The Perfect Kettlebell Training Diet?

Although I spend 95% of the time on this blog talking about kettlebell exercises and workouts, diet is a critical component of any training program that can’t be overlooked. Like it or not, what you eat plays a huge role in your performance.

I truly believe that there is no perfect diet for everyone – and personal experience in servicing nearly 10,000 career training sessions strongly supports this fact. Different approaches work for different people.

Here are three meal plans that will compliment your kettlebell training program well – it’s ultimately up to you to pick which one fits your preferences and lifestyle best.

1. The Primal Blueprint

Author Mark Sisson (of Mark’s Daily Apple) makes an effort in this book to dispel many diet ‘myths’ that have come to be accepted as fact in popular culture. Life of our primal ancestors is put in stark contrast with the modern sedentary lifestyles most of us lead and the potential associated health issues. This book poses a solution that promises to guide us towards “effortless weight loss, vibrant health and boundless energy”.

Read more details, see a book preview and read reviews on Amazon.com by clicking below:

The Primal Blueprint

2. The Warrior Diet

The Warrior Diet has some similar themes as the Primal Blueprint as it looks to the habits of early cultures in an attempt to deliver a “radical yet surprisingly

simple lifestyle overhaul”.

The diet’s premise – based on both historical evidence and scientific studies – is the cycling of undereating during the day and loading up during the night. For a

more detailed description and to read about experiences others have had with the book, check out the link below:

The Warrior Diet

The Warrior Diet has some similar themes to the Primal Blueprint as it looks to the habits of early cultures in an attempt to deliver a “radical yet surprisingly simple lifestyle overhaul”. The diet’s premise – based on both historical evidence and scientific studies – is the cycling of undereating during the day and loading up on calories during the night. For a more detailed description and to read about experiences others have had with the book, check out the link below:

The Warrior Diet

3. The Best Fat Loss Diet Plan

This is my very own back-to-basics fat loss meal plan. It’s based on scientific evidence and what’s actually worked for me and countless training clients over the years. It’s a ‘super-quick-start’ sort of guide that skips all the theory, cuts right to how to set up your meal plan and gives you dozens of healthy meal and snack recipe ideas. Click below for more info:

Forest’s Best Fat Loss Diet Plan

Although I don’t talk about diet a whole lot on this blog, it’s a critical piece of any training program. I’ve given an overview of a few different programs in this post for those of you who need a little guidance; the most important thing is to have a scientifically backed and real-life proven meal plan and to stay consistent with it. Keep training hard!

P.S. For more kettlebell workouts and diet information visit Sacramento Boot Camp at sacramentobootcamp.net

3 Tips For Building A Solid Kettlebell Routine

Whether you’re trying to evaluate a pre-designed kettlebell routine or you’re attempting to design one yourself, you’ve got to have a way to determine if it’s going to be effective for helping you reach your goals. While there are a lot of factors that can make or break a kettlebell routine, a detailed plan, focus on great technique and emphasis on the basics are three things that are very important components of a solid kettlebell routine.

The number one thing when evaluating a kettlebell routine is to make sure it lays out a very specific and detailed plan. What you don’t want to do is just randomly piece together workouts from this blog or any other source; you want a complete program, such as the one(s) found in theKettlebellBasics.net Quick Start Guide.

Secondly, great technique is paramount. If you’re training with sloppy form, you’re not only shortchanging yourself on results, you’re putting yourself at a greater risk of injury. Get some instruction, watch videos, study books (probably in that order of importance, too) to master the basics of safe and effective kettlebell training technique.

Lastly, focus on the basics. You don’t need to be doing crecent swings or slingshots if you can’t do a basic swing or snatch; you truly can cover all of your major muscle groups by focusing exclusively on swings, get ups, clean and presses, squats, and snatches.

Having a specific and detailed plan, using great technique, and focusing on the basics are three of the most important things you can do when putting together or evaluating a kettlebell routine. If you want a guide to proper kettlebell training technique and a workout plan to go with it, check out theKettlebellBasics.net Quick Start Guide. I put this guide together to solve the basic problems that so many people have when getting started with kettlebells. Keep training hard!

