A Geek with Guns - Kettlebells

Getting Started with Kettlebells

2026-02-06T20:00:00-06:00

Introduction</h1>
I developed an interest in physical fitness about a decade and a half ago. This interest lead me to pursue martial arts, biking, and eventually kettlebell lifting (along with many other activities). The reason I got into kettlebell lifting is because I wanted to improve my strength and endurance. Kettlebells were tools I could use in the comfort of my small apartment. Now I have a home and a gym in my basement. I still lift kettlebells three or four times a week.
Getting started is the hardest part of any journey. This post is intended to help anybody who's interested in starting kettlebell lifting. It's not intended to be all encompassing. Too much information can be as bad as too little. Decision paralysis thwarts as many journeys as fear and laziness. Therefore, this post is opinionated. It will provide only a handful of options. Wherever options are provided, know that there are many more options out there. They aren't brought up to cut down on the noise. The hardest part of any journey is also the most important. It's more important to get started than to travel the optimal path. Any progress forward is better than no progress while you try to develop the optimal plan.

Note on Units</h1>
Weights in this post will be provided in kilograms. Why would a post written by an American living in the United States use metric units? Two reasons. First, the historical unit of weight for kettlebells is the pood. The pood is an old imperial Russia unit. It's equal to about 16 kg. This means kettlebell weights divide nicely into kilograms. Second, kettlebell lifting is an international sport. International sports use the metric system because almost everybody outside of the United States does.
To make your life a bit easier, here are the American equivalents to the weights used in this post (along with the weight in poods to illustrate my point about dividing nicely into kilograms):
16 kg = 35 lb (1 pood) 20 kg = 44 lb (1.25 poods) 24 kg = 53 lb (1.5 poods) 28 kg = 62 lb (1.75 poods) 32 kg = 70 lb (2 poods)

Types of Kettlebells</h1>
There are two major types of kettlebells: hard style and competition style. Hard style are typically made out of cast iron. The size of the bell depends on the weight. Heavier hard style kettlebells are larger than lighter ones. Competition style kettlebells are typically made out of steel. The size of the bell is the same regardless of the weight. A 16 kg competition style kettlebell is the same size as a 32 kg one.
I exclusive used hard style kettlebells until this year. Now I own both. I recommend hard style kettlebells when you're starting out though. Hard style kettlebells are typically cheaper, often much cheaper, than competition style ones. You can do all of the traditional kettlebell lifts with either style of kettlebell so you might as well save yourself some money.
You'll see articles online claim that competition kettlebells don't work well for two handed lifts such as two handed swings due to the handle size and shape. This isn't my experience. I have no issue doing two handed swings with competition style kettlebells and I have large hands. You'll also see articles claim that competition style kettlebells are more durable because they're made of steel instead of cast iron. This is a distinction without a difference. The only way you'll break either style of kettlebell is by being a complete dumbass.
The two hard style kettlebells I typically recommend are REP Fitness</a> and Bells of Steel</a>. Both offer reasonably priced high-quality cast iron kettlebells with "free" shipping (free shipping means the price of shipping is baked into the price of the kettlebell). Buy whichever is cheaper at the time or in stock.
If your budget is tight, I've read reviews for Yes4All</a> kettlebells and they seem to be decent. I can't recommend them since I've never seen them in person.
Another option I'll note is Bells of Steel adjustable kettlebells</a>. These are adjustable competition style kettlebells. They're a good option if space is tight and you can afford to pay more upfront. I prefer fixed weight kettlebells because sometimes I like to switch weights during my workouts and changing an adjustable kettlebell's weight is a slow process. That doesn't matter when you're starting out though.

