Beginners Guide to Starting Kettlebell Training

Our Power Maxx Kettlebells have been a big hit. Some of the customers have been new to kettlebell training and have been asking what is the best way to get started. So I thought I would share with you how I learnt the ropes.

The story started when my wife was pregnant with our twins. She couldn’t lift anything after 20 weeks which was pretty tough cause our son was only 18 months. So I had to get home and help out in the afternoons. This meant I couldn’t train in the warehouse gym.

We live in a unit, so I don’t have room for a gym indoors. I had my trusty Ironmaster Quick Lock Dumbbells out on the back verandah (there is a whole story about these too!) so I started training in the back yard. There is no room for a bench, so I thought I would bring the Ironmaster Kettlebell Handle home for variety.

I had never used a kettlebell before in my life but was fortunate around that time to speak to one of our great customers Daniel from Tannum Sands. He gave me a really simple workout to get started. Now I thought he said the following:

• 25 seconds of 2 handed swings.
• 25 seconds of burpees
• 10 seconds of rest

Repeat for 15 rounds.

I can’t remember the weight exactly he said he was doing at the time, but it was approx 28kgs from memory, so I tried with well under this. I couldn’t complete half of it! I thought how on earth can this be possible. That is when I thought I may have made a mistake and not included 10 secs rest between the swings and burpees.

But I was too proud to admit that I may just be really unfit and stuck with the original program. It was a killer, but I progressed over time. Using the Ironmaster Adjustable Kettlebells was a big bonus because I could increase the weight by just 2.5lbs.

After a while I did ask Daniel if I had left out the rest and he said yes. No wonder it killed me! But I kept it as it was because it got me so fit – I worked up to the Kettlebell Handle plus 7 plates or 28.5kgs. To this day I still use this workout to guage my fitness levels.

So my recommendation is to start out with something simple like the above. Now I used trusty youtube to work out what to do. Here is a great video that shows just some of the exercises that can be done with kettlebells.

Now the channel owner prefaces this video with the following – “This is a very old video, and my technique has changed dramatically.” So watch some of his current videos for updated form.

So now that you know what you can do, and how to do it, here are some of the workouts I started with. Here is a nice and simple one – you will be blown away by the damage you can do in 6 minutes!

Here is another simple one that incorporates my favourite piece of cardio equipment . The skipping rope!

Once you have mastered the basics and what to try something more adventurous, give this one a go.

So have fun and please share any workouts that you come up with.