Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 397: Build Muscle with Kettlebells

Episode Date: November 7, 2016

Kettlebells are often associated with performance but rarely with bodybuilding and aesthetics. The fact is, many muscle building moves that are done with dumbbells are superior when done with kettlebells. In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin break down how to use kettlebells to maximize muscle growth. This episode corresponds to a 5 part Mind Pump TV YouTube series sponsored by Kettlebell Kings (kettlebellkings.com) title "Kettlebells for Aesthetics." Have Sal, Adam & Justin personally train you with a new video on our new YouTube channel, Mind Pump TV. Be sure to Subscribe for updates. Get MAPS Anabolic, MAPS Performance, MAPS Aesthetic, the Butt Builder Blueprint AND the Sexy Athlete Mod (The RGB Super Bundle) packaged together at a substantial DISCOUNT at www.mindpumpmedia.com. Get your Kimera Koffee, Mind Pump's first official sponsor, at www.kimerakoffee.com, code "mindpump" for 10% off! Please subscribe, rate and review this show! Each week our favorite reviewers are announced on the show and sent Mind Pump T-shirts!

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mite, op, mite, op with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. What is in the plans for, because we're recording this on Hallows Eve, right? Isn't that Halloween? Hallows Eve. Isn't that what Halloween supposed to be called? Hallows Eve?

What are you guys doing tonight? What are you doing, Adam? I know you don't have kids something you know about so tonight is no different from undead for me, bro What do you last year you doing like a party or something? No normally I do do I mean normally you do do normally I do do Halloween party I haven't done one though and quite a few years though. I mean shit the last few I thought last year You did you went to one maybe no no? No? No, I haven't yeah, it's just been a lot of shit going on Maybe coming a funny daddy. No, I I have so I loved it I love to get all decked out for Halloween and throw a cool party and I think it's it's one of my favorite holidays

To have some fun and it's a good excuse to drink and act silly So I'm all for it, but I just got I got too much shit going on right now. We have so you just show my show tonight. Yeah, well, I'd like to say I'm going to chill, but I'll probably be working. I mean, we've we're like a little behind on some things and we're all out of here in a week. So God damn you're crappin' me out. No, it's not it. It's not a it's not a reason to be crapped out at all. I just I think we have a lot of stuff we got to take care of this next week before everybody. There's definitely some intensity there. Are you going to have candy, like one piece of candy or anything at all? No. Not even one piece of candy.

No, we didn't buy any for the house. Oh, shit. Yeah, yeah, no, we... No good and plenty, huh? No candies today. That's not his favorite. He's in Mike and I. I thought, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,. If I if I felt like having it, I would absolutely have it, but I don't, I just had my best friend came down and we went to, uh,

took him to the sharks game and we had, um, a blueberry cake from, uh, Paris, Paris baguette. If you've never had a Paris baguette, uh, bro, next level cakes. So here's how I, this is how I feel, too. So like, I had a great night with some good friends go all the way back to elementary school, we hung out all night. Oh yeah, I saw your picture, that's right. Yeah, and then we had a cake, and so I enjoyed an amazing cake that was well done.

Now, did you have a cake to yourself like last time or did you have some cake? So I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a lot of. See, that's why I asked the question. People listening right now are like, oh, you must be, you're making fun of Adam right now. No, I have witnessed him by an entire cake for himself. Let's be honest though,

trick or treating today is like, it's like the pussy-fied version of trick or treating when we were kids. Like I used to go out, you'd have to go like miles. Fucking hours, dude. And I'd fill up a Massive pillow sack. Yeah full of candy kids now that we go out for like 45 minutes to get a little bit of candy to come back

Yeah, I don't want to walk anymore Yeah, I said I said go up on myself. I didn't get any of my you know Eminem's or you know the candy and the candy now is so good Everything is quality when we were kids. It was a lot of that shitty rapper candy and you know I M&Ms or, you know, the candy suck. And the candy now is so good. Everything is quality. When we were kids, it was a lot of that shitty wrapper candy and you know what I'm talking about. Right. And just where you had to just untwist them.

You know that kind of stuff. See, I live right on the outskirts of like the rich neighborhood. And that's the best place to go like trigger treating because they give like full candy bars, like the king size. Jesus. Like you get, they actually, you come up as a kid and you're like, here you go. That is rad.

