The Working Man's Weightlifting Show
Brothers Nick and Stephen Wiley invite you to The Working Man's Weightlifting Show, a relatable podcast for ordinary people who are committed to realistically incorporating health and fitness into their already busy lives. In an industry crowded by flashy aesthetics, photo-shopped abs, full-time camera crews, and misleading marketing, Nick and Stephen leverage their combined 30+ years of weightlifting experience to help clear the air on everyday fitness issues. Common discussion topics include no-nonsense nutrition, exercise tips for the manual labor workforce, best practices for office workers, building home gyms, recovering from injuries, workout programming, and much more.
The Working Man's Weightlifting Show
Kettlebells vs. Everything
In episode 80, hosts Nick and Stephen compare kettlebells to everything else. Topics include:
• Picking the right tool for the job: kettlebells, dumbbells, barbells
• Kettlebells allow for extended workouts without setting the weight down
• The "secret sauce" movements of kettlebells
• Competition-style vs. hard-style kettlebells
• Adjustable kettlebells provide tremendous value
• Planning alternate workout options helps eliminate excuses and maintain consistency
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Hello and welcome to the Working Man's Weightlifting Show, the show where working men talk about weightlifting. I'm your host, nick Wiley, and I'm joined tonight by my permanent brother and younger co-host, mr William Stephen Wiley, affectionately known as just Stephen. If you call him William, he may not pay attention to you. I don't know, unless you're in elementary school or something Dumb. How's it going, man? Pretty good. How are you Doing? All right, nice intro. Yeah, trying to get better, you know.
Speaker 1:It's all about little positive movements forward, just like weightlifting. Hey, hey, there you go. Hey, nice, pull that one right out of the re-end. Not speaking good english anyway? Um, english, well, that's what I meant to say. Moving, moving right ahead. What's going on, man? How's it been lately? Pretty good, good. How about you? Pretty good week. I didn't sleep well last night.
Speaker 1:I had really really weird dreams that we went to New York City and for some reason, we're like really slumming it and stay in this.
Speaker 1:Like it was like an apartment building and in the bottom of it there was this like super shady arcade, a lot of like drug use, and then, like our family was there, just like sort of like it was okay, but we were like we felt very uncomfortable and I distinctly remember one of the games that was being played. It wasn't even really a video game, but like people were laying down on the floor on their stomachs and they, their upper body, was on this thing that looked like a sort of a, almost like a, um, like a ramp like you would use for like skateboards. Not a big one, but like like, let's say, it goes up to about a foot and a half tall and it started at your like torso and your hands went in it and they were just like scooting their shoulders, almost like you're like moving a steering wheel. It was like inside this weird triangular contraption, it was the. So I'm looking around in this room, there's all these people laying down on these triangles or these ramp things like and their shoulders were just scooting.
Speaker 1:It was so weird I did not after. I woke up after that and I could not get back to sleep.
Speaker 2:It was like maybe you weren't uh really want to do some dumbbell shrugs? Maybe that's why you had the dream it is.
Speaker 1:You know what I did? Uh, I did do shoulders yesterday and it was very difficult oh, interesting.
Speaker 2:So that's what. Hey, you know what?
Speaker 1:i't even think about that because I was sore as a joker when I woke up.
Speaker 1:So maybe my body was like repairing itself by dreaming about this weird workout I don't know man Interesting. So, yeah, super weird. Let's just get the paperwork out of the way right out of the gate. If you'd like to know more about us, you can go to our website at workingmansweightliftingcom. If you want to support us, the very best way you can do that is to mention us to a friend. You know word of mouth, that works great. Another sort of freebie way to help us out is to leave a review of the show on your favorite podcasting app. That goes a long way toward putting us in front of other people. Using algorithms, that sort of thing, the reviews count for a lot, which is really helpful. So thanks in advance for that. And if you want to take it even further, we do have merch available at shopworkingmansweightliftingcom. We've got t-shirts, stickers. If you have ideas about things you'd like to see, let us know. We can look into making that happen.
Speaker 1:And then, lastly, we do have a community that is not that active. If you go to discordworkingmansweightliftingcom, if you know what Discord is, you can join the community there. When I say it's not active, I don't mean that we're not there. We are actually there. If you want to post, we can get it going. We kind of started getting it going. It just we kind of started getting it going and then it's sort of, you know, because we stopped doing the show for a while, it kind of died out, but it's still available.