Starting Weight</h1>
Recommending a starting weight is tricky. Everybody is different. If you know anybody who owns kettlebells or dumbbells, ask them if you can press a few overhead. You want a weight that you can press overhead a few times. I'll cite the most common rule of thumb. Men and women who haven't done any strength training should start with 16 kg and 8 kg respectively. Men and women who have done some strength training should start with 20 kg and 12 kg respectively.
The difficulty of most kettlebell lifts can be adjusted through technique. If 20 kg is too light for two handed swings, change to one handed swings. If 20 kg is too heavy to strict press overhead, push press it. If a weight is beginning to feel too light, you can do more reps in less time to increase the difficulty. There are limits to this. If you can strict press a 24 kg kettlebell overhead, an 8 kg kettlebell isn't going to be a challenge no matter what (that's not to say an 8 kg kettlebell will be completely without value). Likewise, if you can barely strict press a 16 kg kettlebell overhead, you're not going to get a 32 kg kettlebell overhead.
It's better to go a bit light than a bit heavy when you're starting. Beginners should focus on technique. It's almost impossible to focus on technique if you're barely able to move the kettlebell you're using.
Programs</h1>
There are two programs I recommend to beginners: Rite of Passage</a> and Simple and Sinister</a>.
Both programs require a single kettlebell. Both books do a good job of covering the technical aspects of the lifts they use. This is important. There are books for beginners, which go into detail on the how of lifts, and books for people who have experience, which typically don't explain how to perform lifts. You want to learn how to properly perform lifts. There are also a lot of good videos online that go over the hows of lifts. If you can find a coach in your area, you can also hire them to teach you how to perform lifts (this is probably the fastest and safest option).
Rite of Passage is covered in the book Enter the Kettlebell. Between the two programs, I like this one slightly better because I like to press weight overhead. The program uses cleans, strict presses, swings, and snatches. There is also the option to add pull ups. The strict press is probably the lift that gives you the most bang for your buck. It's the staple of many great kettlebell programs such as The Giant, Dry Fighting Weight, and The Armor Building Formula. Swings add an endurance component to the program. Snatches are something you will need to study for a while, but once you learn how to snatch, you unlock another lift that provides tremendous bang for your buck. Rite of Passage is a three day a week program.
Simple and Sinister used to be the recommended program for beginners. It's the program I ran when I started. I've seen a number of people in online kettlebell communities argue that Simple and Sinister isn't a good program. They're full of shit in my opinion. Although I like Rite of Passage better, Simple and Sinister is an excellent program for people who haven't done any strength training. The program uses Turkish get ups and swings. Turkish get ups teach you the invaluable skill of getting up off the ground while holding weight. It will improve your overall movement quality. It can also be run more frequently than Rite of Passage.
It doesn't matter which program you pick. If you want to press weight overhead, go with Rite of Passage. If you want to get up off of the ground while holding weight, go with Simple and Sinister. If you can't decide, flip a coin.
Conclusion</h1>
That's it. That's the guide. Buy a kettlebell of appropriate weight, pick a program, and start lifting.

Long Cycle Training

2025-11-21T12:00:00+00:00

If you could only do one exercise for the rest of your life, what would it be? Setting aside the absurdity of the question, most thought exercises are built on absurdity after all, I would say the double kettlebell clean and jerk. If a particularly clever person asked the question and pointed out that those are two exercises, I would say double kettlebell long cycle. Checkmate smartass.
Long cycle training is a shorthand way of saying chained clean and jerks. I believe the term comes from the kettlebell sport world, but every time I think I know the source of a term, somebody proves me wrong. Suffice to say that long cycle is a kettlebell sport event. It's also a damn good strength training exercise. The thing I love about the exercise is the efficiency. If we analyze the clean and jerk through Dan John's five basic human movements; push, pull, hinge, squat, and loaded carry; the clean and jerk definitely involves four of them and can arguably involve all five. The clean is a hinge and a pull and the jerk is a squat (two actually) and a push. If you hold the weights in the rack position, you can argue it's a loaded carry too. The clean and jerk basically hits everything. When you chain them together into long sets, they also work your cardio system (which is great if you, like me, don't really enjoy dedicated cardio work). In a half hour of long cycle training, you get a lot of work done that hits most if not all of your basic movements.
I've trained long cycle on and off over the years, but this year I really discovered my love for it. Besides a few short breaks to train other lifts, this year I've focused on long cycle training. Last month I read Denis Vasilev's Kettlebell Sport Training Methodology</a>. This was my first foray into kettlebell sport. I've always focused on hard style. I'm still performing hard style clean and jerks, but I wanted to read about a different training perspective.
For those who don't know, the long cycle event in kettlebell sport involves the lifter performing clean and jerks for 10 minutes without putting the kettlebells down. Denis Vasilev is one of the greats and won numerous world championships. He's completed over 100 clean and jerks in 10 minutes with a pair of 32 kg kettlebells. I figured it was worth my time to read what the man has to say. The most useful fact I took from his book was the total volume of clean and jerks he's performed. It makes sense. The more you practice something, the better you get at it. If you want to get good at writing, you need to write a lot. If you want to get good at running, you need to run a lot. If you want to get good at clean and jerks, you need to do clean and jerks a lot.
Based on that idea, I've been experimenting with a slightly different training methodology over the last two weeks. I have a nice set of kettlebells. I have pairs of every weight from 8 kg up to 48 kg in 4 kg increments. That gives me a lot of flexibility. My methodology for the last two weeks is broken down into three days: a high rep with light weight day, a medium rep with medium weight day, and a low rep with heavy weight day (light, medium, and heavy for me obviously). I use ladder sets and add more rungs with lighter weights. Each day I set my timer for 30 minutes and crank out as many good quality ladder sets as I can.
I had to move my Sunday session to Monday due to a septic backup (the joys of owning a home). So on Monday I did ladders of 2, 3, 5, and 10 using a pair of 24 kg kettlebells. The sets of 10 were brutal. I completed 50 total reps. Tuesday I did ladders of 2, 3, and 5 using a pair of 28 kg kettlebells. Again I completed 50 total reps. I wasn't expecting that since I completed 40 total reps with this setup last week. I'm not complaining. Tonight I did sets of two with a pair of 32 kg kettlebells. I can squeeze out a set of three, but the third rep isn't a clean as I want so I'm sticking to sets of two for now. I completed a total of 28 reps. Therefore, I completed a total of 128 clean and jerks this week.
It's too early for me to declare this methodology good, bad, or merely adequate. I am enjoying it though and each day is challenging for different reasons. The high reps with light weight day challenges my endurance, especially the sets of 10. It's as much a mental game as a physical game to get through those sets. The medium reps with medium weight day is a good overall challenge of strength and endurance. The high reps with heavy weight day is a challenge of my strength. I think this will be a good method for closing the year. I'll try to remember to report back my thoughts after week six.

