A Geek with Guns - Physical Fitness

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.

Just Do It

2025-11-28T12:00:00+00:00

Knowledge builds upon knowledge. If you study two different fields of knowledge, you inevitably discover connections between them. The more I study physical fitness, the more associations I discover between it and economics.
Ludwig von Mises in his magnum opus Human Action</a> opens part one with the chapter appropriately titled Acting Man wherein he describes the field of praxeology, the study of human action. Whether you subscribe to the Austrian tradition of economics or not, I would highly recommend reading part one of Human Action. What it states applies to many fields including physical fitness. For the purposes of this post, I will open with the following excerpt:

To express wishes and hopes and to announce planned action may be forms of action in so far as they aim in themselves at the realization of a certain purpose. But they must not be confused with the actions to which they refer. They are not identical with the actions they announce, recommend, or reject. Action is a real thing. What counts is a man's total behavior, and not his talk about planned but not realized acts. </blockquote>
Here is where most people falter. They recognize that they exist in a less satisfactory state and express a desire to move to a more satisfactory state and that's where they stop. They never take action the action that they express.
This came up recently in a conversation between a friend and myself. More than a year ago after an uncomfortable discussion with her doctor she had expressed a desire to lose weight and improve her overall fitness. To her credit, she sought out a personal trainer. Unfortunately she found a personal trainer who is too ready to tell clients what they want to hear, not what they need to hear. My friend went through a few life changes that let her slip into the vortex of 'being too busy.' She had reverted to old dietary habits and was skipping workout sessions. The progress she made over the last year started to slip away.
This is when her personal trainer should've taken a page from Mises and told her that expressing intent and taking action towards achieving that intent are not the same. Instead she said a bunch of platitudes like saying that the important part is wanting the change. The implication being that wanting the change will motivate my friend to take action 'when she's ready.' While there are efforts that can be obtained through words, physical fitness isn't one of them.
Friends don't come to me to hear what they want to hear. They come to me to hear my opinion, which is typically expressed with the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the face. My friend explained her recent situation. I told her she should find a different personal trainer, one who is willing to be upfront with clients. I closed with a phrase that I'm probably saying too often now, "To quote the Nike motto, you need to 'just do it.'"
From a praxeological perspective, wanting to lose weight and be more physically fit is no different than wanting a new car or house. You exists in a less satisfactory state; being fat, unfit, without a new car, or without a new house; and you want substitute it with a more satisfactory state. Expressing your desire is an action, but it is not the action being expressed. Expressing a desire to lose weight is the act of expression, not the act of controlling calories or exercising.
In order to realize your goals in life, you need to perform the actions you express. Wanting the change, despite the claims of a certain personal trainer, is not the important part. It is a part, you need to feel that you are in a less satisfactory state before you can move to a more satisfactory one, but it is not the part that will allow you to realize your goal.

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.

A High Protein Diet and Weight Loss

2025-10-16T12:00:00+00:00

Americans are fat. This is true even if you set aside the flawed model of using body mass index to determine whether somebody is underweight, at a healthy weight, or overweight. Everywhere you go there are large guts foretelling the coming of an American through a door, into an aisle, or around a building. Unfortunately, despite what liars claim, it's not possible to be healthy at any weight. Being fat (or severely underweight, but that's far less prevalent) negatively impacts your health. Perhaps you're a far American. Perhaps you want to change that. I've written about how exercise can help with weight loss but a far more important factor is diet. In this post I will describe how a high protein diet can help you lose weight.
As I'm wont to do, I'm going to start this post by blaming the government. The USDA</abbr> publishes a food pyramid</a>. Supposedly it's a guide to eating healthy. Like most things the government produces, it's garbage. I'll go so far as to say it's dangerous because it encourages overeating and therefore promotes obesity.
The foundation of the pyramid is carbohydrates and the very top of the pyramid is... more carbohydrates. The problem with the base of the pyramid being carbohydrates is that carbohydrates are easy for your body to digest</a>. Your body needs to expend far fewer calories digesting carbohydrates than it does protein:

