Warrior Fitness

5 Reasons to NOT Train with Me

Jon — Thu, 23 May 2013 15:16:34 +0000

A bit tongue in cheek, but here are 5 excellent reasons why you should NOT train with me:

1) If the price of your gym membership is the only deciding factor in where you train, please go to a commercial gym.

2) If you do not care about ever achieving your fitness goals or getting results from your training, please go to a commercial gym.

3) If you do not appreciate hands-on instruction and lots of personal attention and accountability, please go to a commercial gym.

4) If you do not care about learning correct movement, form, and exercise technique, please go to a commercial gym.

5) If you have no interest in experiencing the powerful results conferred by properly designed training programs based on years of experience and learning, please go to a commercial gym.

5.5) If you are perfectly content with being mediocre and never, ever challenging yourself or pushing your limits, please go to a commercial gym

If however, none of the above fit or describe you in the slightest, than I implore you to experience the difference here at Warrior Fitness Gym and come train with me.

What Business Am I In?

Jon — Tue, 21 May 2013 00:31:30 +0000

The text for this post came from a speech I gave last week to my BNI (networking) Group…

You may think you know and understand the business I am in, being that I own a gym. Perhaps you think I am in the business of helping people lose weight, or get in shape (whatever that means). Or, maybe the business of helping people get stronger or improve athletic performance. You would be wrong. Certainly those things are components of what I do, but they are not the complete picture.

Without stepping on the toes of my friends in the financial planning and life insurance industries, I will unapologetically tell you I am in the business of Long Term Care. How can I say that?

Fat loss, muscle gain, increases in flexibility, mobility, and performance are not end goals, in and of themselves. They are ALL merely byproducts of better movement. Whether you are an athlete, martial artists, soccer mom, or business man, and everyone in between, better movement will always equate to better performance, better body composition, and better health.

Exercise Improves Life

Exercise improves all facets of life. People who exercise regularly are better at their jobs, kids do better in school, they get sick less often, and in general have much higher levels of energy and health. Exercise does not just improve your biceps, it improves your brain. That pump you feel in the muscle when doing a curl is caused by blood flow. That blood flow is not isolated, that is physiologically impossible – it increases all throughout the body, including the brain. Think about this – your head is roughly 1/8 of your entire body. If you simply sit at a desk and work with your mind all day long, no matter how smart and productive you may be, you are only using approximately 1/8^th of your entire potential. Descarte was wrong – the mind is not separate from the body.

I say I am in the business of long term care because I teach you much more than mere fitness. I teach you how to train for life. People do not stop moving because they get old. They get old because they stop moving!

Warrior Fitness is not a set of disparate parts cobbled together, but a system based on my life long experience as a physical culturist. To be able to recreate what I have put into it, you would have to study Japanese, Chinese, and Russian martial arts, strength training, bodyweight exercise, Kettlebell training, oldtime strong man training, sports science, yoga, qigong, etc…

I have put in all the work; done all the research, experimented with the protocols and the programming. I have given my clients, both locally here at Warrior Fitness Gym, and worldwide the product of it all– a fully developed, cohesive system of training the body, mind, and spirit for health, fitness, and performance – Warrior Fitness

Fitness Dangers for Bujinkan Students

Jon — Tue, 14 May 2013 13:37:25 +0000

Martial artists need to be extremely cautious when choosing a fitness program to compliment their training. While the right program can support, enhance, and protect budo practice, the wrong one can just as easily derail it.

Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu relies on relaxed, whole-body power devoid of excess muscular tension to properly execute its techniques.

Think about this – each and every action you repeat over and over again encodes in your nervous system and creates change in your body, no matter how you value that change. Meaning that if you want to train yourself to move softly, subtly, and with relaxed power for your martial art practice yet you perform high tension power lifting exercises at the gym, guess what gets carried over to your budo? Yup. Too much tension.

If you are working towards using your whole body as a unit in budo practice so that when one thing moves, everything moves (can you do this?), but you perform bodybuilding style splits and isolation exercises in your strength training, what do you think happens to your functional integration? Yup. Bye-bye.