The Discipline to Do Less

2025-10-20T12:00:00+00:00

The topic of discipline usually comes up in conversations about physical fitness in the context of needing to do the work. You need to develop the discipline to do your workouts every week. You need to develop the discipline to eat a healthy diet. You need to develop the discipline to get enough sleep. But there's another side to discipline as it pertains to physical fitness. You need the discipline to do less.
This will likely sound crazy to anybody who doesn't workout regularly. Why would anybody need discipline to do less, they are likely to wonder. The fact of the matter is exercise becomes addictive once you get into the habit of doing it regularly. This isn't surprisingly since strength training, like running and other forms of physical exercises, releases endorphins. But I don't think you can fully understand this until you experience it. Suffice to say that once you regularly workout, you want to workout more.
There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Exercise is definitely an example of this. Your body requires two things to grow: stimulus and time to adapt. Exercise is the stimulus. Recovery is the time to adapt. If you exercise too much, your body doesn't have the necessary time to recover. The sinister thing about this is that it doesn't happen immediately. It often takes a few weeks before you feel the effects of too much exercise. When you do feel the effects, it's often in the form of an injury.
I recently finished going through a modified version (I replaced the overhead presses and front squat days with clean and jerk days) of phase one of Geoff Neupert's Maximorum program. It's a deceptive program. The first few weeks look fairly reasonable. This has lead a lot of people on various kettlebell forums to ask what they should add to the program. I've run through this program as written. I can tell you that you shouldn't add anything to it. The reason is cumulative fatigue. While the program is pretty reasonable for the first two or three weeks, the cumulative fatigue plus the more challenging sets makes the tail end of the first six weeks brutal. Then there are six more weeks after that.
Maximorum isn't the only program like this. I've seen people ask what they can add to Pavel Tsatsouline's Rite of Passage, Dan John's Armor Building Formula, and most other popular kettlebell programs. Rite of Passage includes an optional variety day. It's meant to be a day where you practice movements, do mobility work, and other low impact things. People often turn it into a full blown lifting day and it bites them in the ass. Turning the variety day into a full blown lifting day invites cumulative fatigue to the show up and before you know it cumulative fatigue brings its good friend injury.
Any off days are a great opportunity to do too much. Depending on my schedule, I run either a three or four days a week kettlebell program. Two days a week I do two different martial arts. One art is a form of kenjutsu and the other is a form of iaido. Both are much lower in intensity than combat sports like judo, boxing, or Brazilian jujitsu. This allows me to use them as active recovery days. That leaves me with one or two free days. I admit that I have a problem with filling that day or two with extra work that I shouldn't be doing. It takes real discipline for me to leave those as recovery days where I do, at most, light to moderate cardio. It's too easy to do a "light" lifting session on those days. Those sessions might seem easy, but they interfere with my recovery from my actual lifting days by adding to the cumulative fatigue. Whenever I give into that urge, I end up regretting it after a week or two.
Developing the discipline to regularly exercise is important. Once you're regularly exercising, developing the discipline to not do too much is equally important.