On average, a person uses about 10% of their daily energy expenditure digesting and absorbing food, but this percentage changes depending on the type of food you eat.
Protein takes the most energy to digest (20-30% of total calories in protein eaten go to digesting it). Next is carbohydrates (5-10%) and then fats (0-3%).
Thus, if you eat 100 calories from protein, your body uses 20-30 of those calories to digest and absorb the protein. You’d be left with a net 70-80 calories. Pure carbohydrate would leave you with a net 90-95 calories, and fat would give you a net 97-100 calories. </blockquote>
Calories are the key to weight management. If you want to gain weight, you need to consume more calories than you use. If you want to stay at your current weight, you need to consume the same number of calories as you use. If you want to lose weight, you need to consume fewer calories than you use. The key is that consumed calories in this case specifically refers to digested calories.
Not all calories are equal. Some require more energy to digest. Fats require the least amount of energy to digest. Carbohydrates require just a bit more energy to digest, but the difference is marginal. Then there are proteins. Proteins require the most energy to digest and the difference is significant. Between one fifth and almost one third of the calories in protein are burned up by your body just digesting them. Somebody who eats more calories in the form of protein will absorb fewer calories than somebody who eats the same number of calories in the form of carbohydrates.
There's another advantage to protein that I alluded to in the beginning of this post. When I wrote that the base of the food pyramid being carbohydrates encourages overeating, I was referring to the protein leverage hypothesis</a>:

The protein leverage hypothesis states that human beings will prioritize the consumption of protein in food over other dietary components, and will eat until protein needs have been met, regardless of energy content, thus leading to over-consumption of foodstuffs when their protein content is low. </blockquote>
You've likely heard that protein satiates more than carbohydrates. The protein leverage hypothesis explains why. Proteins are the building blocks of your body. According to the protein leverage hypothesis, you will continue to experience hunger until your body has the building blocks it needs. If you consume a high amount of protein, your body will have the building blocks it needs and cease sending hunger signals. Thus a high protein diet will make you want to eat less.
Another advantage comes from combining a high protein diet with hypertrophy training (body building or focusing on increasing muscle mass). Muscle requires more calories to maintain than fat</a>:

The takeaway from this article should be pretty straightforward: The next time someone asks how many calories a pound of muscle burns, the bros and the nerds are both wrong. The bros pulled a random figure out of their ass (or they’re just passing along a figure that someone else pulled out of some other ass), and the nerds are only correct if you never leave your bed. When you account for the impact on both active and non-active energy expenditure, we can estimate that each pound of muscle you gain will increase your total energy expenditure by about 9-10 calories per day in total. </blockquote>
It's not a huge difference but gaining 10 pounds of muscle (a very achievable goal) increases your daily energy expenditure by 90 to 100 calories.
In the description of this article I wrote, "The foundation of the [USDA] pyramid is carbohydrates. It should be protein." I was being a bit hyperbolic. A pyramid is actually a stupid way to model nutrition. My rule is to make a majority of my diet fruits, vegetables, and protein. I have a protein goal and try to make it every day (I admit that I don't always succeed). I consume some carbohydrates too, but they make up the smallest percentage of my calorie intake. This has proven to be a winning strategy for me especially when combined with weight training. I've slowly lost fat and gained muscle. I've never been much overweight but I definitely look better in the mirror with this diet than before. If you're overweight, try adjusting your diet so you're consuming a lot more protein and see how it goes for you.