The critical thing to note here is that, as stated above, every action you do, no matter what your opinion of that action is, has an affect on your nervous system. When 2 actions compete, both lose out.

Shouldn’t your supplementary training and fitness support and enhance your main goal of becoming a more proficient martial artist? If it doesn’t, you might want to ask yourself what is more important to you? These are tough questions for a life long, committed budoka to wrestle with – trust me! I know. I walk a thin line in my training every day. But I made my choice long ago… You see, I love fitness, but budo is in my blood.

So when you go looking for a strength and conditioning program to support and protect your martial arts practice, remember something – I have been there, done that, and got the tshirt (several, actually).

The research has been done. The exercises, protocols, and programs have been rigorously tested. The results are in. I have created several Done For You programs that I KNOW will change your Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu practice for the better. As a 20+ year veteran of the Bujinkan (I started training in 1989), I have put together these programs for you – Bujinkan students and teachers alike. It’s all here.

Who is This Program for Anyway?

Jon — Fri, 10 May 2013 13:33:52 +0000

It recently came to my attention (yesterday, as a matter of fact) that several people are under the impression that my Evolve Your Breathing program is only meant for a small demographic of the population, ie – male martial artists.

Correct me if I’m wrong here, but the last time I checked 100%, that means ALL, of the population breathes – am I right?

So why would someone assume that a program on breathing exercises for health, wellness,performance, and stress management, applies to just a limited segment of the population?

Let me help – No matter who you are and what sort of activity, sport, or martial art (or none) you are engaged in, your breathing is an essential, and I mean critically essential, component of that activity.

Want to make it better? Get Evolve Your Breathing. Period.

30 Day Money Back Guarantee

To make this an even easier decision, I am so sure that EYB will increase your energy levels, improve your response to stress, and speed your workout recovery that I am offering a 30 day money back guarantee.
Try Evolve Your Breathing for 30 days and if you don’t like it, I will give you 100% of your money back no questions asked. (well, I might ask one question, like – did you actually try it???)

Take the Evolve Your Breathing 30 Day Challenge today!

PS – You can also get Evolve Your Breathing at 50% off the regular price when you purchase it as part of one of my Budo Packs!

My Heavy Metal Strength Meditation Part 4

Jon — Mon, 06 May 2013 11:03:19 +0000

Guest blog post by Eric Guttmann, U.S. Navy Officer, Author, Fitness Enthusiast and More!

My Heavy Metal Strength Meditation Part 4 – THE RESULTS: Leaner, Stronger, Faster.

For 8 weeks prior to my Navy Physical Readiness Test (PRT) I developed a program focused exclusively on Tire Flipping. If you have been following these articles then you know that the main goal was to achieve 100 consecutive tire flips with the 300lb tire with an emphasis on tying the breath to the movement. I will now report on the results that this type of training had on my body and performance as measured by the U.S. Navy.

The Navy’s Physical Readiness Test (PRT) is a two part process that is now called the Physical Fitness Assessment (PFA). The first part, conducted 1-2 days prior to the physical test measures your height & weight and compares it to a chart that determines if you are within Navy standards. If you are overweight then you get your bodyfat measured by a tape measure test. They measure your waist and neck circumference and plug it into a chart with your height and weight that spits out an approximate bodyfat percentage. Males need to be under 22% bodyfat to pass this assessment and be “within standards.” If you score higher than 22% then you FAILED the PFA.

Because of my bodybuilding and strength workouts I have ALWAYS been over the “magical” weight for my height in the last 17 years of military service and have gotten used to getting my bodyfat measured at every PFA. Here is what happened at this PFA. For the first time in 17 years I actually dropped below 215lbs, my exact weight was 211.4lbs. I did not alter my diet at all, in fact my diet was a little off because I have been eating a lot of Cuban food in Miami and when I take my kids out to eat I would be eating ice cream and desserts with them. I do make an effort to eat “clean” 80% of the time. The only thing I did different was the physical training. So it seems that extended tire flipping, which for this article means 100 consecutive tire flips, is a weight loss mechanism. Judging by the way my abs and obliques were more defined I would also forward that it is a fat-loss mechanism.