That's like the, here's a house everybody target after that. Oh, for sure. That's the whole area, that whole silver creek area up there. You go up there and you get full candy bars. You get full dollars, something candy bars. King size, they get out of here. Seriously, it's like, it's, it's an investment.

If you go up there as an adult and you take your kids through there And you gather all these big candy bars and then we sell them for 75 cents a bar at a discounted rate So I'm handing out that's a lesson. I would teach my show. I would teach my children listen We could eat all this shitty can you see over here still lemonade you're gonna sell king size We could hustle all night tonight and we can buy you that new Nintendo that's coming out for Christmas What do you think I like you? I'm see I'm handing out keto gifts to Joe It's just a dick go coconut oil T-spit a pencil and some butter

Have fun kids some little carry-go cubes. Oh good luck. Not getting egged in like fucking tea Oh, what a cute what a cute costume. Here's an avocado Oh, look at that one. Here's a here's an organic free range of age some people might like bacon though I mean I'll do that dude I would love to walk up to a door and say trick or treat in the hand me bacon Of course you fucking me you're in it. Yeah, but if you're a kid you'd be so angry. Yeah Yeah, if you think about it, there's nothing you can really hand out that would be like healthy. Now, there's nothing you could really hand out. That would be like healthy, right? No.

I mean, what are you gonna hand out? No, you can't give out nuts, because someone's allergic, so I've heard. It's annoying to be that person. Is healthy as you wanna be and like, influence people just fuck off. Yeah, I don't, you know, for this holiday. I don't wanna get toilet paper.

Yeah, that's for sure. So are you passing, do you, I mean, you're not in an area where you'll have kids, right? You don't have kids come where you're at. No, but I mean last year and a lot You know, we would have some kids come around and we just hand out candy and a lot of times what I would do is I'd go trick Or treating with the kids and then I'm a dick ready what you guys were here What do I come back on my kids? I'd let them pick out five pieces that their Their favorite that they would eat like over the course of like a week two weeks and

Five pieces. That's the last of two, damn it. Then the rest of the candy, I would hand out one bite a night, that's all you get. That's right, one bite a night. I let them eat till they puke and they don't want to do it. And every time they took a bite, different fathering, different strategies. Well, I'm not even done.

Every time they take a bite, I hit them really hard so they dissociate the pain with the candy. Okay, now this makes it. Yes. And then the rest of their candy, I would hand out to kids coming to my house like re gift yeah Recycling it's recycling actually think about that's a good strategy. I like that You guys notice the sound in here. Oh, I'm amazing. It's so yeah All the cool all the foam is up and it's weird that when it doesn't sound almost weird like when you talk

You don't hear anything coming back. It sounds clear. It's great. I know, it's nice. It sounds really good. It kills your crazy. Everybody that's in the car right now, we sound like we're right. In your head.

It just stopped it right there. My voice is better than that. So you guys, I want to talk about, we just filmed some videos, and I don't know if they'll be up. By the time this particular podcast airs, sure there will be. But we demoed some kettlebell exercises for bodybuilding. Yes.

I don't hear anybody ever talk about kettlebells. I love that we started with that because it's like, you know, you're going to battle like the the purists, right? Right away with the kettlebells and then also like the the bodybuilding community. They don't even look at the kettlebells as a valid tool and we just were like, fuck that, let's merge them. Dude, I didn't even think about that. You guys, this is like total mind-pump style.

We're gonna piss off. We're gonna piss to kettlebell people off and the bodybuilding people are like, I love it. All in one fell swoop. Yeah, I love it. Get out of your camps. Yeah, but I think a lot of people don't realize that,

okay, of course there's a traditional kettlebell exercises. And kettlebells, let's get a little brief history. They've been around for a long time. In fact, they've been around longer than dumbbells and barbells. They were the original dumbbells. In fact, I think that's what they were called because they were bells that you actually rung. Right. And then they take out the part that rings and they call them a dumbbell, right? Because they make me sound. And then then some, someone invented the dumbbell called a dumbbell so they had to call him KELOL so they've been around for a very long time and they really burst on the fitness scene about what would you say is it is it been like 15

years no less than that maybe 12 10 years yeah well I think before that nobody you're saying like when they really got popular because yeah because they say they've been around forever around I'm talking about here in America, let's see. I know what he's gonna say about. Who's the master Justin? He came out with a certification in the 90s or 2000s, right? That came out. Povlet's Sony.