Speaker 1:There's still some people that are members and I'm sure if we get some conversations going, it would just sort of light back on fire. So we'd love to see you there. If you want to communicate with us or you have questions or you have topic ideas or whatever, we'd love to talk to you. That's a great place to do it, Totally free. So check out discordworkingmansweightliftingcom. That'll take you right to the link you can join the server and talk to us there. So recap, like we like to do. We've been doing since the 1980s Me at least. You're a little younger than that, but yeah, how was training this week so far?
Speaker 2:Good, I guess we haven't actually recorded one here in like two weeks. Yeah, it's been a while, yeah. So yeah, I've been playing around with like a new program and I've also ordered some extra equipment for the gym, so I'm excited about that, which kind of plays into today's topic. But for now I am still kind of tweaking, but I would say I'm really just doing things that I enjoy. I'm kind of doing a blend of a lot of different things I've done in the past, so I have a little bit of 5-3-1 in there for the upper body, the bench press and overhead press Nice, namely, um lower body.
Speaker 2:I've been. I've been doing a load of uh kettlebell work and the glue ham developer that I have um, pretty much exclusively, or or even like body weight work. I was having a lot of like knee pain, back pain and stuff from heavy squats and heavy deadlifts. So I just decided to take a break for a while. But it's honestly been a lot of fun and I've been enjoying a lot of trying some new movements, some of which we'll talk about today, but for the most part right now it's got me feeling really good and it's honestly just the enjoyment of some of these new movements kind of has breathed some new life back into the home gym space. So, as of right now, I've really been enjoying it and I've actually increased the amount of days I've actually been working out, like five or six days a week. So it's been a lot of fun, wow.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. Yeah, well done, man. How about you? I can definitely talk about what I'm doing. Hang on, let me pull out my app here, because since our last recording, I have also made some tweaks, but also doing the same thing, so I just wanted to share a little bit about that.
Speaker 1:So if you listened to our last episode, I may or may not have said it by name, but I'm doing a program. I'm using the strong lifts app that we've talked a lot about on this show, and I'm doing a. In the past, uh, I've done like the basic what do they call it? Just the strong lifts five by five program. This time I'm trying one called, I think, strong list. Is that what it's called? Yeah, and it's basically supposed to be two days of like powerlifting and then one day of upper body hypertrophy. So Monday, wednesday, friday, typically for me and I have really actually enjoyed it my upper body is definitely my weakest link, for sure, like I'm not a very well-rounded lifter in general, but for some reason well I say for some I've talked a lot about on the show I had shoulder surgery at this point about 10 years ago and I never really took training of that shoulder seriously enough after it and just atrophied like crazy and that has impacted shoulders and bench. So I am really in a mode of trying to like turn that ship around now, and I think this program has been ideal for doing that. So I really liked that.
Speaker 1:Um, here's the couple of things that have happened. So, uh, part of the reason we haven't recorded in a couple of weeks is because, uh, I, I w, I just got totally wiped out. I got a stomach bug or food poisoning One of the two, I'm not really sure which of the two about two and a half weeks ago now and that completely wiped me out for a couple of weeks. I mean, it truly wiped me out for about a week and then the week after that I was still. I just wasn't like I'm not going to work out, like I just feel I was very weak, like I didn't feel like myself. So this is my first week back. We're recording on Thursday and I'm done Monday and Wednesday. This week it's been going well, but that, yeah, that was rough.
Speaker 1:The other tweak that I made, though, I thought I would share, which just I'd probably be kind of a rare person this would apply to, maybe, maybe not, I don't know. I just I thought it would be kind of interesting. So the first two days of the program are supposed to be, you know, with barbells, and then you can basically do all the other ones with dumbbells, or that's what I'm doing. You wouldn't have to, but I figured hypertrophy. You know I'm going to just do it with dumbbells. So what that means is I'm going to your gym on Monday and Wednesday, and then on Friday I'm working out in my own house, which is basically I just have, as I've talked about before, I've got a bench and a set of adjustable dumbbells and dip bars. So that has actually been working out really well.
Speaker 1:But what I found is my new commitment in life. Right now at least, that's working for me better than anything has in a long time is. I just said I've got to stop making excuses on days that for some reason I can't get to your place, like if I wake up too late or I stay up too late the night before, and I know I just know I'm not going to make it whatever. I would always just write those off and I would just completely skip it in the past, and so what was happening is like I'd be on a program that's like a three-day program. Usually I'm getting one to two days and you're just not going to. Like I mean you, it's better than nothing, for sure. But like, really, what I found for me, like psychologically it was bad, because I was constantly beating myself up Like, dude, you failure, like you can't, you can't even make it to the gym three times, whatever. So what I said this time was like, just move, dude, just get moving. Whatever you got to do to get moving.
