabs people's backs because we all sit too much and the kettlebell is the perfect tool to undo that damage. That's why I imported them and I believe in using them so much.

This is a basic circuit I did today. Basic because it doesn't use any of the higher level moves. I recommend doing the circuit four times if you can, and then shooting to do four times in under ten minutes.

BTW, the combo of swings and goblet squats is killer. They work together really, really well. Try it out and let me know what you think.

I tell folks that buy kettlebells that they don't need to move up in weight and buy more kettlebells unless they want to. Occasionally i have someone that just doesn't believe that they can continue to get a great workout with only 16kg even after doing kettlebells for quite a while.

Well I just had a killer workout yesterday with the 16kg. Here's what I did:

600 reps: 100 reps each of swing, rack squats, clean & press, lunges, snatch, get-up situps.

On some exercises, I did continuous sets of 25L/25R and for others I did 10L/10R. I noticed the 25L/25R caused me to put the kettlebell down a few times to catch my breath but 10L/10R continuously was doable.

Stick efforts like this into your routine occasionally and you'll maximize the value of this amazing tool.

Those are the real modern-day Vikings. :)

 This is the best true story and endorsement of kettlebell training I've seen. Two paramedics get an unexpected surprise. An excerpt:

We arrive at a small wooden house and are let inside by a Russian family: a middle-age couple and their two teenage sons. "It's my father," the man says in heavily accented English. "My grandfather," one of the sons says in perfect English, while sitting at the kitchen table with a high school calculus textbook open in front of him. "He's acting irrationally," the other son, a strapping young fellow in fashionably distressed jeans, says.

"Does he have a psych history?" Bronson asks.

"No," the calculus son says. ...

We go into the living room, where the man is sitting on the couch. He looks younger than 85.

He's about 5 feet-6 inches tall, barrel-chested, arms like iron bars, and no neck. "He's built like a brick house," Bronson says. ...

PD arrives. As I'm explaining to one police officer what's going on, the other cop points to the corner and says, "Whose are those?" Under a table are two cast-iron things, like solid black cauldrons with thick handles.

"What are they?" I ask. "Kettle bells," the cop says. "What's a kettle bell?" I ask.

Read the whole thing to see what happens at the end.

If you've bought one or more kettlebells, you may wonder what to do next when it no longer feels heavy. Well, you've only scratched the surface of what's there.

Here's what I did today with the 12kg kettlebell:

swings 2x25L/25R

clean and press 2x25L/25R

snatches 2x25L/25R

squats 2x25L/25R

push press 2x25L/25R

lunges 2x25L/25R

600 reps total and rest only as needed to catch the breath

I don't usually work with the 12kg kettlebell any more except to teach but I wanted this type of low intensity/high density work out today.

This type of work out hits everything and shows that you can still get a good challenge out of a kettlebell that may feel a bit lighter to you. This extends the life of the kettlebell, meaning that you don't necessarily have to go out and buy a heavier one unless you just want to.

Enjoy your kettlebell work.