Surtrioli. Yeah, we're gonna fuck up as soon as they say that. I remember, I was probably about, let's see here, what Jim was that? I wanna say, I was at Capitol, McKee. So this is like 2002-ish somewhere around there. I remember that it was becoming, but I remember the certification was like $1,500

to go through the cert. And I really wanted to do it because I was really interested in getting into it. But I was like, man, I don't want to pay $1,500 for a certification. You still really expensive, by the way. It's a GBRKC certified, so. Really?

Yeah, same price. Yeah, and what's nice is that it started, competitions started to come out and like you got strength first and you got like these other kettlebell certifications that were like, it's kind of ridiculous. You know, let's get a lot of these elements and move on and get into more people, like more qualified instructors that we can create by, you know by making it more accessible and affordable. Because it's like, I mean, it's specialized, of course. It's specialized and it's something that you can charge money for.

But it's a valid tool that I think a lot more people need to use. Yes, I think it's worth it. I really do. I think if you want to, of course, you get your normal certifications, you really learn and understand your good, fundamental, barbell dumbbell exercises. But if you want your normal certifications, you really learn and understand your good fundamental barbell dumbbell exercises. But if you want to go another step, if you want to learn something new, I highly recommend

getting education with kettlebells because kettlebells do things different. They can provide different adaptations and stimulus than barbells and dumbbells. So speaking about, just when we talk in terms of the traditional kettlebell exercises like your swings, your windmills, you know, your various snatches and presses, they're very unique to kettlebells. And I think the reason why they became popular was because, let's use the kettlebell swing for example,

probably the most popular, arguably the most popular kettlebell exercise wouldn't you agree, Justin? Of course you're. It's a hip-hinging movement. It is an exercise that works. It's a gross motor movement. You get a lot of cardiovascular endurance with it if you want to as well.

But it's easier to learn than a clean with a barbell. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Absolutely. You can really like localize it. You can keep it controlled a lot more easily. And what's great about is that hip-hinging, that power that you can promote through your hips, that translates to all kinds of other lists, deadlift squats, like all these other

hip-hinging movements that now you have that element of power you can tap into. Yes, and I think that's why they got popular. They were just, they were different enough. They gave people benefit, but they were easy enough. A lot of the movements, the core basic movements were easy enough for people to learn. Unlike your, if I were to compare a kettlebell swing or a kettlebell snatch to a barbell movement,

it would be like a clean, right? But a clean is super technical. Like it takes, it would take me, if I got, if I got even a fit client who's never done a clean before, it would take a long time just to learn how to do a proper one. It wouldn't take me long at all to teach them how to do a proper kettlebell swing. So you could immediately get into the nuts and bolts of it and getting the workout aspect versus just constantly focusing on tech.

Well, any of those movements that you have, why the kettlebells are so great, what you're saying is that, when you do a barbell or a dumbbell, the barbell, you keep it in a fixed position when you try. And then the joint and muscles have to move in order, like in order to make that a comfortable movement. Does that make sense?

Like with the kettlebell, the kettlebell swings into like the natural position. It allows for travel in the wrist, it allows for travel in the elbow, travel in the shoulder. There's a spiral line you can create which promotes a more natural type of mechanics. Your body wants to move with those mechanics. I feel like we do get stuck a lot of times in these fixed positions where I'm holding the bar and I'm going to bring it down to my chest and I'm doing overhead press.

I'm still limited in that to where I could actually move my arm around and get a little more travel from that, which is something that functionally, I'm gonna benefit a lot more from. So I'll tell you what I really started to incorporate them when I was getting ready for shows was, I was doing a lot of our barbells, so I was doing a lot of squats or deads or overhead presses and I was grabbing barbells and I'm lifting heavy weight a lot.