Speaker 1:So what I decided to do was write my own alternate days in the StrongLifts app. So if I can't make it to your place, I have an A-Alt, a B-Alt and then a C. C is the hypertrophy which I'm doing from home anyway. So A-Alt and B-Alt is what I did this week because I just couldn't get out of bed. Yeah, yeah, I just couldn't get out of bed, yeah, and for other reasons we weren't working out together this week. So I did the alternate versions. They're all dumbbell, like sort of stand-ins for the standard StrongLess program and that has been insanely helpful. I can't tell you how helpful it is.
Speaker 1:So I don't know if anybody out there, like if you normally go to a commercial gym no-transcript If there's some hurdle, you know, at least for me highly recommend getting a set of adjustable dumbbells. We really like power blocks. We've talked a lot about them in the past. You can hit us up on discord if you want. You know, discuss it. We can send some specific recommendations. Get a bench if you can. That's pretty much all you need. I mean really like for, like you know, to have an effective but very compact setup at home. And the only thing I want to add, which I've talked about a few episodes ago, is I really want to get like a power tower so I can do chin-ups and stuff. Yeah, yeah, other than that, I mean that's a very small but useful setup.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it doesn't take up a lot of room at all.
Speaker 1:Yeah it's literally in. I have a home office that's just a small but useful setup. Yeah, it doesn't take up a lot of room at all. Yeah, it's literally in. I have a home office that's just a bedroom that we converted and it's just like taking up a third of my home office. Yeah, yeah, and I can push the whole thing up against the wall. I'm not using it. So, anyway, that was a long recap, but actually, for once in my life, I had something interesting to share.
Speaker 2:Very nice for once in my life.
Speaker 1:I had something interesting to share, so I thought I would go on longer than normal, but uh, now that we're done with that, moving on to the topic of the day, I'll let you say I've been talking so much.
Speaker 2:Oh, you're fine. Um, so I I can't remember if it was the last episode, but it was one of the last episodes we did, uh, barbells versus dumbbells. Um, so this time I thought we would do dumbbells versus kettlebells, nice, or even barbells versus kettlebells, it really doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:But everything versus kettlebells, yeah, there you go.
Speaker 2:So yeah, that was my thought, everything to add no, it just I'm interested to hear what you have to say.
Speaker 1:Well you have been. I will say that Stephen has been on a kick over the last several months, Well, really several years, Like you've been kettlebell curious, yeah for sure. Wow, and we've done episodes in the past. We've done programs. I mean we talked about the kettlebells for aesthetics program or whatever we did for Mind Pump.
Speaker 2:That was probably now like what two years ago two and a half years ago, something like that.
Speaker 1:Um, and so you know, I mean, you have been researching it for a long time, but it seems like recently you've had some breakthroughs and maybe some new information new, I don't know, so interested to hear. But I guess, how do you want to start out? Maybe we'll say last time we talked a lot about, like why you would choose to use like what, what are dumbbells more appropriate for and what are kettlebells, yeah, before. So maybe we can do that same kind of thing like what, what, are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what are kettlebells?
Speaker 1:appropriate for versus their counterparts yeah, um.
Speaker 2:So the kettlebell for kettlebells, for aesthetics program you were talking about, um, it's got like an exclusive. I mean I know why they did it. It was kind of a it's just a thing to make. Yeah, um, and just something different to do with your time, basically. So it it's exclusive kettlebells, so.
Speaker 2:So it's like you know, you're doing bench press with kettlebells, you're doing rows with kettlebells, you're doing, um, any, any movement, legs, shoulders, back, whatever is 100 kettlebells. There may be some push-ups in there, um, I think there's some chin-ups, but other than that, it's it's all kettlebells, um, and I mean, honestly, if you're doing weighted pull-ups, then you put a kettlebell on the, the belt or something. Now it's kettlebell pull-ups, um. So yeah, it's, it's a cool program. It's it's super cheap. I don't know what it is now I'm pretty sure we got it for like 10 bucks. So it's a cool program. It's super cheap. I don't know what it is now. I'm pretty sure we got it for like $10. So it's not like I'm not. There's no regret buying it, because it didn't cost well anything.