P.S. If you are trying to lose 10 pounds month and get in better shape through kettlebells, check out lose10poundsmonth.com

The Kettlebell Overhead Walk

The Problem(s):

• A weak press
• Bad snatch form
• Poor shoulder mobility

The Fix:

The Overhead Kettlebell Walk

I’ve done a lot of bench pressing in my day. And while I got pretty strong at this specific exercise (I benched 455 for a single at my peak), it left me with some big time upper body imbalances – one being tight a@@ shoulders.

So when I first started training seriously with kettlebells a few years ago – which naturally comes with a lot of overhead work – my weakness was pathetically exposed! And all of my overhead work/exercises – presses, snatches, etc. – suffered because of it.

The kettlebell overhead walk exercise (combined with a steady diet of TGU’s) was largely responsible for restoring health and natural range of motion to my upper body. It’s a simple drill I first learned at the Russian Kettlebell Challenge. And now, I use it almost every day in my own training and with personal training/boot camp clients. It’s fantastic for improving your pressing/snatching form, teaching you how to ‘suck the shoulder into the socket’, improving shoulder mobility, and a whole lot more. Check out this video to learn how to do it:

I hope the kettlebell overhead walk is a valuable addition to your training program!

Thanks

Forest Vance, RKC II

P.S. For more exercises like this, check out these basic kettlebell routines at http://kettlebellbasics.net/2010/05/25/kettlebell-routines/.

MORE Kettlebell Exercises For Abs

This is (at least) the third post I’ve done on kettlebell exercises for abs … but given that almost everyone wants to lose belly fat … and given that if you’re reading this blog, you’re a fan of kettlebells … it’s one of those topics most of us probably can’t get enough of

Enjoy this video from fellow RKC Chris Lopez - in it, he covers five kettlebell exercises you should be doing for your abs, but probably aren’t. In addition to showing us some cool and unique kettlebell moves, Chris does a great job of covering the critical coaching points of each exercise in detail.

Thanks -

Forest

Video Recap (exercise descriptions)

Reverse Ab Curl

You will need a relatively light kettlebell depending on how strong your abs are. You will be using a medicine ball or a light ball, like a basketball. Be sure it is tucked in-between your heels and butt, this occupies your hamstrings and forces your hip flexors to relax and allow your lower abs and obliques to work on getting your knees up to your elbows. Use the kettlebell above your head for leverage, the lighter you go, the harder it will be for your abs to work. Be sure to keep your back flat and curl up and repeat. Make sure the kettlebell on top of you isn’t lifting off of the ground, if it is use a heavier weight.

Push-Away Squat

Start the exercise by holding a light kettlebell in a gauntlet position. Think about front squatting, but at the same time, drive the bell away and keep your back as straight as you possibly can. This works your shoulders and abs. Your body will want to somewhat collapse and your abs will start to fire and brace, try to keep your spine straight.

Renegade Row

If you don’t have two kettlebells, you can use a platform or a couple of thick books. In addition to your back, it works your obliques. Prevent any rotation in your hips, squeeze your glutes, and brace your abs to resist any rotation going on in your torso as you are moving the weight up. The wider your feet are in the exercise, the easier it will be. Place one hand on the platform, the other on the kettlebell and row.

Opposite Hip Touch

Same as the renegade row, make sure you aren’t twisting during the movement. Brace your abs, place your shoulders over the top of your elbows and your elbows above your wrists, squeeze your glutes, and rotate your hand to the opposite side and return. Repeat the motion with the other side.

Spider Man Climb

Get yourself into a push up position with your toes together, take one leg and drive it all the way forward as far as you can, with this leg forward, keep your hips low and squeeze your glute, then bring your leg back under control without moving your torso or hips.

P.S. For more kettlebell exercises to blast your abs check out http://kettlebellbasics.net/2010/05/25/kettlebell-routines/

Kettlebell Workout For Men

If you’re a meathead at heart … if your chief fitness pursuit is muscle size and strength at the expense of everything else … kettlebells may not be the best training implement for you.

On the other hand, if you’re looking to get lean and strong, to build strength without bulk … if you’re looking to gain lean muscle in your shoulders and arms, to trim and tone your stomach … then kettlebell training may be right up your alley.

In this article, I’m going to go over some common fitness goals men have, explain how working out with kettlebells can help you reach those goals more effectively and efficiently, and then outline a new and unique kettlebell workout for men.