I started to notice that I was limiting my range of motion because you're in this fixed position, and I was starting to get some poor recruitment. It was happening in my back and then was causing shoulder to elbow issues. Kettlebells were the first place that I went to start to correct that and fix it because just like Justin was saying, it allowed your elbow, your shoulder to move in that spiral natural movement that it should move in and when you're in that fixed position with the barbell, that can. It can start to create imbalances.

So whether you become somebody who's like this huge kettlebell guru and you use kettlebells all the time, I definitely think that it's something that everybody should incorporate into their routine somewhat. Whether it's something that you do all the time or something that you intermittently put in there, there's such great benefits to it that it should be in everybody's routine. And this is always something that I've, you know, like with mapscreen, so mass performance, I've had a lot of people ask, like, well, you know, do I really have to use a kettlebell or just use dumbbells or just use a bar barbell or you know, for these specific movements.

I'm like, yeah, that's fine. You could, you know, you could do that, but the effect, like I'm trying to get by using the kettlebell is that, you know, this is allowing for more of that rotation. Right now our focus is on the movement of what's going on. And so I want to promote better health in my risks, my elbows, and my shoulder. For me to just grab what I'm natural to grab, like a dumbbell in the gym, and be, you know, I'm trying to get people outside of that mentality and that thought process and experience something that is going to promote a different recruitment pattern and a different feel.

Well, I think, I mean, what you guys are talking about is very true in the market is showing it now, right? It's hard now to find a major gym that won't have at least a few pairs of kettlebells. Most gyms won't have like a huge display of kettlebells, but you can find them and you can even find kettlebells now in group classes. And that's in a very short period of time. I want people to understand that 15 years ago, 12 years ago, you couldn't find ketobels anywhere. In fact, I bought ketobels about 15 years ago. I had to import them from Russia because you

couldn't really find anywhere around here to buy them. That's how rare they were. Today, you can find them in group classes and they've infiltrated the fitness industry because there's lots of benefit. However, there is one aspect of fitness where you still don't see kettlebells being used almost at all and that's in bodybuilding. 100%. There seems to be this misconception that kettlebells are great for function, which is true, is great for correcting imbalances,

which is true is great for athletic performances, which is true. But then the false part about it is that kettlebells are not good for hypertrophy. And if you want to work on hypertrophy, you should do barbells, dumbbells, machines and just stick to the typical bodybuilding stuff. And that's false. There are some incredible hypertrophy-based exercises you could do with kettlebells that are not traditional kettlebell exercises that I think you're going to start to see more and more people start to incorporate.

A lot of this, a lot of the stuff that I've learned from this is through experimentation. I know Adam, you've experimented quite a bit as well with some catabels. I'll give you guys a very basic example that's easy to understand. If you're listening right now and you work out, odds are you've done a dumbbell curl. And a dumbbell curl, very good basic bicep exercise, considered one of the foundation bicep actually isolation exercise, great bicep builder. Now if you do a curl with a kettlebell, it's the same movement, but it feels very different.

And it's largely because of the placement of the weight. First off, when I'm curling with a dumbbell, obviously the dumbbell places the weight on either side of my hand. And when I come up to the very top of a curl, I'm, there's really not that much resistance anymore. Resistance anymore because of the position of my arm, because the weight is almost sitting on top of my wrist,

impressing down versus when I'm at say 90 degrees where I feel most of the resistance. With the kettlebell, when I come up to that very top of that position, the kettlebell is sitting underneath my hand and resting on my arm and pulling down harder. I'm getting more resistance. On the outside. On the outside. So people understand that.

So the weight is on the outside, the kettlebell is resting on the outside of your forearm. So even in that fully contracted flex position, the weight, the gravity is still pulling it against you. It's heavier, it's actually heavier. Even if I did a curl with a dumbbell curl with a 25 pound dumbbell on my left and I did a kettlebell curl with a 25 pound kettlebell on my right hand and I did curls at the top of the movement, it's going to be heavier with the kettlebell because of the positioning of the weight. The downward forces.

Yes, and that changes the adaptation, that changes the stimulus, makes it a very, I challenge you to do this, go do some curls with some. Great exercise, one of them. You show in the video, I mean, it had showed great, a great way to add rotation and nice fluid movement with that as well. And you see how much it engages the bicep as you're doing.