Diet Cleanup

2025-07-20T12:00:00+00:00

The diet of the average American is revolting. It seems to be made up primarily of carbohydrates. While it's trendy and easy to blame this on the food pyramid (the base of which is carbohydrates and top includes more carbohydrates), the average American diet is even worse than that. The side effect of this diet is easy for anybody with eyes to see. Everywhere you go is populated with obese people. The upside for us Americans is that there's an easy starting point for cleaning up our diet: cut back on the carbohydrates.
I've gone through several iterations of diet cleanup. My first one was simple. I all but completely stopped drinking carbonated high fructose corn syrup (commonly referred to as pop or soda). The only thing I didn't eliminate entirely was root beer. I'll drink two or three in a year. But the only things I regularly drink are water, milk, tea, and coffee. Simply cutting out soda can remove a tremendous amount of empty calories.
My previous cleanup efforts focused on two things. The first was my main weakness when it comes to food: salty snacks like potato chips, pretzels, etc. Like my efforts with soda, I didn't completely eliminate those junk foods from my diet. I prefer moderation over elimination for my diet. The second was eating more vegetables. Each weak I'd cut up a bunch of vegetables, put them into containers, and eat them with meals throughout the week. I ended up abandoning that effort because it resulted in some unpleasant digestive side effects. I still eat vegetables, but not as many as I was.
At this point my diet is pretty decent. I've eliminated most of the common American problems and am now focusing on tweaking things. My latest efforts have focused on further increasing protein intake. Recommendations for protein intake vary. I've seen numbers as low as 0.8 g per kilogram of body weight and as high as 3.1 g per kilogram of body weight. I'm aiming for a daily intake between 1.5 to 2 g per kilogram of body weight. Part of my diet being pretty decent is that I'm consuming enough calories to maintain (I'm neither losing or gaining) body weight. I want to keep it that way. In order to accomplish that, I need to increase the amount of protein I intake per calorie. Another thing I want to do is increase my intake of dietary fiber. I, like most Americans, consume an inadequate amount.
The first change I made was to what I call mobile meals. I need to drive into the office two days a week. I have three options for lunch on those days: eat out, pack a lunch, or fast. Eating out is expensive and eating healthy at a restaurant is challenging (actually damn near impossible). I'm already maintaining body weight so I'm not interested in fasting. That leaves the option of packing a lunch. On one of those two days I also have martial arts classes in the evening so I leave home in the morning and don't return until late at night. That means I need to pack dinner too. Since the dinner will be sitting in a lunch box all day, I also need something that will keep without refrigeration and doesn't require cooking (admittedly I could bring my small camp stove to cook on the go, but I'm lazy).
My wife and I buy half a cow every year from a friend of ours who raises beef cattle. When you buy half a cow, you end up with a lot of ground beef. This gives me a great option for mobile meals: homemade beef sticks. I bought a dehydrator at the beginning of this year specifically for this. Unlike store bought beef sticks, homemade ones don't need to be loaded up with salt, sugar, and other common ingredients I want to avoid. While they do require refrigeration (we don't use curing salts in ours) for long term storage, they easily survive the day without it. If you don't have a dehydrator and supply of ground beef, summer sausage also works well (but you'll need to keep the ingredient list in mind when buying from a grocery store). I also buy mixed nuts from the grocery store, which are a decent source of protein along with other nutrients. My mobile meals typically consist of a sandwich, homemade beef sticks, and mixed nuts. I might toss in a protein bar too (all of the ones I've tried taste like ass though so I only eat them when I need to in order to meet my protein intake goal).
The second change I made was to breakfast. I developed an overnight oats recipe that consists of rolled oats; vanilla protein powder; a mix of chia, flax, and hemp seeds; collagen; creatine; milk; and nonfat Green yogurt. When I pull it out of the fridge, I mix in a bunch of berries too. This ends up being a huge intake of both protein and fiber. It's also easy to prepare. On Sunday I toss all of the dry ingredients into mason jars. Every evening I add the milk and yogurt to a jar, stir the contents up, and place the jar in the fridge.
There are three key points I want you to take away from this post. First is the importance of diet. It's one of my three pillars of fitness along with exercise and sleep. All three pillars are weak for most Americans, but the diet pillar is probably the easiest to improve quickly because there is an obvious strategy: reduce carbohydrate intake. Second is improving your diet in stages. You don't need to drastically change your entire diet immediately. Most people who do this fail long term. Instead start with easy targets. Cut down on the biggest culprits like soda and candy. Then address the next biggest culprits. Continue this over time (the timeframe can be months or years) until you develop a diet that is pretty decent. Once your diet is pretty decent you can tweak it for specific goals. Third is moderation. You don't need to completely eliminate things like soda, candy, and junk food. You can, but simply cutting down the amount you consume over time is also an effective strategy.

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.

