Permanent Strength Gains?
Tuesday, April 29th, 2008Permanent strength gains… Is it possible? I’m not even going to do any “research” on this, as I know it’s already been debated at length by smarter and more experienced people than I. I’m not talking about the absolute literal sense of the word permanent either, as nothing is permanent in this Universe anyway. What I am talking about is a phenomenon where Kettlebell Lifters seem to carry the Strength they acquire by way of the Kettlebell for a very long time. I’m talking about real Kettlebell lifters too. Not the 5 sets of 10 kettlebell crowd that “focus” on a different movement every workout every other day or so, and “feel” it’s HARDER. Give me a break! You can’t quantify results by feel. In Kettlebells we quantify by repetitions. You can’t really qualify by feel either. Yes, our Lifters generally feel better with our methods than they do following other so-called experts advice, but that’s based on empirical evidence, as MANY converts have come to our Club and now laugh at Ladders and a bunch of sets, and not surprising to us, FEEL better. I’m not talking about feel… I’m talking about lasting results, functional strength, and real world benefits.
I’ve had the unique opportunity to witness the majority of Valery Fedorenko’s training over the last few years. Never have I seen him do a workout for pure Strength. You know, max weight training or triples or 5×5 or any of that. I have however seen him test his “1 rep max”, or I should say near-max, on many lifts. I have no doubt he could be a great Strength Athlete just as he’s a great Kettlebell Sport Athlete, but what’s interesting about him is he’s been so focused on Kettlebells his whole life, that we can all use his example as a pure kettlebell example. No other Lifter, in this country at least, can be that. He may not like that I divulge this fact (for motivation of his students mainly) but Valery doesn’t have to train all that much to keep a high level of performance. I’ve seen bouts of no training from him and after a few sessions back he’s Master of Sport level or higher. I’ve said many times personally to him, you walk around without training MS don’t you? Back when his English was still developing he’d answer, “give good reason and I can do”. I learned a long time ago to not challenge him with a lift!
If used properly, Kettlebells TEACH athleticism. If used improperly they can stunt athleticism by increasing tension, or worse, wreak havoc. They can develop speed, power, explosiveness, endurance, precision, balance and all kinds of other attributes athletes desire, including pure strength, but you have to understand how this is done with this particular tool. Method is everything! Valery never claims to be a strong guy, but the carryover from kettlebells is obviously impressive. His focus has been “Strength-Endurance” which is uniquely developed by the kettlebell. I mean, how many people do you know that can run a Marathon and put a 150 pound dumbbell overhead without specific training for either? What’s disturbing is ad-copy written by “Kettlebell Gurus” in the Industry don’t tell you it’s not their methods that realize this potential. Investor Beware, right? The problem is it’s your career, your health, your life and well-being that you are investing in. Read the ad-copy, rationalize what they say, observe what their students can do, and most importantly, check their background.
Eric Liford, Editor
World Kettlebell Club