Yes, and it lengthens the lever, so at the bottom of the movement, if I pronate my hand and then rotate on the way up, I'm having to actually, I'm getting supinate. Yes, I'm getting more force in the rotation, more force on the supination, whereas a dumbbell is balanced on either side. It's not really that much resistance and supination because of the length of the lever with a kettlebell in the position of the weight. As I'm twisting the hand, it actually resistance in the supination. A lot of people don't realize that the bicep is involved in supinating the hand as well.

Which is interesting because I mean that's really hard to describe, you know, real quickly to somebody, but like when you actually do it, you just feel the difference. You do this the easy part. You do. Now extend that, and this is very, it's very easy to understand that. Now extend that to other traditional bodybuilding movements that you could replace with kettlebells to give a different stimulus. Let's look at the skull crusher. That's another exercise we

demoed in the video. Adam, when you were doing the skull crusher with the kettlebell, how different did it feel versus doing it with dumbbells or a barbell? Well, another thing just like we just mentioned with the biceps, every now and then it's the opposite with the tricep. When we were laying down and we did a full extension of the tricep, so we did the skull crusher, right? You get the full extension. Normally when you get into that locked out position, you actually got to really concentrate on keeping the tension on the tricep because real easily, the joint can take over the stress. Well, with the kettlebell, because it's resting on the outside of your forearms after you

extend, it's pulling back the other direction. So even when I'm in a fully extended position, my elbows locked out, the kettlebell is actually still pulling back and keeping tension on my tricep, which is something that I love. Plus, when I'm dropping the kettlebells down by my head, I have that stabilization. The kettlebells are not in a fixed position, like if I was doing a dumbbell or a barbell, which forces a lot of those stabilizers to kick in while I'm slowly resisting. I feel like it keeps a lot of that weight really close to your body, which is a good thing to have control over.

As far as any of these movements are concerned, it's just safer because you're keeping all that load really centric to the body and in the midline of the body. So that way, you're able to manipulate it a lot more efficiently. Well, when you're doing a skull crusher, a traditional skull crusher, my arms are perpendicular to the to the floor, not perpendicular, but what's the work? You know, here's the floor, here's my, I can't think of the floor. It is perpendicular. It is perpendicular. So it's perpendicular to the floor, and when I fully extend my arms,

there's no resistance at the top. Now, the way a lot of people remedy that is that they move the elbows back so that there's always resistance at the top, but they have to angle the elbows now in a different position. With the kettlebell, I can keep my arms perpendicular and still have lots of resistance at the top because of what Adam just did. Well, and what you just mentioned, too, by the people that have to angle like that, really they end up switching the tension now because of the shoulders, right? Because you're in an angle like that, even in that flex position, and they're trying to

get more tension on the tricep, but really the shoulders. Yeah, they're getting all the laughs in your shoulder. Yeah, they're shoulder. We're keeping it at a 90 degree, and then extending all the way out with a kettlebell keeps the tension. Now, take that philosophy, okay. Now that you understand that the placement of the weight

because it's different, can change the tension of the exercise and change the adaptation, let's apply that to other exercises, okay. Now, imagine doing a dumbbell fly for your chest. I'm doing a dumbbell fly, and at the very top of the movement, again, very little resistance, because the weight is coming directly down. The outward force is pulling you out to the side.

Dude, that's exactly what you want. Dude, try doing a fly. You're gonna have to go lighter, by the way. Whatever weight you use with dumbbells, go much lighter with kettlebells. Try doing a kettlebell fly with the kettlebells on the outsides of your arms. You're gonna find at the top of the movement,

you're gonna get better squeeze that you're gonna feel more tension at the top. And when you come down at the bottom, because of the way the kettlebells kind of hanging off your hand, it's more difficult. It's different. You can apply this to almost any body building exercise and you can do it with kettlebells.

It's different, but it's relevant. That's really what the point we're trying to stress is how this is not something that's considered, but it's super relevant. It's all in using this tool for a different purpose. I think that it's a great avenue for people to use as far as bodybuilding is concerned. Here's a thing. Kettlebells offer that variety variety and variety is very good. It can change resistance, that's very good.

