Kettlebell Lifting King?
I will start out somewhat differently. As a Handball Player in a country where high-level fitness does not get its due attention, I started looking for ways to bring my body to its maximum performance capacity. I was lucky, or maybe even unlucky. I didn’t show much promise for Handball as a young player, although my fitness always stood out from the rest. However, once I got to the professional level, shortcomings began to show. The fact is, we were all training in the same way.
This took me to search for new training methods, methods previously unknown in Slovenia. I discovered kettlebells. I spent quite a long time using them as classical weights, multiple sets of relatively low reps, be it snatch, squat, press, jerk and all the rest. The only exercise I managed to put together a higher number of reps in was the snatch, and even that wasn’t really down to my own will, but rather due to some senseless tests.
Since I first heard of Kettlebell Lifting, I’ve heard thousands of different bits information, read and wrote just as many articles, bought any magazine, DVD and book I could find, as long as they included kettlebells. People were coming up with all sorts of combinations of workouts and exercises, although these were not much different from the ones I already knew from Sports, Athletics, and the Professional Gyms and Trainers I had access to.
It came to my attention that the first Kettlebell Lifting seminar in Europe would be hosted by Honoured Master of Sport Valery Fedorenko. At the time, I used the abbreviation GS to refer to Kettlebell Lifting. In fact, a lot of people use that abbreviation to refer to Kettlebell Sport, but Coach Fedorenko just calls it all Kettlebell Lifting whether it’s 1 heavy rep or 1000′s of them. Once I saw Valery’s results and achievements, I was in a dilemma. OK, so he’s got endurance, but is he strong too? I saw clips where Valery did 132 jerks with two 32kg kettlebells. I managed to do 5 with two 40kg ones. So that means I’m stronger, while he has more endurance. That was my conclusion. All the same, my friends from throughout Europe managed to convince me to come anyway.
As the seminar was taking place in a coastal town in Greece during the summer, I thought to myself that I might as well take a vacation and throw in the seminar for good measure. Why not heal in the natural volcanic springs?
Loutraki is a wonderful place. Sun, sand and sea. The seminar wasn’t held in Loutraki, but rather in a gym a few miles out of town somewhere between there and Athens. Entering the gym, I found myself breathless for the first time in my life. I’ve seen over a thousand gyms, halls and training centres, but this was truly crazy. A large space, no training machines, no treadmills, elastic bands, coloured dumbbells and similar commercial accessories.
All you could see were kettlebells, Olympic bars, lifting platforms and an arm-wrestling stand. Looking across the hall, I saw that the participants were physically all in better shape than the Greek demonstrators, which made me think that this could be yet another commercial trick. Valery was far from a big man, like I expected him to be, while the Greek teenagers did far from impress me either.
Valery demonstrated all exercises by using a 24 kg kettlebell. He carried out each exercise in a 5 minute set, so I was really beginning to ask myself whether I belong there. From attending previous seminars, I was used to having 200-lb guys who would lift 40 kg as if it were a piece of paper.
And when Valery called over this kid who looked half-asleep, unshaved, wearing torn jeans and sandals, I thought I had seen enough. But when that kid, weighing roughly 75 kg, lifted a 90kg (200 pounds) kettlebell above his head seven times, I had to do some thinking. I always thought of myself as a strong guy, but I weighed at least 20kg more than the kid at the time, and he managed to lift with one arm something I probably couldn’t manage with two.
I admit that this was my wake-up call and I started listening, writing down every word and starting to look differently on Valery, his coach and the other guys (read: young students) in the gym.
Of course I had to go and try to lift those 90kg’s myself, but I couldn’t even get it up to shoulder height. So I tried a 70kg kettlebell. I managed to get it up to shoulder height, but that was as far as it would go.
I must admit that I am a hard man to convince, and my ego doesn’t allow someone else to beat me in something, but right there and then, I realized that I was a weakling compared to the athletes training according to the World Kettlebell Club methods.
I spent the whole ride back to the hotel thinking about it. My hands were completely covered in blood, as I wanted to make a good impression on the guys who were teaching me. I don’t know whether I succeeded or not. All I know is that I went down to the beach and spent 4 hours explaining to my girlfriend how crazy it is, what kind of results these guys had, how much they can lift etc.
Of course it takes more than one seminar to learn kettlebell lifting. It took me more than a year to understand what to do and how it is done.
Now ask yourself: If kettlebell lifting convinced me to achieve better results first in handball and then in kettlebell lifting itself by applying the WKC methods of training, then kettlebell fitness is surely a step ahead of conventional fitness, right?
Returning from Greece, I told myself that I would be back. Now I have an opportunity to do so. Take one of these courses yourself and learn one of the simplest and most useful forms of exercise in the world from the best in the world.
I once used a little word play during an interview for a radio station by saying that if Athletics is the Queen of Sports, then Kettlebell Lifting is certainly King.
The decision is yours.
Sincerely,
Gregor Sobočan
You can check out some amazing videos from Greece through the following links:
1-arm Jerk with 200lb. Kettlebell
Proper Breathing Technique for Kettlebells
The “Greek” Kettlebell Club Experience
1-arm Jerk with 136lb. Kettlebell
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Coach Sobočan has since been named Head Coach of Slovenian Kettlebell Club and has retired from Professional Handball to pursue the Sport of Kettlebell Lifting. From a small country he teaches Kettlebell Lifting in the largest Kettlebell Gym in Europe, and travels all over the World doing Seminars on Kettlebell Lifting. Not bad progress for a little bit more than a year after the first European KB Lifting Seminar!