Pavel Tsatsouline is a product but one nonetheless that has had a massive impact on spreading kettlebell training in the US. You can't get very far into kettlebell-ing without tasting Tsatsouline's style of teaching.Humorous. Strict. Mocking.. all rather pretensious I guess, but there is a lot of method in his approach that you have to respect.
When you decide to seriously address Kettlebell lifting -- "Girevoy Sport" in Russia. -- you gotta read/watch what Tsatsouline has to say. You'll be much better for it.
The big vogue in the United States is real grunt training driven by Cross Fit fanatics and the macho edge of "New Warrior" systems. All very militaristic and something that Tsatsouline, with his Russian army background, panders to.
While the kettlebell is now also being marketed with a softer and a feminine edge -- a branding change -- the discipline with which it was promoted by leading practitioners like this guy, ensures that
every little element of the exercise or sport is scientifically addressed.
Outside the approach taken with some martial arts forms the conscious physiological and kinetics focus that are base line kettlebell training is almost unique. What may seem a very simple exercise -- lifting or swinging 12, 16 or 23 kilograms on the end of your arm -- is used as an excuse to review and improve core aspects of everyday body mechanics.
However, despite the machismo rhetoric, Tsatsouline also suggests through his ready use of anecdotes that Girevoy Sport is mass peoples activity in Russia at least -- going back centuries. (Read more at Old Time Strongman Blog)That appeals to me --. machismo pretension and marketing aside. Unfortunately with all the adolescent hype that is laid upon the KB its' hard to work out what the popular sports culture was like.
But it's clear that you don't have to get into it so deeply that you have to up the anti week in week out and be the best lifter your testosterone can mange.I like kettlebells because I'm naturally a good lifter but I can vary the exercise workout by varying weight, pace, number of reps and intensity to suit where I'm at that day. I'm no KB hero, but as a workout the bells rock. The irony is that the more you work at it the less lifting you have to do and your routine can become shorter rather than longer to attain a sustainable workout level in reps and weight. And if you do it right -- lift right -- and consciously -- your overall statue, posture and movement will improve in the same way that a martial arts -- such as Tai Chi -- changes you overall.