Goals

Here’s a short list of some common fitness goals men have:

• Add lean muscle in the shoulders and arms
• Trim and tone the stomach area
• “All around fitness” – maintain the ability to do things like run a couple of miles or play a game of pick-up basketball at any time
• Strengthen the lower body without bulking it up
• Feel great and be healthy

Benefits

Here’s how kettlebell training can help you reach the above listed fitness goals:

• Kettlebells build strength and endurance with unique high-repetition exercises like the swing and snatch.
• Kettlebells allow you to train both aerobically and anaerobically within a single workout, therefore allowing you to develop both cardiovascular and strength enhancements.
• Kettlebells can help you build increased strength without increase of mass. Kettlebell exercisers are lean and toned, not bulky.

Kettlebell Workout For Men

Based on what we’ve discussed so far, here’s a sample kettlebell workout for men:

(warm up)

• slingshots
• close grip push ups

These two exercises done at a low intensity will get your upper body warmed up and involve the core and lower body a bit, too. Perform two sets of each exercise, doing as many reps as you can in 30 seconds for each working set.

(main workout)

• One Arm Rack Squat – 8 reps R, 8 reps L
• Renegade Row – 6 reps ea side
• Turkish Get Up – 1 rep ea side

These three exercises hit your upper body and abs in a unique way. Perform each exercise for the prescribed number of reps, rest for 30 seconds, and then move to the next exercise in the sequence. Perform a total of three sets of each exercise.

(conditioning finisher)

• Swings – two hand, one hand, or hand-to-hand – 100 as fast as possible

Quick finisher to end the workout strong!

In conclusion, if your main fitness goals are to put on size and strength, kettlebells may not be the best fitness tool for you. On the other hand, if you’re looking to gain lean muscle and shoot your conditioning through the roof, try this kettlebell workout for men!

Train hard and talk soon -

Forest Vance, MS, CPT, RKC II

P.S. For more information and sample workouts like these, visit sacramento personal trainer at http://www.forestvancetraining.com/personal-trainers-sacramento

Why Counting Calories Might Not Be The Answer …

Are you having trouble losing weight?

Here’s a quick story about a personal training client of mine you might be able to relate to (I’ve changed my client’s actual name, but the story is 100% true):

When Molly and I first started training, she was somewhat resistant to my diet advice, but brought the energy to our workouts, gave every one all she had, and followed the workout plan I gave her (for workouts on her own time) to a ‘T’.

Measurement time came after a month of training – and she had only lost two pounds. Although she had lost fat and gained some muscle, she was discouraged. We had set an initial weight goal, and progress wasn’t going quite as fast as she thought it should.

Why?

At the end of the day, it’s your diet that’s responsible for at least 70% of the weight loss equation – if not a lot more.

The good news is, Molly started keeping a food log, we worked together to cut out excess calories and make better food choices, and she lost nine pounds over the next four weeks.

It comes down to eating less and moving more when you’re trying to lose weight – this simple equation must be in place. But, different approaches work differently for different people. And success in the end comes down to picking a diet you can actually stick to – the greatest diet advice in the world is worthless if you can’t follow through.

If you’ve already found a plan that works and you know what to do – good for you!

If not, here are three examples of diet programs that are very different, but probably equally effective for getting you to that fat loss goal – it’s a matter of which one appeals to you the most as to which one will get you to your goal the fastest. I’ve linked to each one if you’d like to find out about the details of any of them:

1. Fat Burning Kitchen

Did you know that the majority of people (between 75-90%) consistently (and massively) under-report their calories consumed when they are asked to track their calories?

The idea behind this plan is that although counting calories is important, other things – like the fact that people tend to have problems keeping track, controlling appetite is a huge barrier for most folks trying to hit a calorie goal, and the influence hormonal imbalances have on your metabolic rate, fat storage, etc. – have at least as big of an influence on your weight loss efforts.

The plan is based around the idea that if you choose the right foods and understand how these foods react with your body, you can automatically attain the right calorie level without the need to ever count calories again.

Find out more about the Fat Burning Kitchen here:

Fat Burning Kitchen

2. Eat Stop Eat

This is a plan based around the concept of intermittent fasting. It definitely goes against the grain – but a lot of people are having great success with it.