It can create better, deeper ranges of motion. That is good, but it's not gonna replace barbells and dumbbells. However, I will say this, and I know some people are gonna be saying, heat for this, but if I were to compare a standing shoulder press, there are some exercises, by the way, that's what I'm going over, that are better with kettlebells. Same exercises, superior though with kettlebells.

And one of them is a shoulder press. If you did a standing shoulder press with dumbbells and then do them with kettlebells and learn how to use the kettlebells properly, how to rack them properly, how to rotate properly, kettlebells superior for building the shoulders, period and the story. The only one I would agree. Yes, 100%. In fact, I hardly ever do a dumbbell. The only time I do a press other than with kettlebells is now with a barbell, because a barbell is very different.

Yeah. I don't think you can ever replace that, but I barely ever do dumbbell shoulder press now because I find the kettlebells to be superior. And by the way, this is something that I've really learned to appreciate, rather recently, after years and years of years of experience pressing with dumbbells, I started pressing with the kettlebells after working with Justin for the last year, and it's better. It's just better. My shoulders feel healthier. I get better pumps. It's fantastic. Well, it's a much more natural movement, like Justin said. That spiral movement is the

movement that your shoulder would naturally go through in an overhead press like that. And I actually like doing something like that with a client before I go to a barbell press because I feel like teaches them to go through that full range of motion also helps you with getting your shoulders back when you're all the way pressed over your head.

So getting that movement, that full range down with a client, and then progressing them over to a barbell because a Lot of times if you get a client who's in their mid to late 30s and up, you know that it's got all these You know, we know that upper cross syndrome is so prevalent with people Now because we sit at our desk and we're driving we do everything in front of us So taking someone like that and asking them to do a barbell press What's a great point to because it stimulates all the stability that's involved. Yes.

And so that way, if anything gets away from you or out of control, you've already awoken that response by doing that first. So I think that's a great way to do it. Well, even think about when you're in this locked out position, and this is, mind you, just so you guys know, we did a video series for kettlebell kings that we'll drop with on our YouTube channel. So a lot of the stuff

we're talking about, maybe tough to visualize for a lot of people, but you'll see when we do a overhead press, when Justin presses over his head and he's in that full locked out position the way the kettlebell is resting on the back side of his forearm, it actually promotes you to retract and pull your shoulders back. It's just the natural gravity is pulling it so it helps promote that, which is something that most people struggle with. So I have found using this with clients when I'm trying to get them to get that shoulder retraction. This really, really helps even more than a barbell. Even though we talk about barbell as king for the overhead press and all the other movements

we talk about, this is where this can really, really help and where I've used it with clients and I absolutely love it because I think it promotes that retraction that most people have a really tough time doing. Really, you want to understand, just think about this. The position of the kettlebell, the position of actual bell part of the kettlebell is what you want to pay attention to. And moving that, even though the exercise may look the same,

changes the adaptation. So a traditional shoulder press with kettlebells has the kettlebell behind the arm, but can you do it where the kettlebell is, where the bell is in front of your arm? Absolutely. You'd have to use a lot less weight, but in doing so, you're gonna find having to really pull back the kettlebell is it where the bell is in front of your arm? Absolutely. You'd have to use a lot less weight,

but in doing so, you're gonna find having to really pull back and stabilize it can be much more difficult. You can also take the bell and press upside down. That's it. Flipped up. Flipped up and you're gonna have to go very light and very slow. And you wanna talk about naturally pressing

with slow tight tension. Talk about strengthening your grip. I, you know, like all those stabilizing muscles all the way down from your wrist, all the way down through, you're able to your shoulder, like it's, it reinforces everything. It's funny because I have,

I hardly now have a workout where I don't have at least one or two kettlebell exercises. Even, I mean, and that's the thing, like I think people approach tools like kettlebells as in, you know, today's workout is kettlebells. You know, all my exercises are kettlebells, or today's barbells and dumbbells, or whatever. No, it's another tool,

and I think injecting it into your workout and replacing certain barbell and dumbbell exercise with kettlebells, you'll be very surprised to find that it's quite effective. Another exercise I wanna cover, probably my favorite way to do walking lunges with weight is with a back-loaded kettlebell.