Now here is the really interesting part. I mentioned that as part of my regimen I added gravity boots. Hanging upside down helps to decompress the spine and provides extra blood flow to the head. For the last 17 years my height has always been the same, 73 inches. When they measured me my height was a little over 73 inches and I heard the Petty Officer who took my measurement say “he is over 73 inches so mark down 74.” This means I was probably ½ inch taller for them to round up. This really blew me away! You hear of people shrinking with age, but have you ever heard of anyone adding a little height to their frame? This for me is confirmation that the gravity boots add an important component to recovery, spine health, and longevity!

Armed with my two official measurement of 211.4lbs and 74 inches the Petty Officers administering the PFA go to the “magical” Navy chart that determines if I am within “standards” and lo and behold for the first time in 17 years I did not need to do the tape measure test! Thus, tire flipping and gravity boots have the capacity to alter the body by making it leaner and taller, but let’s see what happens when you are tested physically…

The Navy PRT consists of two minutes of sit-ups, two minutes of pushups, and a 1.5 mile run for time. There is a chart that determines your score based on the number of repetitions for your age and gender. There is a max number which means you “aced” the test. For a 39 year old male (that would be ME) my max scores were 95 situps and 76 pushups. I achieved the 95 situps and 76 pushups with ease. I did not do a single situp or pushup in the previous 8 weeks. I DID do Dru Patrick’s Last Man Standing drill to train my core on my recovery day. Now, the really interesting thing happened with the run.

I do occasional sprint workouts when I get into a groove, but I checked my training journals and had not done any type of running or sprinting for six months. In other words, the last time I ran was my previous PRT. Since I do not like running, what I do at the PRT is find a guy with a pace I like and just trail in behind him. The key is to pick the right pace, too slow and you feel antsy, too fast and you will get smoked before your time. This time I decided to follow the beat of my own drum and just concentrate on my breathing, just like I do when I do the tire flipping. While the breath pattern was different the idea was the same – use the breathing discipline I developed through tire flipping and apply it to the run. I ended up doing a “weird” pattern almost intuitively that was: inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, and 4 short exhales. I felt that the key was in removing the excess waste products and that is what the 4 short exhales at the end of the breathing cycle sought to accomplish.

Keeping the breathing pattern up for the first mile was easy, but after that I noticed that I wanted to change it. Here is where the discipline kicked in and I forced myself to keep the pattern. Lo and behold to my surprise I ran it in 11:45, 30 seconds FASTER than my previous runs! It was also the first time in 5 years that I ran the test in under 12 minutes! While part of it may be due to being a little lighter, a lot had to do with the breathing discipline and conditioning developed through tire flipping.

In conclusion, the Heavy Metal Strength Meditation was a success! I dropped 4 lbs of weight and you could make the case that most of it was fat loss, I increased my height, I “maxed” the situps and pushups with ease without training those specific exercises, and I ran the best run I have had in five years. In case you are curious and want to try it here is the curriculum I followed: My Heavy Metal Strength Meditation Part 3

Very respectfully,
Eric Guttmann

PS As you can see joint mobility is an integral part of the recovery day, to get my FULL Mobility program click HERE:

If flipping a 300lb tire 100 consecutive times is a little out of your league right now then get in combat ready shape using Extreme Military Fitness by clicking HERE and after the 12 weeks you will be primed and ready to tackle on the Heavy Metal Strength Meditation:

If you like the energy in these articles then get Listen Up and read 1-5 pages in the morning to put you in the right mindset to tackle on any task or life change you want to accomplish, whether it be physical, mental, financial, or lifestyle.

