I’ve got a good friend of mine who for some reason that is totally unexplainable, won’t use kettlebells.  So instead of listening to me, he goes to another friend of his who is a personal trainer and gets her to come up with a workout routine that he can use.  His goal is to get “in shape” and lose a couple of pounds.

His friend designs this elaborate routine consisting of free weights, machines, body weight excises, high and low reps all performed in a circuit.   This routine looks like something Einstein would come up with if he was a personal trainer and not coming up with the theory of relativity.

After completing the first workout, my buddy goes to work barely able to walk.  The next day he goes to work unable to raise his arms over his head because he is so sore.  This kind of thing goes on for a month before he finally gives up and stops working out all together.

Sadly this is the kind of thing that happens to lots of people who begin with good intentions of starting a workout routine to finally get in shape.  The problem is, most people make the process to complicated and their workouts become marathon sessions.  Add work and taking care of the kids plus all the other responsibilities people have and it is no wonder why most people don’t stick with their exercise regimen.

I know how it is because I was one of those 2 hour a day gym rats.  Unless you are a professional athlete or a sadist, 2 hours 5 or 6 days a week is counterproductive.

My favorite are the guys who perform a set of curls, walk around and socialize for 15 minutes before performing another set.  One of the reasons I workout at home.

I’ve said it before and will continue to say it until everybody gets it, avoid overtraining like the plague.  Your workouts should last no longer then 45 minutes and your workout times should vary from workout to workout just as you would vary the exercises you perform.  Also, don’t fall into the trap of trying to perform too many different lifts.  Remember that you want to treat your workouts as a practice session.  Your goal, in addition to getting strong, is to become proficient at each one of the lifts.  Performing 50 or 60 different lifts will not afford you the ability to get good at any of them.  Don’t even get me started on machines.

My suggestion is to pick a handful of explosive type lifts and a handful of grind lifts and stick to them.  If you are doing it right and exercising your entire body and not performing isolation type lifts like curls, you can get a fantastic workout performing only a few different exercises.  Work at becoming proficient and then in a few months, change it up a bit to prevent boredom.

Working out doesn’t have to be all that complicated and we don’t have to be miserable doing it.  All of us fall into the trap of making things in our lives more complicated then they need to be and working out is no exception.

Remember, keep your workouts short and vary the times of each workout, perform full body lifts, keep the number of different exercises limited and vary the intensity.  Seems oversimplified but you can’t argue with results.

Enjoy,

Dennis

P.S. – Have a question about anything I’m doing, email me and I’ll be more then happy to answer it.  ironkettlebellfitness@gmail.com

Before entering into a fitness routine, especially one that incorporates kettlebells, be sure to consult with your physician or medical professional to be sure you are healthy enough to begin a strength and conditioning regimen.  Be sure to learn the proper way to perform each lift and complete each exercises in strict form employing a spotter when applicable.  In other words, if you hurt yourself, it’s your fault.

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When I started this blog, I wanted it to be something more then just another how to lift weights site.  I wanted to provide information and inspiration so that my readers could then become truly extraordinary.  I believe that the same skills to becoming great in all facets of life are universal.  I also believe that all areas of your life must be nurtured and fed each and every day in order to achieve the high level of performance that we all want.

We cannot become successful in business, for instance if we don’t take care of our health.  We can’t become successful as a parent, or a husband or wife or as a teacher or lawyer unless we first take the time to work on ourselves spiritually, mentally and physically.  It all ties together and one can’t work without the others.  It is crucial that you work on all three areas of your being everyday.

In this video, a famous and extremely successful person explains the secrets of success.  Be it success in life or in the gym, the skills are universal.  Take the time to watch this short presentation and become inspired to do things in and out of the gym that you never thought possible.

Become Extraordinary!

Dennis

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Tension, tension, tension.  Learn to create it and you WILL become stronger overnight.  When I first heard that I could become stronger literally overnight, I was of course skeptical.  After I put the principle of irradiation into practice, I was amazed at just how much more weight I could lift, literally overnight.

I believe very strongly in creating tension during the grind lifts.  So strongly that I can at time over do it when training others to become stronger.  Without tension you are weak and prone to injury.  Learn to create tension before and during your lift and you will immediately be able to move more weight and be safer in the process.

Irradiation is best explained with this simple example that you can test right now.  As you read this, stand up and make a fist.  Nothing special, just make a regular tight fist.  Now, squeeze it even tighter.  You want to go from making a tight fist to making a tighter fist.  Now, make it even tighter.  I mean squeeze like you have never squeezed before.  Your knuckles should be turning white and your finger tips ought to be on the verge of cutting through your palm.

If you are doing it right, if you are squeezing for all your worth, you should notice that not only is your forearm contracting but your bicep and tricep and shoulder and even your chest ought to be contracting.  This is irradiation.  The tension spreads from your forearm and amplifies the strength of the working muscles.

Now, apply this to an overhead press.  Instead of just picking up a kettlebell and pushing it overhead, pick it up and crush the handle for all your worth and then press it.  The same thing will happen that happened when you made a fist.  Your shoulder and chest will contract harder then before because the tension has spread from your forearm up through the primary working muscles.  Again, you are amplifying your strength.

Taking the same example of the overhead press, try creating tension in your legs, glutes, abs and lats as well as in your forearm and the affect will be that much more pronounced.  If done correctly, this one technique should increase your pressing power considerably.  Irradiation should be employed on all your grinding lifts.

