Discovering My True Strength (Through Kettlebells)

Discovering My True Strength (Through Kettlebells) 

by Kim Marivoet from Belgium

I am sure you have people sending you thank you e-mails like these all the time, but I really wanted to tell you how grateful I am that you decided to share your no-nonsense approach to kettlebell training and nutrition with all of us the world over. 

I started my kettlebell journey with Lauren's Ultimate Body Sculpt and Conditioning Volume 1 just after my 31st birthday this past Summer, and was hooked from the first suitcase deadlift! 

Growing up, I stayed active the way most children do: through play. My bike and I were an inseparable duo and I was keen to spend as much time as I could outdoors. As the years passed and other interests took over, the only exercise I got came in the form of two dreaded hours of mandatory PE, the memories of which inspire nightmares to this very day.
It would be unfair to say my family lived a sedentary lifestyle, but the fact was that engaging in formal exercise or sports simply didn't occur to us: if you were overweight, you dieted; cardio was meant for marathon runners and the like; and lifting weights was the privilege of bodybuilders.

It wasn't until my late 20's that I realized we are designed to move. Bearing witness to family and close friends battling illness and injuries taught me how lucky I was to have woken up healthy and able all these years, and inspired me to finally give my body - �nd mind - the care and attention it deserved. Around this time, my partner Rick was some way into his own fitness journey, and seeing the results he'd been rewarded with only served to motivate me further.

Like so many of us, I had brief flirtations with workout systems that promised the world ("Get the secret to Celebrity X's butt/abs/arms!"), focused solely on losing pounds and inches, and shied away from promoting strength for fear of "bulking". It wasn't long before I grew disillusioned with the amount of work I was putting in and having very little to show for it. It was then that I knew I had to shift my focus to becoming stronger, not smaller.

I successfully switched to an exercise routine based around traditional, tried-and-tested bodyweight exercises and got my first set of kettlebells about 6 months later. Given Lauren's excellent reputation and credentials in fitness and nutrition, I knew I wanted her to show me what these cannonball-shaped babies could do.

In the few months I've been using her programs, I've graduated to "real" push-ups, carrying several heavy bags of groceries up the 48 steps to my apartment without having to give my arms and lungs even a second's rest, and noticed I have a much easier time keeping up with Rick (an avid runner and obstacle course athlete) during our hikes. To top it all off I'm seeing some promising changes in my body composition and I have never felt better! 

Lauren's teachings on strength have also inspired me to start working towards performing unassisted chin-ups and pull-ups. If someone had told me a few years ago that I would ever even attempt this, I wouldn't have believed them for a second, but now I know I will get there, however long it takes.

It is an amazing feeling to know I am growing stronger and fitter every time I train, but what keeps me going most of all is the knowledge that getting serious about my health has made me a happier, more resilient person and allows me to be a better partner, daughter and friend to my loved ones.

I can't thank Lauren enough for sharing her no-nonsense approach to kettlebell training with all of us the world over, and I look forward to having her coach me in my living room for many years to come!

Todays Workout - Big Country

10 Heavy Ground-to-Overhead Sandbag Lifts
200m Sprint

Repeat for a total of 4 rounds.

Record your time.

Train hard!

Todays Workout - Team #5

This workout comes direct from the new book Sandbag Fitness: 150 High Intensity Workouts.

Sandbag Relay

Set out a course of approximately 20m. In pairs, perform a relay where each person takes it in turn to Sandbag Drag, Sandbag Load Carry and Sandbag Clean & Throw the sandbag along the course. This works best when performed with multiple pairs, all competing for time.

The pair who complete the course in the fastest time are the winners. Record the weight of the sandbag you used to complete this workout.

Aim for a sandbag weighing 50% of your body weight

Train hard!

Todays Workout - Sandbag CrossFit 'Grace'

This workout comes direct from the new book Sandbag Fitness: 150 High Intensity Workouts.

Sandbag CrossFit 'Grace'

30 Sandbag Clean & Press

Aim to complete the workout in 4 minutes or less.

Aim for a sandbag weighing 135lbs

Train hard!

Todays Workout - Sandbag Strength

5 Heavy Sandbag Bear Hug Squats,
Max Sandbag Overhead Press.

Rest for 2 - 4 minutes and repeat for a total of 5 rounds.

5 Heavy Sandbag Shoulder Get Ups,
Max Pull Ups.

Rest for 2 - 4 minutes and repeat for a total of 5 rounds.

Aim for the heaviest sandbag you can handle for the required reps.

Record your score.

Train hard!

Todays Workout - Death By Sandbag Clean & Press

Perform 1 Heavy Sandbag Clean & Press in the 1st minute, 2 Heavy Sandbag Clean & Press in the 2nd minute and so on. The workout finishes when you can no longer complete the required number of repetitions within the specific timeframe.

Complete as many rounds as possible.

*If you manage to complete 15 rounds with a sandbag at 50% of your bodyweight then you win! Just send me a link to a video of you completing the challenge and then you can choose a free ebook version of any of the books here.*

Record your score.

Train hard!