Read Eric’s complete bio HERE

How I Healed My Neck with Mobility & Breathing

Jon — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 12:17:52 +0000

Several years ago, back in about 2004, I severely injured my neck. At the time it happened, it didn’t feel too bad. I thought it was something I would just shake off and keep going. However, when I woke up the following morning, I realized I was in severe pain and couldn’t move my neck. After panic subsided and I managed to crawl out of bed into a hot shower, I figured the warm water would loosen it up and I’d be fine. The hot water provided some initial relief, which allowed me to begin to move slightly, but not by much.

Fast forward to later that day at the doctor’s office. She examined my neck, checked my range of motion (which was non-existent!) and then prescribed muscle relaxants and talked about surgery. Surgery? Drugs? Ummm… no thank you!

Back at home, lying in my bed feeling sorry for myself, I began to think about how I could start to help myself and heal my own neck. I began to work on mobility far from the source of my pain. Starting with the fingers and hands, I worked my way up my arms and into the elbows. Since this felt okay, I tried the shoulders. That hurt. So I backed off. Again and again just working shallow range of motion on the rest of my body until I could reach, and begin to move the neck. Each time I was able to do a little more, go a bit farther.

When I was finall able to work into my neck, these are the exercises I did:

This was not an instantaneous process by far, but gradually, bit by bit, day by day, and week by week, I was able to increase the range of motion and decrease the pain. Eventually, I was able to completely restore the full, pain free mobility back to my entire body.

In the video above, I also mention some breathing exercises I did along with mobility to help heal myself. The main exercise is quite simple, yet extraordinarily powerful. Using your mind to locate the source of pain, inhale directly into the pain. Visualize the breath bringing healing energy into the area. Then exhale from the pain. Visualize your breath pulling the pain out of the body and expelling it. Repeat until you feel the pain begin to decrease and the area feel warm and energized.

If you would like to learn more about healing yourself with mobility and breathing, here are the excellent resources I highly recommend:

Evolve Your Breathing

Moving Freely for Life

How to Feel Like a Billion Dollars

Warrior Podcast with Eric Guttmann

Jon — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 11:44:00 +0000

In an effort to provide you, my dear readers, with the best information out there on strength, health, fitness, and martial arts, I am interviewing top coaches, professionals, martial arts masters, and ordinary people who do extraordinary things.

Today I have an interview with Eric Guttman that is jam packed with information, stories, humor, and great advice on a wide range of health and fitness topics!

Eric Guttmann Interview

In Part 1 of this interview, Eric discusses:

Combat Krav Maga
The history and origins of his Extreme Military Fitness Program
How he became enamored with joint mobility and it’s fountain of youth benefits
Tire flipping and strength meditation
Longevity and the will
Tons more!

Eric’s courses on Extreme Military Fitness and Moving Freely For Life are must haves for any serious warrior!

I highly recommend both of them!

As you heard at the end of our call today, there is still much, much more to discuss! We will be doing a part 2, part 3, and more to bring you all the awesome information from Eric Guttmann that we can squeeze out of him!

So, if you have any specific questions for Eric or topics you’d like him to cover, please drop a comment below and let me know!

Traditional Martial Artists of the World – UNITE!

Jon — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 10:56:29 +0000

Traditional martial arts all have a long history of intense, sometimes downright brutal, physical training to forge the warrior’s combative body, mindset, and spirit. This training has, up until very recently in history, never been optional. If you did not have the strength of will to endure it and push through then you simply did not make the cut and were not taught higher level skills. Not that you would be considered somehow unworthy or anything silly like that, but you would be thought physically incapable and therefore not worth the teacher’s time to train you. Each school of martial art had its own type of tanren or forging process to harden the aspiring martial student.

For too many years Traditional Martial Arts (TMA) have hidden behind a mystique of their techniques being “too deadly” and the false pretense of belief that technical prowess alone is enough to survive a combative engagement. Unfit black belt “masters” with chi bellies spilling over their gi pants, obscuring the view of their shoes have unwittingly tarnished the proud and hard earned reputation of real TMA.

