Quotes from Pavel Tsatsouline

Strength has a greater purpose.

It is hard to understand the logic of governments—both Russian and American—that encourage inmates to strength train, but Russian prisoners lift kettlebells as well.

The system straddles two worlds: strength training and cardiovascular training. The system is neither pure strength training nor pure cardiovascular training. Kettlebells stand astride the two worlds, splitting the difference, combining strength training and cardio training. Is this the best of both worlds – or the worst of both worlds? The object of weight training is to trigger muscular hypertrophy. The object of aerobics is to burn fat and increase cardio capacity.

With kettlebells, cardio intensity is increased by increasing the poundage, increasing the reps, speeding up the pace and/or extending the session duration. There seems to be little questioning that diligent use of kettlebells can provide a cardio session as intense as a person can stand and muscle hypertrophy will occur if the poundage is sufficient.

Girevoy sport, on the other hand, is a working class sport. Kettlebells are cheap, no platform is required, and almost anyone can master the skills in a short period of time from a book or a video.

And keep in mind that if you throw the KB into anything harder than sand you could break the handle; cast iron is hard but brittle.

An athlete from a rough sport cannot find a better power tool than the kettlebell, period.

A girevik is characterized by a balanced development of all organs and musculature with significant hypertrophy of the muscles of the shoulder girdle." (Rasskazov, 1993).

By the nature of their shape, kettlebells hang behind the hands and make the balancing act much easier. Now, for the first time, you can do a legit overhead squat. The KBs will stretch out your shoulders in no time flat—just keep on overhead KB squatting!

It's no secret that kettlebells were standard equipment for Eastern Bloc strength athletes and old time strongmen—they are excellent for swings, laterals, rowing and a variety of throwing-related movements.

Pick a kettlebell that works you without killing you. Once a month try a conservative max. Let me know how you do on the dragondoor.com discussion site.

Not a single sport develops our muscular strength and bodies as well as kettlebell athletics," wrote Ludvig Chaplinskiy in the Russian magazine Hercules in 1913.

The kettlebell is an ancient Russian weapon against weakness.

It does not matter if you can do 1,000 punches if none of them can knock out your little sister.

theory of limit loads

This is how powerlifting world champion Donnie Thompson swings. This is kime. Thompson took his deadlift from 766 to 832, and added 100 pounds to his bench press in nine months with hard style kettlebell training.

girevik, or 'a kettlebell man'.

What is a kettlebell? It's a cannonball with a handle. It's an extreme handheld gym. It's a statement: "I'm sick of your metrosexual gyms! I'm a man, and I'll train like a man!" Lifting a kettlebell is liberating and as aggressive as medieval swordplay. It's a manifestation of what Ori Hofmekler has called the "warrior instinct.

Apart from safety, there are many reasons to lift and lower your weights slowly: three to five seconds on the way up and three to five on the way down is the Power to the People! rule. First, muscular tension drops off as the velocity increases. Considering that tension is what we are after, it is a dumb idea. Just note that the athletes with the most spectacular muscular definition are those from sports requiring slow exertions, such as gymnastics.

Guys name their kettlebells like they name their guns. They paint them with their units' coats of arms. They get tattoos of kettlebells. The Russian kettlebell is the Harley-Davidson of weights.

Time to start by buying a 300 pound Olympic weight set: a barbell with plates.

The kettlebell delivers extreme all-around fitness. All-purpose strength. Staying power. Flexibility. Fat loss without the dishonor of aerobics. All accomplished in one to two hours of weekly training. All done with one compact and virtually indestructible tool that can be used anywhere.

10K forced march in full kit, an obstacle course and rappelling, plus another 10K run. A cherry on the top when you are beyond smoked is a 12-minute full-contact sparring session—with fresh opponents rotating in every three minutes. Once on the team, operators aggressively compete against their colleagues in the frequently held law enforcement sports events. Their specialties: hand-to-hand combat and the kettlebell sport. A matter of specificity and pride.

Russian kettlebells traditionally come in poods. One pood, an old Russian unit of measurement, equals 16 kilograms, approximately 35 pounds. The most popular sizes in Russia are 1 pood, the right kettlebell for a typical male beginner; 1 1/2 pood, or a 53-pounder, the standard issue in the military; and the "double," as the 2-pood, or 70-pound kettlebell, is called. Doubles are for advanced gireviks.