A 53 lb kettlebell isn’t challenging to me at all, and if I based my training on 53 lb kettlebells, I wouldn’t have the strength, size, endurance, and explosive power that I currently have. Moreover, my clients would not make the improvements that they have made if they stuck to light bells.
Even if your goals are cardio and muscular endurance, why not work up to heavier kettlebells for reps? Do you really think that knocking off ten double swings with two, 88 lb kettlebells will not be beneficial? Do you think that ten clean and presses with the 70 lb kettlebells will not benefit you as an athlete? Of course both will. An athlete would clearly do better with twelve clean and presses using two, 70 lb kettlebells than thirty clean and presses using two 53 lb kettlebells.
If you can do thirty reps with a weight, it is too easy to have any dramatic benefit for athletic activities and strength, especially for combat athletes (unless your sport is GS, a kettlebell sport). The heavier the kettlebells are that you can handle for muscular endurance, the more benefit you will get for your sport. Using Olympic lifting as a back drop, an athlete who can power clean 315 lbs five times is going to have much more explosive power than an athlete who can power clean 135 lbs fifteen times. Moreover, the athlete who can power clean 315 lbs will be able to do far more than fifteen reps with 135 lbs.
Heavy training improves light training, but not the other way around. So why even bother with light training? With the exception of working on form and back off weeks, I would say don’t bother. Personally, 70 lb bells are the lightest ones I own, and I only use them for Pavel's “Greasing the Groove” (in which you practice an exercise daily for neurological facilitation) for presses and sometimes high rep front squats.
Recently, someone asked me how many reps I can do for the ten minute snatch test with a 53 lb kettlebell. I have no idea as I have never done the test. With all due respect to the test and the great people who have participated in the test (there are many impressive numbers by people who have taken the test), I'd rather have an athlete knock off twenty snatches left and right with an 88 lb kettlebell and eventually the 105 lb bell. Sounds like too much? I can do 17 snatches left and right with a 105 lb kettlebell, and I am far from a gifted athlete.
A few months ago, I knocked off 50 reps per arm on one arm snatches with a 53 lb bell. I’m not breaking any records, but there are a few things you should know. I never train with light kettlebells, I rarely work on high reps (over ten reps per set), and the 50 reps left and right was easy for me. The power and endurance that I built with heavy kettlebells carried over very well to light weights for high reps. However, take a man or woman who can do 50 snatches with a 53 lb kettlebell and who has never trained with a heavier kettlebell, and I promise you that he or she will not be able to do more than a few reps with a 105 lb kettlebell. More than likely, he or she will not even be able to do one rep. If you are an athlete, light training is not ideal for the majority of your workouts.
Once you have the technique down, ramp up the intensity. Heavy kettlebell training will do far more for explosive power, and when done in high reps, it will develop muscular endurance that will transfer to your sport.
Now I am not blowing my own horn here or trying to convey what a great athlete I am. Again, I am not a great athlete and certainly not a genetic freak. My anabolic hormone levels are good but certainly not exceptional. I don’t have tremendous recovery abilities either. I didn’t even start lifting weights until I was 18 and got pinned with 100 lbs on the bench press when I first got started. I never played sports in high school or college. Thus, if I can work up to the numbers above, it should be no problem for gifted athletes. I am just an average guy who learned how to train smart, recruit the CNS, and use my own leverage points to handle heavier bells. More about leverage points later…
The point I’m trying to drive home is that heavy kettlebell training is not just beneficial for size and strength but for muscular endurance as well. The muscular endurance you build with heavy kettlebells is much more beneficial than light kettlebells for athletes. In addition, heavy kettlebell training engages the CNS more efficiently, teaches you how to master your own leverage points, and, if used correctly, benefits the optimization of anabolic hormones. Of course, this is far more complicated than just training.
Let me make it clear that I don’t think heavy weight–low rep training takes the place of muscular endurance. That is not what this article is about. Of course you need to work with high reps and lots of volume or frequency to ramp up endurance, but you should not be afraid of heavy kettlebell training. If muscular endurance is your thing, have a goal of working up to some high reps with some heavy kettlebells on the double clean and press, double swing, double front squat (or double clean and front squat), double clean and jerk (or clean and push press), double snatches, one arm swings, or one arm snatches.