I find it superior to holding dumbbells at my sides. I find it superior in some ways to having a barbell in my back, and it's because the weight is low and behind me, and it forces me to lean forward almost and propel myself forward with a more hip extension. And you really had to sell me on this a little bit and then I went to go perform it. And I could totally see the relevance of it

and how it was just natural in retracting and depressing my shoulders and really driving that chest through and then having to focus on now, as I split my stance and I'm dropping into a lunge, now I really have to add that tension to boost my hips up out of that position. So, well, this is something that I talk a lot about

is anytime that we can do movements that are going to help a very, very common deviation. This is to me, one of the things that really separates the conversations that we have around fitness than the majority. Like, you open up a magazine or you hear some bodybuilder guy talk and you know, do this the best exercise for the bicep pump or this is what I do for my shoulders. Well, the exercises that I choose to do, or the exercises I choose to talk about,

I have found over the 15 years of training clients that these type of movements, not only are great for whatever we're trying to accomplish, whatever adaptation we're focusing on, whether we're looking for hypertrophy, or strength, or power, or just a functional movement, whatever, I'm also looking for the carryovers on how it can benefit that person overall. And we talk so much about upper and lower cross syndrome because shit, 80, 90% of our clientele

that we've ever had suffer from that. And most people from very extreme and almost everybody has even a subtle upper or lower cross syndrome that they're battling. So anytime that we do a movement that I think helps promote that with whatever muscle group we're trying to attack, I just find those movements so much more superior than your average exercise or average machine that you would do. So when Sal was actually talking about that, you know, backloaded lunch, I was like, Justin, I was like, Oh, wow, this is a movement that I've never seen before. And not only had I never seen it, but like, just as soon as I started doing, I was like, Holy

Shit, what a great movement. It makes perfect sense. It does. It, when you hold that kettlebell behind you on your hips like that, it forced you to completely retract your shoulders, which is the opposite position that we are in all day long. So it's gonna promote, well, especially when you're moving yourself forward, your natural response to that is to wanna lean with it. Lean forward and round forward every time you come forward, which it's the opposite, you have to retract, pull back,

and then it also promotes the hip extension, when another issue that so many people have, and when you're holding that kettle back down by your hips, you really got to fire those glutes, exaggerate that hip extension in every step that you take. So, absolutely, we love that move. And that, I mean, we were just so everybody knows too, when we did this series, so a couple things. One, we had been waiting for a while to find a kettlebell company like this. Like anything that we've done, everything from the studio equipment that we use, to the equipment that we use inside our videos,

and we always try and promote the best of everything that we do. We're all very, very picky when it comes to kettlebell kings, is probably in my opinion, the best kettlebell company that's out there. And they've only been around since 2012. So they haven't even been around that. It shows you how new the market is when I think the ones that are dominating the market

have only been around since 2012, but their product is tits. Absolutely. Absolutely, tits. And one of the things that Justin had brought up when we, because he was really the one that was like, you know, this is a company that we need to go with. And, you know, Sal and I are a little less versed when it comes to the kettlebells. And one of the things that Justin stressed was, you know, when you're doing all these technical movements, you want all the kettlebells to be shaped similar. You want them all to have the same, to be the same size, not the same way. Conference. Yeah. It's, you know, it's like it's like using, you know, like Olympic bumper plates. Like you don't want don't want, obviously you go to regular gym,

you have your 45 pound plate, your 35, 25, and the 35 and 25 are shorter. So if I have a client who can't deadlift with the 45s and I give him the 25s, now I encounter the problem of the bar being much lower, right? Exactly. Same thing with the kettlebells, positioning them, racking them, holding them.

You want them all to be the same. You're on the same stimulus so that way you can really work on the skill set that you're trying to build using these. The weight's different, but the weight distribution is the same. So that was the key with these. Not to mention they're super sexy too. I mean, they look great. They turn you on. Yeah, they feel great. They handle the grips on them. So I was super excited when we got those in last week. So it's been fun already messing with them, love the company, love everything that they're doing.

How did you feel with the sumo squats you do with the kettlebell? That's another exercise, by the way, that I think is superior with a kettlebell than with a dumbbell. The old fashioned way was the hold the top of the dumbbell. So much better with a kettlebell. Yeah, well, why?