Speaker 2:You don't get a lot, I will say. I mean you get like two pieces of paper that just have the program on it, but that's all you really need. It's not meant to be like a lifelong, life-changing program, but when I got into it I found some of the movements to be really awkward with a kettlebell, such as things like bench press. You can do them. There's like a lot of guys do, floor presses, which is basically you bridge up like with your legs, kind of like flex your glutes and make a bridge, so it's almost like a decline press and basically the thought behind it is you're extending the range of motion off a bridge, so it's almost like a decline press and basically the thought behind it is you're extending the range of motion off the floor, so you're not just flat on the floor, you're kind of at a back angle and then you bench like that with kettlebells. That's what a lot of guys do.
Speaker 2:If all you have is kettlebells and there's nothing wrong with that If you are a person that you just, for whatever reason, you could definitely get a solid workout in and you could do some of the more traditional movements like that you just might have to make some slight adjustments like that. Yeah, um, nothing wrong with it, but in our case we don't just have kettlebells, we've got a little bit of everything, um, right, so it's kind of nice. So if you, if you are like that and you have, um, you know, access to other things even when we did kettlebells for aesthetics, I'm pretty sure I immediately swapped out the bench press for dumbbells, because I just have a full set of dumbbells, um, so to me, I think it's a little bit, it's just not as comfortable of a movement, um, with kettlebells to do things like bench press, but like overhead press, for example. I actually think kettlebells feels amazing if you're standing, you know, if you're able to do like a kettlebell clean and then a press, it feels something about. It feels really natural and feels really good Like it just feels like a full body workout. So I've seen some guys online. Like you said, I've been kind of researching for a while. I've definitely I found some guys online, some of which are like very against doing the I'll just call them traditional lifts with a kettlebell, and they would even say I'm pretty sure that they used to do that and now they've kind of found that, like the, the secret sauce of kettlebells is in more kettlebell focused movements, um, so that would be basically a bunch of full body stuff.
Speaker 2:You know, a front squat where you've got it in like the rack position, which just means it's up, up high, you're holding it up at chest level, um, you're doing, you know, double, double front squats. You've got two kettlebells. Now it's getting pretty heavy because you can hold two pretty heavy kettlebells that way. That position, that rack position, will allow you to hold quite a bit of weight, way more than you can't hold two heavy dumbbells in that position because they're shooting out from your body or you're hitting yourself in the face. It's very hard to rack a dumbbell like that and actually hold it in a way that's not going to hurt something you know Right, um, well, the kettlebell is way more secure. It comes back and lands on your forearm. It's kind of resting there, and if you hold it right, you learn how to rack. You actually can hold that weight for a very long time without getting all the fatigue in there.
Speaker 2:Um, so that that's where the secret of kettlebells I would call it is learning some of these key movements like the clean um, the snatch, and just learning how to actually manipulate the, the bell itself, so that you're not getting so fatigued with the thing. And then and then that's where the real kettlebell stuff comes in is like a lot of kind of endurance. It's like muscular endurance. Like you're doing the ideas that you can put. You can basically do a long session of a workout without ever putting the weight down, because you can just shift over to the other hand, rack it on the left, then rack it on the right, do a bunch of squats, do a bunch of presses, do a bunch of cleans, whatever it is, and the other side is kind of resting and then you just throw the kettlebell over to the other side and there's a lot of technique involved.
Speaker 2:You have to take some time to learn these movements, but it's really cool stuff. I would definitely tell anybody they should look into it if you're at all interested in it. But that is where the real kettlebell stuff comes in. The kettlebell swing, the clean, the snatch, the clean and press and those type of moves the Turkish get up, all these things you've kind of heard about. If you've looked into kettlebells at, all, things you would not do with any other.
Speaker 1:Exactly yeah, you just wouldn't do it Because the shape of the handle you have to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I saw that some guy just broke the record for a Turkish get up with a barbell. I think he did like 225 or something crazy with like a. He just picked up a barbell like that, have mercy, but that's that's like a outlier feat of strength. That's not, that's not a normal training thing and he easily could have injured himself. So I wouldn't recommend that to anybody. But with a kettlebell it can be very comfortable and it can really kind of train you. You're doing a lot through a whole Turkish get up. So I've really started looking into that and when you you take that, you know, then you've got your dumbbells over here. I do think something like a bench press. I think it just feels to me it's a lot more. You're so used to it. You're holding your hands. You know you're doing an incline bench or flat bench, however you want to do it. Um and same, like I said for a barbell you're used to it being in your hands.
Speaker 1:That's kind of how the movement is made. Well also, I mean, it's worth saying that there's no way you could hold the kettlebell such that the weight would be evenly distributed on both sides of your hand or your arm, Like it's going to be on the outside of your forearm, yeah, whereas with a dumbbell it's going to be even the outside of your forearm.