Enough Is Enough, Too Much Is Too Much

2025-05-27T11:00:00+00:00

When I was growing up, my friend's dad liked to say, "More is better and too much is just about right." He said this in the context of engine power and always with a good helping of sarcasm. Unfortunately, I see far too many people say this in the context of physical fitness and with no sarcasm whatsoever. Fitness influencers are the biggest culprits of propagating this attitude and because they look shredded, a lot of people take them seriously. The problem is that the attitude of more is better leads to injuries. If you're lucky, they're temporary injuries you recover from with rest. If you're unlucky, they're permanent injuries or injuries severe enough to require surgery and physical fitness to correct.
A classic example of this are people who take perfectly good programs created and tested by trainers who have a track record of getting results for clients and athletes and then ruin them by adding more. For example, let's consider Geoff Neupert's free Dry Fighting Weight</a> program. It's a solid program. I've run it with good results. It consists entirely of kettlebell clean and presses and front squats. This isn't enough according to some Internet experts. They complain that it doesn't work X, Y, and Z where X, Y, and Z are whatever their pet movement or muscle group is. Their complaint is followed by recommended additions. Some additions might be innocuous. They might recommend adding a few pull ups. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Then they'll recommend doing a bunch of swings or snatches after the day's routine. You might ask why since the program's cleans already handle the hinge movement. Then they'll tack on push ups because Dry Fighting Weight doesn't have any horizontal pushing. Now the program has morphed into something absurd. It's too much.
If you listen to Dan John's podcast</a>, many of the questions he gets are listeners asking how to add things to his programs (as of late it's usually to the Armor Building Formula). This often results in Dan talking about the problem with chasing too many rabbits. If you don't focus your efforts on catching one or two rabbits, you won't catch any of them. If you focus on hypertrophy, you can achieve hypertrophy. If you focus on running faster, you can run faster. If you try to work on hypertrophy, running faster, throwing farther, jumping higher, swimming further, etc., you'll accomplish none of them. You'll put in a lot of effort for no appreciable gain. You'll be doing too much.
Too much in the context of this post means your effort interferes with your progress. Muscle isn't built at the gym. It's built in the kitchen and in bed. The gym is where you cause the damage. Recovery is where your body repairs the damage and bolsters the damaged portions to adapt to the new stresses they're experiencing. If you keep damaging your body without giving it time to recover, you'll eventually become injured in such a way that you can't continue strength training. Most of the people complaining about proven programs not having enough work aren't running their "improved" programs for very long. Funny enough they always seem to forget to post about how they were wrong and that they were unable to complete their "improved" program. I'm sure it just slipped their mind. Many fitness influencers also have an ace up their sleeve that allows them to do the absurd amount of work that they recommend: steroids and other performance enhancing drugs. Fitness influencers and those in their spheres of influence are often juicing. Some disclose it, but most don't. Juicing has severe long-term side effects, but in the short-term is greatly improves their ability to recover. It allows them to be stupid with their training and push the consequences down the road.
To use a tautology, enough is enough, too much is too much. You don't need to do an ungodly amount of work in the gym to realize strength and endurance gains. Performing clean and presses and front squats for half an hour three days a week is enough for most people whose goal is general physical preparedness. My strength training sessions as of late have been performing sets of clean and jerks for half an hour. Despite not doing enough according to a lot of Internet experts, my strength and endurance continue improving. It's also sustainable. By that I mean I'm recovering between sessions and haven't had a lifting related injury in quite some time. In other words, it's enough and enough is better than too much when it comes to physical fitness.