On Eat Stop Eat, you go for 24 hours without food two days per week. Sounds crazy, especially if you’re used to eating five or six meals a day (like me), but as I said, it’s a very popular program and many people are reporting a lot of success with it. If you’d like to learn more, click the link below:

Eat Stop Eat

3. Easy Veggie Meal Plans

One thing I notice with vegetarians trying to lose fat is that they often have a hard time selecting the right foods and getting a proper balance of protein, carbs and fat. So here’s a program that’s geared towards fat loss for you veggies – and will show you exactly what to do and what to eat along the way. Find out more here:

Easy Veggie Meal Plans

So, the moral of the story is this: at the end of the day, you gotta burn more calories than you take in to lose weight. But there are a lot of different ways to do it – and different methods will work differently for different people. Whichever route you take, if you’re not getting the results you want, start focusing on your diet today!!

P.S. If you are searching for healthy meals check out these slow carb recipes at http://www.thefitnessmonster.com/2012/01/slow-carb-recipes.html.

Kettlebell Exercises For Women

I’m going to make a statement that’ll probably ruffle a few feathers, that’s probably a little politically incorrect, that a lot of strength coaches might disagree with … but one that, in my opinion, is a simple truth -

Women have different training needs than men.

Given that roughly 60-70% of my in-person training clientele is female – and has been for the duration of my (nearly) decade – long personal training career – I feel I have enough first-hand experience to make this statement. Here are a few ways a woman’s training needs differ from a man’s:

• Women commonly have different areas of focus (lower vs. upper body, for example)
• Women have different strengths and weaknesses (women will smoke most men when it comes to strength/endurance-type work but will typically lose a pull-up match – or any other test of relative upper body strength – to a man of the same fitness level)
• Women generally have different goals (i.e., most women don’t want to put on slabs of bulky muscle)

So this blog post is all about the best kettlebell exercises for women. I’ll start by explaining how women can benefit from kettlebell training. I’ll cover some common target/problem areas. And then I’ll outline some kettlebell exercises to target these areas along with a full kettlebell workout.

Kettlebells For Women – Benefits

Here are a few benefits of kettlebells that are specific to most women’s fitness goals:

• Fat Loss (kettlebells provide intense fat burning workouts)
• Strength without bulk
• Endurance and stamina (without the running)
• Muscle balance and function (promotes proper body mechanics)
• Boosts metabolism with high rep balistic exercises like swings, cleans and snatches
• Confidence to handle anything that life throws your way!

Specific Target Areas

Here’s a short list of typical ‘problem’ areas for women:

• Midsection/Abdomen
• Hips
• Thighs
• Butt
• Arms
• Back

The Best Kettlebell Exercises For Women

The basic kettlebell exercises hit all of the problem areas I just listed above very effectively. The swing and snatch, for example, work the heck out of your hips, glutes, back, and core muscles. The Turkish get up – as well as the clean and press – are both great for hitting your midsection and arms. And the goblet squat is hard to beat for complete lower body strength and development.

Here are the main kettlebell exercises women should be focusing on learning first – all other more advanced kettlebell drills are built on the ‘base’ of these five:

(For more specific technique tips on each drill, click the exercise name):

• Swing
• Turkish Get Up
• Goblet Squat
• Clean and Press
• Snatch

Sample Kettlebell Workout For Women

Here’s a workout that incorporates everything we’ve covered so far – it’s designed to help you lose fat, build strength without building muscle bulk, improve endurance, and hit those hard-to-target areas like the midsection/abdomen, hips, thighs, butt, arms, and back :

Warm up – foam roll/joint mobility/dynamic stretch

(For exercise pairs – perform each exercise back-to-back without rest, rest for :30 and repeat pair two more times for a total of three sets of each exercise):

Exercise pair 1

Turkish get up – 3 each side
Body row/pull up – 2 reps short of failure

Exercise pair 2

KB lunge – 10 reps each side
Swing or Snatch – 8 reps each side

Workout ‘finisher’

Double kettlebell clean and press – 5 sets of 6-8 reps, heavy enough weight to get 1-2 reps short of failure, 15-20 second rest between each set

finish w/ 5 mins. of static stretching for tight muscle groups

In conclusion, kettlebells are a fantastic training tool for women. They meet specific training needs that many women are looking for and are great for targeting typical female problem areas. Even better, the basic kettlebell moves are all you need to meet all of these goals.

Keep training hard and talk soon -

Forest Vance, RKC II

P.S. For more training information and routines go to Sacramento Personal Trainer at http://www.forestvancetraining.com/personal-trainers-sacramento