Speaker 1:Whereas with a dumbbell it's going to be even equally balanced around your fist, and the same with a barbell. So it's like you would always be compensating for the fact that the kettlebell's like sort of resting on one side.
Speaker 2:And if you get in a weird position, it might even kind of swing out from your arm a little bit because you're not actually holding it with like a solid grip like that.
Speaker 1:Plus, if you start getting heavy, I imagine that would become really hard on your forearm. Yeah, because it's so big. It would be sort of bulbous and like kind of punching you. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean that. Curls, for example, I think you know it's. In my opinion, it's probably best just to stick to dumbbells or easy bar curl, barbell curl, something that you're used to curling. Does that mean it's bad to curl a kettlebell? No, not at all. And if you have nothing but kettlebells, again it's it's. It's not that you're going to not grow muscle or not get a good workout in, it's just that having access to both, I think that they definitely have a. I think you will find that they shine better in their respectable places and they've become a lot to me, it becomes a lot more enjoyable.
Speaker 2:I didn't really care for I would just get to the bench press on, like that program, for example, and I was like this is really awkward, like I've done this for so long with these other implements and I actually enjoy doing that. So I'm just going to go back to that, because my chest does not know if I'm holding a kettlebell or a dumbbell or a barbell, it just knows if I'm working it. So, um, so, uh, like, uh, so like for a real world example, like my new program, I decided to stick to barbell bench and barbell overhead press because I was kind of enjoying making some good progress on that. So I just started doing 5-3-1 on those movements. So it's literally just old school bench press, old school overhead press. But I'm still doing some kettlebell overhead press kind of like as an assistance hypertrophy move for high reps, and I'm adding a kettlebell clean in there.
Speaker 2:So I'm practicing these kettlebell movements to try to get better at them, but also trying to build muscle and do the hypertrophy side of things as well at the same time, the hypertrophy side of things as well at the same time. But yeah, to me I think it just if somebody's out there looking for a program, what I've started to find is that a lot of these guys that do kettlebells their programs are really expensive and I mean like Strange, either monthly, I mean I've seen some like 40, some dollars a month, kind of stuff. To me it's like higher than the cost of a gym.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's getting there. There's some of them. You can buy like a huge package of like one hundred ninety seven bucks and you get all this stuff and I'm like I don't know what I'm getting. You know, and I don't want to just drop two hundred bucks on this thing. So I have not, I've not taken the plunge yet you will I know you I may, I don't know it kind of depends A little holiday speciale.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we'll see what happens, like Black Friday or something. But, but, but, the people, there's a lot of free information on YouTube that, I think, is you know, even from these same guys. Um, lately, I have been really, uh, paying a lot of attention to Mark Wildman, um, and this channel called Lebe Stark I don't know, it's from another country, not country, not that thing that says is it? Um, he? He does more of like a, a, uh, sports style kettlebell training I think they call it um, and mark wildman does more like he's kind of like a tactical guy. He's very into martial arts and different, like very, very real world, transferable training.
Speaker 2:He does a lot of heavy clubs, heavy kettlebells, all this stuff, um, I think he's he's, he's worked with, uh, hollywood actors and stuff as well, um, but he is very knowledgeable. He seems to really know what he's talking about. Um, but they, they are very you're not going to see a bench press video on there at least not for kettlebells when they're talking about it, they're going to show you these movements. But I do think that's a very good place to start if you want to see how to actually pull off these movements, like the clean and snatch and things like that that I'm talking about about Um, they did.
Speaker 2:The other thing that Mark Wildman talks about a lot is is the fact that kettle like I said, kettlebells have the unique ability to just be able to do a super extended workout without ever putting the weight down. And that's where he claims it like all the money is at, because once you're able to pick up like a 50 pound kettlebell and work with it for 20 or 30 minutes straight without ever putting it down, you're going to be in pretty dang good shape, like whatever you're doing.
Speaker 2:Um, I've not I mean, I've not actually tried to do something like that yet Um, but I do think that idea is very cool and it's very intriguing to me right now. Um, so what I've done? I was talking about getting some new gear, if you want to say something jump in.
Speaker 1:I will just say that when we have explored kettlebells in the past, I've tried to kind of go along with you and the furthest I've really gotten is I feel like I've gotten a pretty good form down on a standard one one arm or two arm swing, yeah, and I can sort of do the clean and press.