So You Want to Lose Weight and Get Stronger

2025-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

We're entering a new year and that means a lot of people are making a resolution to lose weight and get stronger. A vast majority of people give up on their resolutions within two to four weeks. If you're a regular at a gym, you can see this play out in real time. You'll see a sudden flood of new members at the beginning of the year. That initial flood will slowly diminish over the next month until the attendance rate returns to pre-new-year normal.
Just because you make a resolution to lose weight and get stronger doesn't mean you have to fail. The biggest mistake most people make with their fitness resolutions is immediately jumping into the deep end. They thrash about, almost drown, and then give up. The following are my suggestions to help you succeed in becoming more fit in 2025.
1. Ask Yourself If This Is What You Want</h3>
It's easy to say you want to lose weight and get stronger. It's another thing entirely to do the work. Before you begin, take a few moments to honestly ask yourself if this is what you want to do. Do you seriously want to dedicate about two or three hours a week to exercising? What activities will you give up to carve that time out of your week? Exercise is only productive if you also give proper time to recovery. Muscles are damaged at the gym. They are repaired and made stronger in your sleep. Are you going to get enough sleep? Again, if you're not already getting seven or more hours of sleep a night, what activities will you give up to carve the extra time out of your week? What about your diet? Are you willing to eat healthier? Will you cut out junk food and instead focus on meat, vegetables, and consuming enough water? Will you forego processed pre-made meals and instead take up cooking your own meals?
I don't mean this section to be discouraging. It's better to recognize you're unwilling to make these changes right away because if you're not, you're going to fail no matter what. Better to save yourself the cost of a gym membership if you're not going to use it.
2. Develop a Plan</h3>
If you don't go in with a plan, you will end up chasing every rabbit you see. If you chase every rabbit you see, you won't catch any of them. You need to focus your efforts. You need to prioritize. Going to the gym three days a week won't be productive if you don't have a plan for what you're going to do there.
Create a list of goals. Try to make them manageable. Then determine which goal you want to focus on first. For example, let's say you have three goals: lose 100 pounds, press 100 pounds overhead, and run a marathon. Those are pretty lofty goals. If you choose to pursue them, you'll likely become discouraged because they will all take a long time to realize. So let's revise those goals into something more manageable. Let's instead focus on losing 10 pounds, pressing 40 pounds overhead, and running a 5k race. These goals can be realized in a reasonable amount of time, but not necessarily at the same time. Losing weight involves eating at a caloric deficit (you use more calories in a day than you consume). Building muscle on a caloric deficit is challenging. Trying to lose 10 pounds and press 40 pounds overhead at the same time might not be the best choice.
This is where prioritization comes in. Let's assuming that the order of the list is also the order of your priorities. You want to lose 10 pounds more than the other two goals. You want to press 40 pounds overhead more than run a 5k race. You can certainly work towards these goals together. Strength training can help with weight loss. Weight loss can help with running a 5k. The reason for prioritization is deciding which rabbit to chase when you're looking at several. If you want to lose 10 pounds more than you want to press 40 pounds overhead, you can eat a more severe caloric deficit to lose weight faster. It'll hinder your strength gains, but you'll catch the weight loss rabbit rather than not catch either the weight loss rabbit or the strength training rabbit.
Plans aren't set in stone. You can change them. Don't fret over your plan being perfect. Just have some kind of reasonable plan. You can update it as the need or desire arises.
3. Small Incremental Changes</h3>
You've reflected on whether weight loss and strength training are things you want to pursue and developed a plan. Now what? The fastest way to lose 10 pounds is to stop eating altogether, but it's a stupid plan.
Many people fail because they make too drastic of changes too quickly. They decide that they want to lose weight so they completely change their diet. They stop eating all of the foods they love and force themselves to eat foods they hate. They decide that they want to get stronger so they hit the gym every day. They come home sore every day and that makes them cranky. Needless to say, they become miserable. Then they give up.
You don't have to jump into the deep end of the swimming pool when you start. You can walk into the shallow end. You can even spend some time in the kiddy pool. Small incremental changes over time are more manageable than big changes all at once. Consider your diet. If you want to lose weight, you don't need to immediately stop eating everything that isn't a vegetable or meat. Simply cutting back on the amount of soda you drink is a good first step. If you drink two cans a day, first cut yourself back to one can a day. Eventually you might cut yourself back to a can every other day, then a can a week, and eventually a can every month or two (you don't need to stop entirely, but you can). You don't have to immediately replace potato chips with vegetables. You can add some vegetables to your meals and eat fewer chips. Then you can adjust that ratio more and more in favor of vegetables. Over the span of weeks and months you slowly phase our the junk food for something more nutritious. The small improvements over time add up.
What you're doing with these small incremental changes is forming new habits. Many poor health choices are habits you've developed. You developed a habit of drinking soda and snacking on junk food. You developed a habit of doom scrolling social media. You developed a habit of sitting on the couch and watching television. Breaking habits is difficult. Slowly transforming bad habits into good habits through small changes is easier. You don't have to stop watching television entirely and replace that time with walking. You can instead set aside 15 minutes of your television time to go for a walk. You can then slowly decrease your television time and increase your walk time. Over time you'll go from a couch potato to a person who walks a lot of miles every week.