Ascending The Mountain Again

2025-02-18T01:00:00+00:00

In November of last year, I wrote about hitting a training plateau</a>. I was unable to improve my overhead press and was in fact losing progress. I made the decision to alter my routine and focus instead on clean and jerks. Typically an individual can jerk more weight overhead than they can press. Since I was pressing a pair of 24 kg kettlebells, I tested whether or not I could do a clean and jerk with a pair of 28 kg kettlebells. I was able to do so. I then tested if I could do the same with a pair of 32 kg kettlebells. While I was able to clean the 32 kg kettlebells into the rack position, I wasn't able to jerk them overhead.
My first clean and jerk session was on November 5th, 2024. I did three clean and jerk sessions a week until the end of December when I switched to two clean and jerk sessions and two rucking sessions per week (there was no rhyme or reason for this, I just wanted to try it). On January 31st of this year, I did a strength test. To my surprise, I was able to overhead press the 28 kg kettlebells. Knowing that clean and jerks allow an individual to put more weight overhead, I tried a clean and jerk with a pair of 32 kg kettlebells. To my further surprise, I got them up overhead. Not just once. I managed 10 sets of one! I didn't simply overcome my plateau, I smashed it!
In 88 days, I went from struggling to maintain my overhead pressing capabilities with a pair of 24 kg kettlebells and being unable to put a pair of 32 kg kettlebells over head to overhead pressing a pair of 28 kg kettlebells and jerking a pair of 32 kg kettlebells overhead multiple times. Besides changing out the overhead press for clean and jerk, the only other change I made was the aforementioned addition of rucks. My diet and sleep remained unchanged. That's pretty good progress for a man in his 40s in my book.
I'm ascending the mountain again. I'm continuing my program of two rucks and two clean and jerk sessions per week. The formula is doing well for me so I see no reason to change it. To repeat what I wrote in my post about hitting my training plateau, "If you're stubborn like me, you want to brute force your way through plateaus when you hit them. If you've tried that and it hasn't worked, try switching to a similar but different exercise." I've used this strategy before to great success and it proved to be successful once again. It may work for you too. Keep it in the back of your mind in case you hit any training plateaus.

Overcoming Plateaus

2024-11-05T06:00:00+00:00

Anybody who has lifted weights for any length of time is familiar with plateaus. Plateaus are where you've hit a certain point in you training be it weight, reps, or density that you can't seem to overcome. They're discouraging, but they can be overcome.
I've been running Dan John's Armor Building Formula</a> with a pair of 24 kg (53 lbs. for those of you who prefer measuring kettlebells using incorrect units) kettlebells. I started this after running a few easier overhead press programs with the same kettlebells. Needless to say, I've been working on my overhead press a lot. I made excellent progress. At least up until I completed week four of the Armor Building Formula. During week four, I managed 50 overhead presses, which exceeded my previous personal best of 44 overhead presses. I was stoked. Then I fell ill the next week. I returned to the gym after I felt better and decided to give myself a week to get back into the groove. I struggled to get many presses in, but I expected that since I only recently recovered from an illness. But this lack of performance continued... and continued... and continued. Not only could I not perform my usual number of presses during a workout, I saw my numbers going down. I hit a plateau. Worse than that, I was starting to progress backwards.
This isn't the first plateau I've hit. It won't be the last one I hit. Experience has taught me that trying to power through a plateau doesn't work for me (it might work for you though). What has worked for me in the past is mixing things up. I hit a pretty significant plateau last November (maybe November is just plateau month for me) when I was running a program consisting of double kettlebell clean and over presses, double kettlebell front squats, and single kettlebell snatches. I tried a deload week and jumping back into the program. No success. I couldn't budge my numbers. When December arrived, I decided to change my focus to the double kettlebell clean and jerk.
The clean and jerk is similar but different than the overhead press. Instead of pressing the kettlebells overhead strictly with your upper body, you dip into a quarter squat, explosively stand upright again to get the kettlebells moving upwards like a push press, and then you immediately drop down into a quarter squat again to catch them. Once you catch the kettlebells, you raise yourself to the standing position again to complete the lift. The difference is just enough for me to start making progress again. As an added bonus, more weight can be moved with the jerk than the overhead press. After spending December focusing on my double kettlebell clean and jerk, I returned to the overhead press. I started making progress again. I overcame my plateau.
Now that I hit another plateau with my overhead press, I'm switching my focus to my double kettlebell clean and jerk again. I'll focus on them for four to eight weeks. After that, I might switch back to the overhead press, keep focusing on the clean and jerk, or try something completely different.
If you're stubborn like me, you want to brute force your way through plateaus when you hit them. If you've tried that and it hasn't worked, try switching to a similar but different exercise. For example, if you hit a plateau with your deadlift, switch to a different hinge exercise like swings or snatches. Give yourself a break from deadlifts while performing a similar movement. After a few weeks, return to your deadlift and see if you can make progress again.

A Geek with Guns - Kettlebells

Getting Started with Kettlebells

Conclusion</h1> That's it. That's the guide. Buy a kettlebell of appropriate weight, pick a program, and start lifting.</p>

Long Cycle Training

The Discipline to Do Less

Enough Is Enough, Too Much Is Too Much

Ascending The Mountain Again

Overcoming Plateaus

Conclusion</h1>
That's it. That's the guide. Buy a kettlebell of appropriate weight, pick a program, and start lifting.</p>