Speaker 1:But I almost have to do the supervised like. If I'm working out with you, I'll have you make sure I'm doing it right. But I don't have a memory. I don't feel like I've got the muscle memory down to like perfectly do it. But I always have to remind myself that, like you know, we started doing barbells like a long time ago, yeah, and dumbbells, like at this point, uh, probably pushing, uh almost 20 years, yeah, for sure you know. So those feel very natural, like I don't feel like I have to, even if I like learn, like, for instance, recently. I don't feel like I have to, even if I like learned, like, for instance, recently I learned from you that like to try some tweaks on my barbell form, like for doing bench press, to try to help. You know, just some platforms that I was having and stuff.
Speaker 1:But it's not like. It feels like because I know what home base feels like tweaking it by like moving my arms out a little wider or by tucking my shoulders in or whatever the thing is like. It's like in my head I can sort of like still like construct all that. The kettlebell thing to me still feels very foreign. It's like I don't quite every time I do it, I'm like am I doing this right?
Speaker 1:Like I guess, like so for me, like I'm just not quite as I like it a lot, but I don't, it feels that I will say always really feels good, like on your body it just feels good, but I I don't feel like I quite have the technique part of it down where I can really speak intelligently about it, other than swings.
Speaker 1:I feel like that swings are the only one that I've done a lot of Cause. When I was for, like right after, um, my first son was born, which is three years ago, uh, next week, which blows my mind Um, that's pretty much all I was doing. I bought Pavel's book, um, simple and sinister and one other one he had.
Speaker 1:He had maybe I started trying to do those like kettlebell only type. That was the only working out I was doing at all during that. You know, first few months and swings became the thing I was doing by far the most of, because the other thing he has you do is Turkish. Get up if you do Simple and Sinister and I can't do that because of my shoulder Right yeah, I've yet to really do it. I mean I can do it with like a shoe, yeah, or like a one pound but I can't.
Speaker 1:For some reason I have not been able to unlock it. That's honestly kind of a goal for me.
Speaker 2:I would still love to be able to do that.
Speaker 1:I think the Turkish getup is maybe the most impressive physical workout I know of. Yeah, it's crazy physical workout. I know of it's like I mean deadlifts you could sort of say that, but there's something about the Turkish getup, the the fact that you're going all the way from laying down on the floor to all the way up and back down while balancing.
Speaker 1:It is like super, I don't know. Just you know, like you said, it almost feels more like a martial arts move. Yeah, and right now I'm not physically able to do it, but one day I'd really like to be able to. Those are my only comments, so I appreciate you kind of. I was talking a lot earlier, but this is kind of your episode from that perspective.
Speaker 2:That is kind of what I was saying, I think. Kettlebells when I first got into them I didn't realize the amount of practice they were going to take to get the real kettlebell movements down. I just thought, oh, this is cool, I'm just going to throw it around and swing it and whatever you know. And, funny enough, I tried to show off in front of my wife when I first started and tried to do like hand-to-hand swings and I just launched the kettlebell out and broke the handle. Slap off, really, yeah. So that's why the 20-pound kettlebell doesn't match any of the other ones, because I had to just buy one, I could find.
Speaker 1:I always wondered why that?
Speaker 2:Maybe I think you knew it, but it was a long time ago, yeah, but I just it went flying out of my hands and slammed in the concrete and broke and I immediately felt like an idiot. And I just Me and my wife both start laughing.
Speaker 2:I can only imagine being a fly on the wall. So I'll preface the new equipment by saying what we have is what it's called a hard style kettlebell, and there's hard style and there's competition style. And that's what I meant by Libby Stark doing sports style. He's doing like competition style training. The difference there is that sports style is basically to be as efficient as possible so you, you can go for as long as possible. So you're trying to get like, instead of 20 minutes, you're trying to get like 60 minutes of like constant movement. Um, you know, get as many. You're trying to beat other guys swinging a kettlebell as much as you can and however many minutes, um, and then, how many snatches can you do? How many cleans can you do? Um, do.
Speaker 2:So there's a different technique they use because, like what I will say, like a swing, if you look at hard style, you usually have like a straight arm kind of comes kind of far out of your body. Sports style almost looks like a T-Rex arm. You get kind of loose with the elbow and it's very way less muscular looking, I guess I would say in terms of the way you're holding it. But like that guy from YouTube, lovey Stark, he's very ripped. I mean, he's a cool looking guy, but he swears by that style now because he thinks it feels a lot better. And I've played around with it a little bit lately not a ton, but it does actually feel pretty good. Um, and I don't think there's like you. You know you're, you're not, you're blocking yourself from potential or something by doing one or the other.