On the other hand, Modern Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) with its willingness to experiment, innovate, create, train strength and conditioning alongside technical skills, and to put it all on the line is rapidly pushing past TMA in not only popularity, but also respect. MMA athletes train extremely hard, constantly challenge their own limitations, and physically prepare the body for combat in the ring or the cage. They take their preparation very seriously because they know that the more you sweat in training the less you bleed in battle. Technical skill is not enough. Often it is the better conditioned warrior who wins the match.

Ancient Techniques – Modern Applications

What the majority of MMA athletes, fans, and devotees out there may not realize however is this simple fact: all of the techniques used in MMA today have their origin in the traditional martial arts. Brazilian Jujitsu, arguably one of the most popular and respected of the mixed martial arts today, is derived from Japanese Judo. Judo, a sport in its own right, was developed by Jigaro Kano from traditional Japanese Jujutsu. These techniques are not new. They are not original and they are not unique. They have been used in life and death combat since the dawn of time and were organized, systematized, and put together over the centuries by the founders of Traditional Martial Arts. So what is the disconnect here? What happened to TMA along the way why are we the laughing stock and the butt of so many jokes when once we were warriors?

In my opinion, it began when teachers of the traditional martial arts started systematically removing physical preparation standards from the curriculum. Technique alone is not enough. They can never be “too deadly for combat” when the trainee does not possess the physical ability to fight his way out of a wet paper bag, much less apply a martial technique on a resisting opponent. Physical training serves as the platform for all higher level skill development in the martial arts. By removing this platform modern TMA has severely weakened itself, and by default, all of its students and teachers alike. Without this type of intense training and focus on the foundational physical preparatory work of the art you cannot do the higher level training. Or, perhaps a more accurate way to state this is that you can mimic or imitate the higher level skills at a superficial level, but you do not own them because your training castle has been built upon a foundation of sand.

Martial arts are physical pursuits

As Masaaki Hatsumi, Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu Soke, is fond of saying, “Budo is not an academic subject!”

Severe physical training not only serves to prepare the warrior physically, but acts as a bridge connecting the physical body to the mental and the spiritual. As the body is pushed harder, beyond the perceived physical limits, the warrior directly engages and develops spiritual strength.

The first step in bringing high quality fitness training back to Traditional Martial Arts is here…

My Heavy Metal Strength Meditation Part 3

Jon — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 11:52:11 +0000

Guest blog post by Eric Guttmann, U.S. Navy Officer, Author, Fitness Enthusiast and More!

My Heavy Metal Strength Meditation Part 3 – How I trained to achieve 100 consecutive tire flips

It is amazing what the MIND and body can do when you focus on ONE thing to develop. As I have written in the previous two articles in these series, the goal of this strength meditation was to accomplish 100 consecutive tire flips with a 300lb tire. Six weeks after beginning this journey I performed 100 tire flips in 9:55. I relayed this to my friend Bud Jeffries and he asked me if that was my best time. I said no, that it was my FIRST time and that I purposely was not trying to go fast, rather I wanted to build a steady pace tied in to the breathing, like a meditation. Funny thing is, that once an IDEA gets in your consciousness it starts to get internalized and metabolized.

So the next time I did 100 consecutive tire flips I did it in 7:20. That means I shaved 2:35 by changing the intensity. I did notice that I shortened the movements and at one point matching the breath to movements was out the window. After the 75^th rep it started to SUCK as I thought to myself “now, why did I have to listen to Bud Jeffries?!?” The funny thing is that after rep 84 my body started to adapt and I got a second wind.

It did not feel like I went that much faster than the first time. I thought only 30-45 seconds had been shaved from my previous time. When I looked at the stopwatch I was quite amazed. I will now relay how I went from doing 50 tire flips and having to stop because my forearms were fried to doing 100 consecutive tire flips feeling GREAT!