Because we got that big, we got that big bertha. Yeah, I came in here, Katrina and I came in here this weekend. And this was actually the first time I think I've done this in a very long time, where this is another thing I love about Catabels is you could grab probably maybe two, three sets of them of weights that are pretty, you know, somewhere between that 25 to 60 pound range. You could carry them in the trunk of your car and and you know, it's a lot easier to carry that than a whole set of a Barbell and with all the different workouts and do an incredible workout. We probably use three different sets and did a full body routine. We're probably here about an hour and a half the other day and

one of the moves that I was working on her with was the sumo, we were doing sumo deadlifts is what we were doing. And I just love how comfortable it is to hold, I mean, we have the big 130 pound kettlebell out there. Is that how much it is? Yeah, 128 of it. Yeah, 128, 128 pounds. Yeah, I'm gonna press that.

That's a good amount of weight. And it's actually really comfortable to grip that. So I was really working, I was trying to help Katrina work on her. She's already got great form. Sumo, we've been incorporating a lot of Sumo lifting for her. So doing a Sumo deadlift with the kettlebell,

what I was having her do was really put a lot of emphasis on her concentric and eccentric motion and connecting and watching her feet too. So I had her take her shoes off and wanted to make sure that everything from her feet all the way up was connected and moving properly and totally could pick it apart. Meanwhile it was a very comfortable thing for her to do. When you're doing a barbell and you're doing that, it's hard for me to kind of come around and move your feet.

I'm telling you, some exercises are just easier to teach with a kettlebell. That's one of them. Definitely. And the other reason with that is because like, when you get a barbell and the weight is displaced out wide, there's the chance that you could, you know, pick one side up.

If you have any kind of asymmetrical shift, that's danger right there. So now if I have heavy weight, how you hurt your QL? Exactly. That's why I bring that up. Because it's, you know, if I, if I just had a really heavy kettlebell, 200 something pound kettlebell, and I kept it in the middle,

like chances are I'm gonna be able to control that a lot better. That's a great point. Yeah, I think you should see, and hopefully we start the trend, but I think you should see people using kettlebells more for hypertrophy reasons, not just functional or athletic purposes. I would like to see more of that stuff because I think people can start discovering that kettlebells are another way to add variety, superior to machines,

in some cases superior to dumbbells, but definitely up there with your traditional freeway dumbbell and barbell exercises. And I think as a result, you're going to see people build more muscle and have better overall strength. Oh, 100%. I'd throw a challenge out to you. If you're a big mind-pum-listener, love air, all the programs, things that we've put

out there, I would challenge you to pick up maybe a couple pairs of kettlebell kings. Go to kettlebellkings.com, find somewhere between that 20 to 60 pound range, start with a couple pairs just to start off with. So if you can press, you know, pretty easily. Exactly. Something you can press over your head and move because a lot of the movements will stem from that. And we're going to be doing a series of our YouTube on our Mind Pump TV channel. So you're going to start seeing us drop some exercises on there.

I just recently put a Turkish get up on my Instagram for people to take a look at, so really gonna start diving into a lot of the kettlebell moves because it is, like we've been doing since day one with Mind Pump, we've been trying to merge a lot of these things that belong together. I mean, everybody wants to put you in a fucking box, man. They wanna stick you in this, oh, you're in this camp,

you're a kettlebell, guys, that's all you do. You know, oh, you're bodybuilding, you guys, oh, that's all you do. No, bullshit. So many of these modalities have so much carry over to each other and they all have places for everybody. So, you know, that's kind of our mission on everything that we've done.

So, I think right now, this has become a major focus for us. So, if you don't have a own a pair of kettlebells already, right out there, grab a pair of probably from the best company, I definitely come across. I know Justin was the one that recommended him first, so I love him. Great product, great product. Excellent, listen, if you like Mind Pump,

leave us a five star rating review on iTunes. If we like your review and we pick it, you'll get a free t-shirt. You can also find us on Instagram at Mind Pump radio. You can find me at Mind Pump Sal. You can find me at Mind Pump Sal. You can find Adam at Mind Pump Adam. And Justin is at Mind Pump Joseph. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump.

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