Formosa Fitness

Short review: absolutely essential material

This video by Scott Sonnon was the most talked about so far on my blog. There's obviously interest in his kettlebell material so here's a review of his Kettlebell Foundation DVD set. The set is comprised of three DVDs: one for KB techniques, one for warmup, and one for cool down.

The first disc is dedicated to competition techniques -- making it the only DVD set to my knowledge to cover this material. Starting to see why I say this set is essential? The competition methodology is growing ever popular but no one has bothered to put anything out on it until now. So if this style appeals to you, this is your only resource so far. Lucky for us, it's a really good one.

The second disc is warmup material but honestly it's more open kinetic chain compensatory movement rather than actual warmup material. In other words, you would benefit from doing some of it to warmup in the form of joint mobility, but you'd still need other movements to raise your core temperature -- a key component of a warmup, obviously.

This disc is based on Intu-flow and I thought that since I had the Intu-flow DVD, I didn't need this one. But I was very wrong. The material is about 75% new, although you can tell it's based on that type of movement. The cool thing is that you can really tell Sonnon adapted the material to meet the specific needs of kettlebellers. This is not a haphazard mish-mash of various joint mobility drills. They really are the movements you'd need to compensate for the rigors of kettlebell training. I found it much more useful material than the generic Intu-flow set for my kettlebell class.

The same applies to the Prasara yoga inspired third disc. I thought that since I also have the stand alone Prasara DVD, I didn't need this one. Wrong again. He doesn't give you a full blown series of flows as in Prasara yoga, but takes single movements from that system and uses them to compensate for the physical rigors of the KB training. The fact that they aren't flows makes this type of movement much more accessible, although some complexity is there on some moves. Also, as with the warmup DVD, what's shown isn't as much a cool down as closed kinetic chain compensatory movements. But that's fine for a cool down. No need to add anything here.

All the techniques are clear and the material well filmed. Repeat viewings should be no problem.

This set is really a complete system. The fact that it's self-contained and complete makes it a great bargain.

I feel that this style of lifting would greatly appeal to all IMA guys and gals out there. Sonnon is super smooth in execution and the inclusion of sections on breathing and two DVDs dedicated to joint mobility reinforce that aspect.

Even if you're more inclined to a harder style, the compensatory movements will be critical to your use of the kettlebell. I'm finding that I must have them in my training to avoid overuse injuries, specifically to elbows in my case. You only find this stuff here.

Highly recommended.