Speaker 2:I think it's yeah it's probably a preference thing, um, unless you're going to go into the sport of it, um. But but uh, mark wildman, it seems like he does a lot more of this hard style, um, but then where the kettlebell themselves are, when you have a hard style kettlebell, it's basically like a cast iron or sorry, a cast kettlebell, and what that means is every weight is a different size. Or if you're going with kilograms, you know you have like a whatever, like a 12 kilogram kettlebell, and you get up to a 32 kilogram. Each size of that kettlebell is going to change pretty dramatically. So that's what we have where, like our five pounds look kind of hilarious, the handle is way bigger than the weight itself, right, and then we have like an 80 pounder, where it's absolutely massive. I've thought for a long time. They're just super uncomfortable to hold onto and they don't really match, like the ones I have doubles of. I've got 35s, 40s and 45s. They don't. They just don't match the handles, you can tell.
Speaker 1:The QCs aren't too good on them. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I have no idea what brand they are. We got them from somebody, we didn't buy them from a store. So what I've found, that's what I was trying to share because I did not know this was out there, so I'm excited that it is, so other people can get into it. That Mark Wildman guy he actually has a company. There's a company called Bells of Steel and they have kind of partnered with him to create the Mark Wildman adjustable competition style kettlebell.
Speaker 2:And, like I said, hard style was that what competition style does? Every weight is the exact same size. So you practice, every kettlebell feels the exact same. Nothing gets bigger or smaller, they're all the same. It's just the meat basically inside of the shape. So in other words, a five-pounder is way bigger than my five pounds, but the 80 pound is the exact same size as the five pound in the competition style. So this adjustable kettlebell, basically you unbolt it, take it apart from the middle and you add however much weight you want in there and then you close it back up and lock it down and it's not going to go anywhere. So, uh, you don't have to worry about like a power blocks or anything like that where you slide something in and out. If you swing it over your head, you don't have to worry about something flying out and hitting you the back of the head or something. Um, it's, it's very secure, um.
Speaker 2:So I ended up ordering two of these bad boys, um, but what I did, do I do. I did not. Um, I realized they they have the Mark Wildman version and it comes with some extras, and then they actually have their own, just non Mark Wildman branded version from the exact same company. It's the exact same bell, um, and it comes in a couple of different colors and it's a little cheaper. It doesn't doesn't come with the extras and doesn't have his logo on there. And then they have different sizes.
Speaker 2:So you can kind of get like a, you can get it to be pretty light, up to a 32 kilogram, and you can buy it in a pair. That's why I bought two of them, because I wanted two of the exact same size that I can adjust at whatever weight I want. So I just thought that was really neat. I didn't know they were making things like that and the idea is basically that like one kettlebell replaces like 41 kettlebells or something in one, so you're saving a ton of money. They're like two of them together is like 600 bucks. I think Both of them will get all the way up to 70 pounds or 32 kilograms. Yeah, that's good. So you know you're doing a double squat, you can do a double front squat. You know, if you're holding the 70s, that's pretty solid.
Speaker 1:If you're doing a lot of reps, that's pretty close in price to what we paid for a set of power blocks too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, those were 800, but something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So pretty cool. And then if you want more, if you have somebody that trains with you or you just want to have different ones, mark Wildman recommends having like three sets of different weights. So you have, they're all adjustable, but you have a heavy, a medium and a light and you can actually buy them, kind of like that, and they're cheaper. That way you can buy, you don't have to buy each pair. That goes all the way to 32 kilograms. You can actually get them to cap at like 20 or something like that, and then you get another one that caps at like 16. So the weights basically can fit inside of that shell of any of them.
Speaker 1:So just to clarify really quick when you say adjustable, because you were explaining this to me a couple of days ago. I had a hard time wrapping my brain around it. But they are adjustable, but they are. They are adjustable, but they're not like quick adjust Meaning.
Speaker 2:Right, that's what I meant about the sliding out of power blocks you need to set you.
Speaker 1:you would premeditate the way that you want them to be on it. You would screw it all together and make it that way, and then you would use that.
Speaker 2:It comes with like two tools that come with it that undo the bolt inside and then you take it apart, basically from the middle, and then there's all these weights you can adjust in there and then screw this little nut down on there and then slide it back on and bolt it all together and then it's all supposed to be really secure feeling in there. But yeah, it makes sense From the reviews. People said it only takes a couple of minutes, so you could definitely swap it out in a workout, but you're not going to want to be like doing drop sets or grabbing multiple bells of different weights.
