How To Squat

Nov 27,2015 / By Peter Hirsh / No Comment

Squatting is very difficult for many people simply because they lack the necessary range of motion to move down into their hips. If you have an anterior pelvic tilt, your tight quads and hip flexors will likely overpower your under active glutes and hamstrings and cause your hips to shift back, not down. This will be accompanied by forward lean of the torso and turn the movement into a bend. Bending is fine when done properly, but there are some circumstances where a squat is the safest and most efficient movement. Find out why the squat is so important and how to perfect the movement in this video.

Endurance Workouts

Hells Bells

Nov 21,2015 / By Peter Hirsh / No Comment

When you first start learning kettlebells the versatility of them becomes clear, this quickly turns into the creation of some cool combination drills that you couldn’t do with a dumbbell or barbell.

During one of my experiments I came up with a drill that seemed to flow better than any others and hit every muscle just right. It was such a complicated series that I couldn’t give it a name based on the moves involved and just called it hells bells. Moving forward a decade, this combination has stood the test of time and now I’m bringing it to you.

Articles Weight loss & Nutrition

How To Support Your Body When Fighting A Cold

Nov 15,2015 / By Peter Hirsh / No Comment

The weather made quite a sudden shift here in San Diego recently, from very hot to quite chilly in what seemed to be a day or two. As the temperature dropped, my wife and I noticed our six month old got a very mild case of the sniffles. Fortunately, with the help of the immunizing power of breast milk the little guy got better in two or three days. Whatever he caught, however, traveled to my wife and then to me. In today’s blog I would like to share with you my strategy for kicking a cold and what exercises I did while I was fighting the bug. Both my wife and I recovered quickly, in fact, I can’t say I was sick, just that I was fighting something off, which both of us did in under a week. I did have one day with a mild body ache, which is always my most obvious symptom when I get sick, which fortunately is rare.

Lessons Training as We Get Older

Training as You Get Older Part II

Nov 6,2015 / By Peter Hirsh / No Comment

Postural deviations aren’t unique to older people, and just because you are advancing in years doesn’t mean you have bad posture. However, what is commonly the case is that any postural deviations that are apparent become more problematic and pronounced. I also think that as you get older, things like fixing your posture rank higher in your goals than when you are younger and trying to take on the world.

Strength Workouts

Push with Pull Progression Kettlebell Training

Nov 2,2015 / By Peter Hirsh / No Comment

This workout is a classic method for training, using a pulling exercise with a pushing exercise as a super-set. Pulling works your back, and in todays examples, your glutes and hamstrings too, we’re hitting the entire posterior chain. As we progress through various pulling exercises, we will add a set of push ups between every set, including in between switching hands. The push ups will work entirely different muscles, mostly your anterior chain, both will use your abs and deep core muscles. The pulling exercises are going to challenge your grip and the push ups will give you a quick chance to let your grip recover, something to consider every time you put together a workout. Pull ups on the same day as heavy deadlifting will rarely allow you to challenge the big muscles because you won’t be able to hold on!

Articles

5 Ways to Maximize Your Workouts

Oct 26,2015 / By Peter Hirsh / No Comment

It is possible to do in half an hour what some people do in an hour or more of exercise if you know how to prepare and maximize your time. I am not recommending that you make thirty minute workouts the norm, as it may take many people that long to warm up their bodies. If you try to move too quickly, you can injure yourself and that defeats the purpose of training altogether. Remember, always pay attention to what your body is telling you and take only what you know it has to give. With that in mind, if you are short on time, use these cues to help maximize your workout.

Lessons Training as We Get Older

Power Technique Training Part II

Oct 23,2015 / By Peter Hirsh / No Comment

When it comes to achieving the results you want, you will need to use the right weight in your kettlebell training. For most people, the biggest limiting factor here is their nervous system getting accustomed to the weight and movement. It usually takes a few sets of a given move before your body is able to recruit all of the available muscle to do the job and relax the muscles that don’t need to be tense.

Avoiding Blisters and Calluses from Kettlebell Training

Oct 21,2015 / By Peter Hirsh / No Comment

Many people think that blistered hands and bruised wrists are just a part of kettlebell training, but this doesn’t have to be the case. Developing proper technique with your hands and throughout the various movements can go a long way to minimizing or eliminating this problem, as well as balancing the exercises you are perfroming in your training.

Strength Workouts

Strength Training Techniques Part II

Oct 15,2015 / By Peter Hirsh / No Comment

The days that you spend working on your technique will carry over to your heavy days and your high intensity or endurance days.

In this workout we are going to work with a barbell using only one hand, gripping the balance point in the center. This is meant to slow you down, allow you to feel the movement and also make your stabilizers work just as hard as everything else.

Articles

6 Reasons You Should Be Using Kettlebells

Oct 12,2015 / By Peter Hirsh / No Comment

Kettlebells provide you with options that no other single piece of equipment can give you in your training.

If you take all of the equipment in most gyms and add them up, they rarely combine to provide what a kettlebell can. With that said, I don’t know of any serious kettlebell practitioner that doesn’t use other pieces of equipment too. It is my aim to keep the authentic teaching of kettlebell training and strongman alive, and help it grow and evolve to help people see their goals in the modern day.

One of the most common objections I hear to kettlebells is people who think they are too old or injured to train with a kettlebell. There is an assumption that kettlebell training is only for athletes, possibly because many average people have been coaxed into using them that way inappropriately. Other people assume that as they age machine based training is the safer way to train for strength but nothing could be further from the truth.

Tag Archives: Kettlebell