Missing The Point

2024-11-11T12:00:00+00:00

I like to laugh at idiots, which is why The Verge is still in my RSS reader. There's seldom anything of value on there anymore, but this article</a> reminded me of a pet peeve of mine. From the article:

My beef with treadmills — especially ones you stick under a standing desk — is that you can walk 500 miles on them but your smartwatch will record maybe 100 steps. Your legs could be working overtime, but smartwatches rely on arm swings to count steps. I know because anytime I write and walk at the same time, my Apple Watch says I’ve done diddly squat. And that’s even when I record an indoor walking session. No one needs to record every little step, but it helps me keep track of my workout volume and intensity. </blockquote>
Several years ago I went hiking with some friends. One of my friends forgot his fitness tracker and almost didn't go on the hike because it wouldn't "count for anything." He was complaining about the fact that his hike wouldn't count towards his fitness goals in whatever gamification his device did. Without the reward of imaginary Internet points, the hike had no value in his mind. He was missing the point.
I've noticed this train of thought amongst many people who use fitness trackers. Many fitness trackers apply gamification to motivate users to exercise. They award points based on goals and activities. To sweeten the deal further, they usually allow you to share your accomplishments with friends and family. Gamification is a double-edged sword. The upside is that it motivates you to exercise. The downside is that chasing those imaginary Internet points can become the primary focus rather than physical fitness.
Let me return to the quote at the beginning of this post. The author complained about the fact that walking on her under desk treadmill didn't get counted by her fitness tracker, which relies on arm movements to count steps. She was frustrated because, as my friend said, her steps on the treadmill didn't "count for anything." Fortunately, she eventually realized the idiocy of her thinking:

My experience improved once I chucked the smartwatches into a drawer. I accepted my step counts wouldn’t be accurate and that my training algorithms across a dozen wearable platforms would be slightly off. I actually stopped recording my walks on every single platform altogether. As a result, my mental health improved, and I take far more walks now. My life isn’t any less stressful — I just have more endorphins, but that’s enough to make me more resilient. </blockquote>
I know many people would've done the opposite. Once they realized that they weren't earning imaginary Internet points by walking on their under desk treadmill, they would've stopped using the treadmill. My friend almost got in his car and drove home rather than go on a hike without his fitness tracker because he lost the point. Instead of exercise and enjoying nature being the purpose of the hike, earning imaginary Internet points became the purpose of the hike.
A fitness tracker is a tool. Like any tool, it should help you accomplish a job. If it doesn't help you accomplish a job, it should be discarded. If your fitness tracker causes you to avoid physical activities because they don't "count for anything," then the tool is hindering you. It has become liability rather than an asset. It should be discarded.
I promise you that your body won't notice any lack of imaginary Internet points. You won't stop building muscle because you didn't wear your fitness tracker while lifting. Your resting heart rate won't increase because your fitness tracker didn't count the steps you took. Your blood pressure won't increase because you failed to unlock that accomplishment badge in your fitness tracker app.
The point of exercise is to improve your physical fitness. Never lose sight of that fact.

A Geek with Guns - Physical Fitness

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>

Just Do It

Long Cycle Training

The Discipline to Do Less

A High Protein Diet and Weight Loss

Diet Cleanup

Enough Is Enough, Too Much Is Too Much

Ascending The Mountain Again

So You Want to Lose Weight and Get Stronger

Missing The Point

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