Not only will you be able to move more weight but you will do it more safely.  Tighten the abs and glutes during your presses and your lower back will be virtually impervious to injury.

One important point to consider is that you must create this tension BEFORE you begin your lift.  A muscle under load cannot contract to it’s fullest potential.  A good example of this is to watch an arm wrestler.  You will note that as the two opponents lock hands together and prepare for battle, they each create a white knuckle grip on the others hands.  If one of the competitors were to wait for the referee to say go before creating tension, the match would be over before it even started.

When performing a kettlebell clean to a press, it is important to create the tension in you body as the bell is coming up to the chest, just before it is caught in the rack position.  If you have been lifting kettlebells for a while, you know that it is usually easier to clean the bell between each press then it is to clean it once and perform multiple presses.  This is because you get the advantage of resetting the tension in your body in between each press.

Remember, tension equals strength, and lots of it.

Kill It!

Dennis

P.S. – Have a question about anything I’m doing, email me and I’ll be more then happy to answer it.  ironkettlebellfitness@gmail.com

Before entering into a fitness routine, especially one that incorporates kettlebells, be sure to consult with your physician or medical professional to be sure you are healthy enough to begin a strength and conditioning regimen.  Be sure to learn the proper way to perform each lift and complete each exercises in strict form employing a spotter when applicable.  In other words, if you hurt yourself, it’s your fault.

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The new year has arrived and it’s time to set some new goals.  Why set goals?  Because they actually enhance your performance.  Goals keep you focused and motivated and all but guarantee progress in your business, in your life and in the gym.  Without goals, you are just spinning your wheels without any clear direction.  My best years in the gym have been the ones in which I have a specific set of goals to focus on and strive to accomplish.  A look back at my training logs revealed that my gains have been almost twice as many when I have specific goals to work towards then when I didn’t.

There are many schools of thought about goal setting so I will share what has worked for me.

First, I start off with a set of general goals to be accomplished by years end.  I then break it down into 90 day increments and finally I like to work backwards to determine what I need to do weekly and even sometimes daily to ultimately reach my year end goals.

Now, not all goals will take a year to accomplish.  If your goal is to deadlift 500 pounds for instance, you might be able to accomplish that in 2 or 3 12 week cycles.  By June, you may have met that goal.  Not to worry because all you do is check that one of the list in June and move on.  Maybe you shoot for another 50 or 75 pounds or you just work to maintain the weight.

If you goal is to lose weight, even if it won’t take 365 days to do it, you still would want to focus on a specific weight to be at on December 31rst.  Even if you hit your ideal weight come July, you obviously would want to maintain it so you would still need to work at it all year.  In that instance, your daily weight loss “to do list” would change once you got to your desired weight.  Same goal but a different approach from weight loss to weight maintenance.

Ok, we have now set a set of goals to reach by the end of the year, now break it down into 90 day cycles.  We do this because we want to evaluate our progress often, but not to often, in order to be sure we are on the right course.   There are some goals that may take you every bit of the year to finish and if we wait to long to evaluate where we are in the process, it might be too late to do anything about it if you are off course.

After we break it down into 90 day cycles, we now need to reduce it again to weekly and daily to do lists.   Some goals like weight loss or gain require daily action steps in order to reach them.  Other goals may be better measured on a weekly basis.  I break my workouts down by the week.  I have a specific set of workouts that all fit together into weekly cycles.  I usually workout 5 days a week so if I miss a workout on say a Monday, I just make it up another day.  On Sunday I evaluate my past weeks workouts (takes less then 5 minutes) and prepare the workouts for the upcoming week.

On some goals like lifting a specific amount of weight, it is beneficial to determine your ultimate goal and then work backwards to see what must be done daily, weekly and monthly to accomplish it.  Lets say that I am performing a 12 week overhead barbell press cycle.  I would first write down the weight that I would like to lift during the 12th week.  I then determine how much weight I would need to add each week to get from where I am now to where I want to be at week 12.  Same can be done for any of your goals.  Want to lose 20 pounds by summer?  If your “summer” starts in June, that’s roughly 3.3 pounds a month.  That seems more manageable then 20 pounds and you can check your progress ever 30 days to see how it’s going.

Two last points to consider.  Your goals have to be reasonable and focused and you have to write them down and review them daily.

Reasonable and focused means that you can’t just say, “I want to lift a lot of weight” or “I want to loose weight”.  Those goals aren’t very focused.  You also can’t say “I want to lift 200 pounds overhead” if you can’t even lift 100.  If you set a goal and reach it by August, set a new goal for the remainder of the year.  It is also best to focus on a few goals rather then 20 or 30.  Don’t overwhelm yourself.

Lastly, and this if extremely important, write them down and review them often; daily if possible.

You don’t have to review necessarily the daily goals or the weekly ones but you need to keep in the front of your mind what you want at the end of the year.  If you want to be at a certain weight, write it down and think about it every day.  It’s best to focus on the overall goal then to get bogged down in the details.  Doing so tends to confuse your mind and you can lose the big picture.

Oh, and one last thing.  When you set a goal, believe you can accomplish, don’t just hope you can.  Hope won’t get you there, only a heart felt belief in yourself and you abilities will.

Good luck and here’s to making 2010 your best year ever!

Dennis

P.S. – Check out my recent post on the power of belief.  Believe you can and you will!

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