Heavy kettlebells are bells that you can only do a few reps with, say 2–4. Start with low reps to get used to the heavier kettlebells. For example, if you can clean and press two, 53 lb bells ten times, do a few sets of two reps when you start working with the 70 lb bells. Make each rep perfect. Once that gets easy, start building the reps. When you can do ten clean and presses with the 70 lb bells, get a pair of 88 lb bells and do the same thing.
One important thing to keep in mind is that training form needs to be modified as the bells get heavier. Let's use the clean and press as an example. With light kettlebells, you can keep the body fairly loose and still maintain proper technique. You can easily keep your body upright, as leverage is not a necessity. However, once you start doing clean and presses with heavy kettlebells, you are playing in a whole new ball game. You have to tighten up and apply more tension to have a solid foundation. You will have to let your back “sit back” and push your hips as far forward as possible for optimal leverage. Your breathing will change. Now you have to hold your breath or apply “power breathing” to keep the tension high to get the bells moving.
Another example is the one arm snatch. When I do snatches with a 105 lb bell, my form is much different than it is when using a 70 lb kettlebell. I drive through with much more power. I pop the pelvis through and let my back sit back for more explosive power and leverage similar to what Olympic lifters do. As the bell goes overhead, I bend my knees slightly to get under the weight and catch it. When I return the bell to the starting position, I keep it close to my body for maximum control. I also do not swing the bell as far back between my feet because that also throws off the leverage. It is almost a completely different exercise all together than a one arm snatch with a lighter bell.
One final example is the one arm military press with a 105 lb kettlebell. At my body weight of 193 lbs, I can one arm military press a 70 lb kettlebell easily without having to shift my weight at all for optimal leverage. When I press an 88 lb bell, I shift my weight a little bit. However, when I press a 105 lb kettlebell, I need every leverage point that I can take advantage of. I kick my hip out under the bell. I take the bell behind my back so I can engage the lat more and acquire more leverage and stability. Then I shift my weight in the opposite direction, similar to a side press, to keep the bell moving, and once I have the bell moving, I shift my weight under the bell to finish the move.
I saw Steve Cotter, founder of Full Kontact Kettlebells, perform a one arm military press using a 105 lb kettlebell recently, and it almost looked like a kettlebell windmill. Steve started the press from under the chin and quickly got the bell behind his back to reach the optimal leverage point. Some of you may feel that this is cheating. To retort, I say that you either weigh much more than Steve does and don’t need leverage to press a 105 lb kettlebell or you are not even close to pressing a 105 lb bell. Do you really feel that mastering leverage with a heavy kettlebell is not beneficial to athletes? Isn't that what athletes do all of the time? Judo and wrestling have many techniques in which the ideal leverage is used to take the opponent down efficiently. In football, you don’t just ram into your opponent haphazardly. You go for a particular spot to do the most damage.
One of the strongest benefits of heavy kettlebell training is that you ultimately have to master all of your leverage points to get the job done. Right now, I am working on the double clean and press using two, 105 lb kettlebells. The only way that it is going to happen is if I apply my ideal leverage points. These are points I have not found yet, as I have not needed to apply them with 88 lb kettlebells or lower. Regardless, I will find these points, and I will press the 105 lb kettlebells. It is only a matter of time, and the learning process in and of itself is much fun. I really enjoy the challenge. When I work up to a clean and press with the 105 lb kettlebells for reps, you had better believe that it will improve my numbers with the 88 lb bells and the 70 lb bells. No doubt about it.
I will leave you with this. Even if you don’t want to train with heavy kettlebells, get some heavier kettlebells if you want to improve your numbers with the bells you are currently using. The 88 lb kettlebells always felt heavy to me until I started training with 105 lb kettlebells. Now they feel light, and the 70 lb bells feel so light that when I went to do a double clean and press yesterday, I almost ended up doing a double snatch by accident! As the founder of Breaking Strength, Brett Jones, once told me, “if all you lift is an 88 lb kettlebell, it will always feel heavy.”
Unleash the power of heavy kettlebell training today!