Speaker 1:It's not the equivalent of having like a bunch of different sizes of individual bells.
Speaker 1:Or the same as like. I have a Titan Fitness quick adjust kettlebell that you gave me for Christmas a few years ago and that one literally just has like a mechanism that you slide it into the weight that you want. But to your point, I use it for swings, but I definitely wouldn't drop it. I don't have any feeling that it would like come apart while using it, but there's no way I'd be like dropping it. I don't have any feeling that it would like come apart while using it, but there's no way I'd be like dropping it or like beating it up or sort of like throwing it or anything like that. I would not feel comfortable doing that. I don't think they would say you should do that either.
Speaker 1:I mean I don't have their documentation, but just that'd be my guess. Um, cause, it's just, it's intended to be very cool, like you can just slide a thing and then you're on a new weight, so it's more intended for like on the fly changes. I just want to make that really clear that these are a little more like semi-permanent, as when you well, maybe that's not the right word, but they're bolt together, so they're super solid but not something you could do in a matter of seconds.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the reason why he's recommending getting a couple of different pairs, so you can set one up a little lighter and then another one up lighter than that and then you, you kind of could at least in a, in a quick workout or whatever. You could grab whatever you need. Um, when are they coming in? Uh, I've gotten part of the ship and never gotten the extra weights to get it to the heavy, but.
Speaker 2:I didn't actually get the bell itself.
Speaker 2:So, um, I don't know. I'm hoping very soon, yeah, yeah, it should be, should be soon. But the you get free shipping, which I thought was pretty cool. Uh, and, like I said, you can if you don't get the Mark Wildman version there's like different colors of the other ones but you get a little discount if you buy in a pair.
Speaker 2:Um, so to me, I was, I was, I've really been wanting to get some competition style. I wanted to try that size, um, so I'm really excited. I really wanted two that felt the same. I could set to the same weight and work up to some like nice heavy stuff. Um, but that being said, you know, like what we said, we're kind of comparing that dumbbells and kettlebells, or dumbbells and barbells and kettlebells, All that to say, I would still at this moment probably say you know, if you are looking for hypertrophy, muscle gain or even just raw strength, I still think you know barbell is probably king for especially the strength aspect if you just want raw super heavy lifting. But I do think there's a place for all three and I think that's kind of where I'm at right now is.
Speaker 2:I'm playing around with all three of them and I'm having a lot of fun. It's very enjoyable. It's kind of almost giving me that itch that I've had back to how it was when I first started training, back when I was doing like AthleanX and stuff, where it just there's like different things. So like the days I'm using a kettlebell exclusively are like off days from heavy lifting. So I'm doing a lot of snatches and like I'll do overhead carries and I'll just like walk up and down the sidewalk in the back of my house getting out in the sun and just doing stuff like that. A bunch of swings, Like today I did a hundred swings and then I did like five laps of double overhead. I would do a double snatch and then carry it overhead down and back up and down the walkway and then I finished up with some windmills and so just I'm like playing around with it having fun Instead of just like holding myself to a strict program on those days.
Speaker 2:I'm like playing around with it having fun instead of just like holding myself to a strict program. On those days I'm having fun. And then the Monday, Wednesday, Friday I'm having like a strict program where I'm following five through one for, like I said, for the bench and overhead press um squats. I'm doing a lot of variations of squatting with uh kettlebells, Um and so, yeah, it just really at the really. At the moment I'm having a lot of fun doing that. It's feeling a lot better, my body's been feeling pretty good and I'm just having a blast with it at the moment and it's really been enjoyable. But I'm going to report back once I get these kettlebells in and see how I really like them. But I'm imagining I'm gonna be pretty satisfied with them from all the videos I've watched of them but yeah, I mean, it sounds like a high-end product.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's very nice.
Speaker 1:Certainly they're nicer than the ones that you have now, so it would be surprising if they were not Exactly.
Speaker 2:If you didn't like, using them so pretty exciting, yeah, awesome. We'll see what happens.
Speaker 1:Well, I guess we can land this plane is what we like to say. But again, if you're, if you're interested in further discussion, come find us on discord or our website, you can. You can fill out a form, send us an email if you'd rather do it the old school way. And you know what else is there to say until next time. I've been Nick, I've been Nick, I've been Stephen, we've been the working man who lifts weights and talk about it on this show, and we will catch you next time. You.