Love Yourself First

Plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.�
- Veronica A. Shoffstall

Although love is beautiful, it can be a very challenging subject to write. There are many definitions, versions and opinions of love. Some spend their entire lives searching for true love while others spend their lives suffering with a broken heart and  pushing people away out of fear of being hurt again.  Love can be a bundle of the strongest emotions and can powerfully influence our everyday life.

In my deepest opinion, true love starts within yourself.  It begins with acceptance and forgiveness. Looking at yourself and knowing that you're worth it. Respecting yourself and living day to day with the best morals and ethics.  No one is perfect and each and everyone of us should accept that, learn from our mistakes, and move forward. 

Our past is made up of so many different types of experiences. If you have made mistakes that you're not proud of or failed miserably, stop beating yourself up over it.  All you're doing is ruminating and unproductively judging yourself. Instead, you should love yourself and learn from your experiences. Dwelling on  your past holds you hostage to it. Focusing on your failure can result in physiological and psychological problems including migraines, anxiety, IBS,  stomach pain, depression, back pain, rapid aging, adrenal fatigue, insomnia and lowered immune system. Distorting  your past with continuous lies, excuses and/or self loathing  causes emotional  paralysis .  How can you love or accept yourself and be liberated if you're busy fighting demons, living with negative internal self talk , and drowning in daily guilt?  Guilt can be dissipated by owning up to your actions and not obsessing upon your failures.  

If you perceive yourself a victim of past circumstances, it's time to stop and reconstruct your self image and your interactions and move forward. Feeling as if people are always after you or giving you the short end of the stick should be a wake up call. What are you portraying to the world? Why does this victim pattern continue? Is it them or is it you? I'm not discounting that there are true victims, but there are survivors who refuse to be controlled by their negative trauma. My point is, if you carry drama wherever you go, it's time to take a new route in life to heal and be free. Love and respect your inner self.  

As you all know I'm a huge advocate of developing a strong body and consistently working on increasing one�s physical strength. If you're a complete wreck inside and you're using strength training as a band-aid for your mental frailty, you may be going about it all wrong. You will end up just being a physically strong individual with a weak disposition and a load of negative baggage. You will continue to be a victim wherever you go and it will be apparent to those around you. Don't get me wrong, physical strength can alleviate mental torment. However, the real work comes from eliminating self whipping scripts and instead, striving for creative self nourishment. We come back to one thing. LOVE!  Love is what makes the world go round. Demonstrate love or simple acts of loving kindness to your family, friends, and even show tolerance to those who are unkind. They deserve some form of this vital emotion called love. You will have the power to show the world what it's like to be loved by being kind, accepting , and loving.

"I have an everyday religion that works for me. Love yourself first, and everything else falls into line."

Lucille Ball

Todays Workout - Fight the Power

Complete as many heavy Ground-to-Overhead sandbag lifts as you can within a 15 minute time period.

Record both the weight of your sandbag and the number of repetitions you perform.

Train hard!

Guest Post from Gym-Talk.com - Unconventional Training Techniques of Old-time Strongmen

This months guest post comes from Henry Croft at www.gym-talk.com. I'm a huge fan of traditional training techniques that aren't necessarily mainstream, but still work. So, I was delighted when I got this in my inbox! Check it out:

Image: Wikipedia

The exploits of the old-time strongmen are legendary.

In fact, such was their strength that many of their recorded lifts, such as Arthur Saxon�s �two hands anyhow� of 448 pounds, still remain unbroken today. To achieve this Herculean strength, these men trained using a variety of different methods, many of which you would be hard pressed to find in the air-conditioned gymnasiums of today. Which is a shame, because a lot of these �lost� exercises are extremely effective ways of building strength and explosive power.

In this article I will outline a few of the training techniques which were employed by the old-time strongmen.

A word of caution: a lot of these lifts require specialist knowledge and experience, so to avoid injury ensure you receive proper instruction before attempting them.

Lifting in water

Russian weightlifting champion Vasily Alexeev, one of the strongest men of all time, used a variety of unconventional training techniques to give himself the edge over his competition. One such technique was to wade out into the Don River in Mother Russia and practice his cleans in waist-deep water!

Pros: resistance provided by the water helps develop explosive power.

Cons: chance of drowning, wrinkled skin, Hepatitis.

Barrel Lifting

Lifting kegs and barrels was an extremely popular training method with the old-time strongmen. Louis Cyr, for example, could lift a 450 pound barrel to his chest with just the one hand! To make these barrel lifts all the more difficult, the barrels would be partially filled with liquid in order to make them unbalanced. What�s more, strongmen such as Arthur Saxon would also drink most of the contents of the keg while training, thus adding an extra dimension of difficulty!

�Supporting� Lifts

Many of the greatest old-time strongmen, such as Cyr and Saxon, incorporated a lot of �supporting� exercises into their training regimes and public performances, which involved supporting a weight rather than actually lifting it. Such exercises comprised standing supports (such as holding a heavy barbell in the back squat position), overhead supports (holding a barbell aloft), and a leg press support (supporting a weight in the leg press position).

Louis Cyr, for example, could support more than 4,000 pounds on his back!

Horseshoes and Phonebooks

Two popular tests of strength back in the day were bending horseshoes and tearing up phonebooks. In addition to building character and mental toughness, both of these feats helped create incredible grip and wrist strength.

Plus, could you think of a better party trick?

Indian Clubs

These clubs were swung around thousands of years ago by Indian warriors and wrestlers to prepare for battle (hence the name). They were used primarily to build upper body strength in addition to stronger, more flexible joints. Indian clubs were popular in England in the 19th century, especially with military cadets, however their popularity waned in the twentieth century as organised sports became more popular.

Rope climbing

Rope climbing was a staple of the strongman training regime as it helped build upper body strength and a cast iron grip. In fact, in most early gymnasiums you would find huge thick ropes suspended from the ceiling. Old-time strongmen would climb and descended these ropes, which were often up to 30 feet long, several times a day.

Wrapping it up

So, there we have it, 6 unconventional training techniques of the old-time strongmen. Ultimately, there is a lot we can learn from these old-school training techniques which can be applied to strength training today.

If you have any thoughts on this article I�d love to hear from you � just leave me a comment below!

About the author

Henry is a fitness junkie with a passion for heavy squats, distance running and Martial Arts. You can find him blogging over at GymTalk.

MY STRENGTH IS OUTTA CONTROL AND I�M HARDLY TRYING

BY LAUREN BROOKS, SENIOR SFG

Over the last few months I have performed some lifts that I previously didn�t think could be done by a gal my size. After exchanging some emails with Pavel, he has asked me to write about how I made this happen. I was very honest with him and told him that I didn�t train for it or even try very hard. In fact, the path I took was quite boring. Then I remembered I�m writing for a population that likes �boring� programs. Not boring in our eyes, but it would be as boring as it comes for the mainstream fitness buff.

I discovered that strength can work in very mysterious ways. Living with toxic stress and/or poisonous people can weigh you down in all aspects of life. There�s only so much one body and mind can take. I�ve found for both my students and me, stress takes your strength away and makes all lifts feel heavy. You find yourself training harder during the times you are stressed and risk getting weaker or injured in the process. Letting go of the energy vampires and truly owning the path you take in life is much easier said than done. If everyone could take charge of their own life, we�d have a lot of powerful happy people. Personally I�ve released some very heavy things from my life over the last year. I will admit, it was the hardest thing I�ve ever done. On the flip side, once I got through the thick of it and began to have clarity, it allowed me to conquer almost anything that came my way.

Back to physical strength: I currently weigh between 112 and 114 pounds. In the last several months, with minimal training, I achieved a 62 pound Get Up, 13 Ring Pull-ups, 140 pound Single Leg Dead Lifts and a Ring Pull-up with 53 pounds hanging from my feet. So how did this happen?  ....

VIEW ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE

Todays Workout - Master Blaster

20 Ground-to-Overhead with a heavy sandbag. The bag must rest on the ground between reps and your should go to full extension overhead.

Aim for a sandbag that challenges you on the very first rep.

Record your time.

Train hard!

Todays Workout - The Bear Necessities

10 Sandbag Bear Hug Squats,
30 Push Ups.

As many rounds as possible in 15 minutes. Your sandbag should be heavy!

Record your score.

Train hard!

Todays Workout - It's Complex...

5 Sandbag Cleans,
5 Sandbag Push Press,
5 Sandbag Zercher Squats,
5 Sandbag Zercher Good Mornings.

Complete 5 rounds as quickly as you can - aim to complete each round without rest but you can rest as needed between rounds.

Record your time.

Train hard!

New workout - The Triplet From Hell!

5 Heavy (seriously, as heavy as you can manage) Bear Hug Squats,
10 Pull Ups,
20 Push Ups.

5 rounds as quickly as possible.

Men and women should aim for a sandbag between 50-100% of their bodyweight.

Record your time.

Train hard!

Just Lift Some Heavy Shit And Shut Up

Take the heaviest sandbag you can handle (preferably without handles) and lift it from ground-to-overhead for 20 reps. If you get the loading right you should start to struggle around 5 or 6 reps and probably end up dumping the bag after some unsuccessful reps later on in the set.

Record the weight of your bag and the time it takes you to complete the 20 reps.

Men and women should aim for a bodyweight sandbag.

Train hard!

Todays Workout: Hug Me!

10 Heavy Sandbag Bear Hug Squats,
10 Pull Ups,
10 Heavy Sandbag Overhead Presses.

As many rounds as possible in 15 minutes.

Men aim for a 60kg sandbag; women aim for 30kg.

Record your score.

Train hard!

Todays Workout: Sandbag Strength Training

5 Heavy Sandbag Bear Hug Squats
5 Heavy Sandbag Overhead Press
20m Load Carry with a Heavy Sandbag

Rest for 2-4 minutes and repeat for a total of 5 rounds.

Men aim for a 50kg sandbag; women aim for a 30kg sandbag.

Record your max weight.

Train hard!

Todays Sandbag Fitness Workout

Another deceptively simple workout today.

100 Skips
20 Press Ups
5 Heavy Sandbag Bear Hug Squats

Complete 5 rounds as quickly as possible.

Men aim for a 50kg sandbag; women aim for 30kg.

Record your time.

Train hard!