I decided to adapt a twice a week training regimen to allow for maximum recovery. This is an idea I got from champion Dru Patrick. I trained Monday and Thursdays. On Mondays I started doing a consecutive flip workout starting at 50 and increasing reps every Monday. I would do them with an emphasis of tying the breath to the movement and having this connection determine the SPEED at which I would move. When I could not do another rep in good form or when my forearms started to fry I would stop, that’s it, done deal. This could be considered the aerobic day.

On Thursdays I would always do 100 reps and I would do this in 20 sets of 5 reps done as explosively as I could. Five explosions, walk over to my training notebook and cross off one of the 20 tick marks I had previously written then walk back to the tire s-l-o-w-l-y and do another five explosion until I had finished my 100. This is definitely an anaerobic day.

You see, you can all probably do 100 tire flips NOW if your forearms are conditioned, as long as you break it up into sets of five and add rest. It is quite another thing to do them continuously.

I also added a third training day which I called a “recovery day” where I would tear two packs of cards, perform Dru Patrick’s “last man standing” drill which, my FULL mobility routine, hang upside down with my gravity boots, foam rolling with the “rumble roller” and if I had time left over, light stretching.

Card tearing is a great way to train your forearms. I call it “the $1.00 workout.” You simply go to the dollar store and buy a two-pack of cards. I have Noah Jeffries to thank for this. Once Bud dropped him over so I could show him some Naval Bases in the Jacksonville , FL area and when we got back he showed me how to tear cards. The funny thing was that when I saw him do it in front of me I did it pretty quick. When I started doing it on my own it would take me almost three minutes at first. The last one I did in 18 seconds, so you definitely improve over time and I feel it is one of the few bending/tearing feats that actually has a regenerative effect in your forearms and fingers… and it’s FUN!

Eric card tearing

During the last Super Human Workshop someone asked Dru what he did to train his core. He laughed as he said we would all get to experience the “last man standing” drill. He told us that 90% of the people he trained where unable to finish it. It consisted of:

Side Plank (right) – 1min
Front Plank – 1 min
Side Plank (left) – 1 min

Dru was impressed that everyone at the Super Human Workshop achieved the tree minute mark and we even had some guys go up to 15 minutes! If three minutes was the “standard” then I decided six minutes to train my core would be MY standard to keep in line with the 100 tire flip mentality. After all, it IS a MINDSET!

Next comes my FULL Mobility which is extremely important for recuperation. Every morning I put special emphasis on mobilizing my spine as you will FEEL the effects of tire flipping the next day, specially since you are using the body as one unit. You are creating a wave from the ground to the arms and the spine is the carrier in the transmission of force. Also, every time you increase the reps you get that “whole body tired” feeling the next day. Achieving FULL Mobility in the mornings was HUGE for my recovery and to allow me to keep IMPROVING. I decided to add an extra mobility session on Tuesdays because it speeds recovery and makes you FEEL GREAT!

You can get my FULL Mobility course here:

To further decompress the spine I started using gravity boots. I started with 3 sets of 1 minute and now I am up to 3 sets of 4 minutes. It truly is a hanging meditation. The first week I felt a little bit of discomfort, but it quickly went away. The first time I did 3 sets of 4 minutes I actually felt TALLER when I finished!

Foam rolling and stretching help with rejuvenating the muscles and in aiding to remove waste products so you recover faster.

So in summary, here is the training program to do 100 consecutive tire flips:

Mondays – Test day: do as many consecutive tire flips as possible
Tuesday – “Recovery Workout”
1. Card Tearing x 2
2. “Last Man Standing”
3. FULL Mobility program
4. Gravity Boots
5. Rumble Roller
6. Stretching
Thursdays – 100 Explosive Tire Flips done in 20 sets of 5 reps

There you have it. It took me six weeks to accomplish this goal with this training program. Try it out yourself and let me know what insights and training states of Nirvana you accomplish with the “Heavy Metal Strength Meditation.”

All my best,
Eric Guttmann

P.S. If you feel that the 100 tire flipping extravaganza is a little too much for you right now, then get Extreme Military Fitness so you can build the base and be strong and conditioned enough to successfully tackle the Heavy Metal Strength Meditation.

You can get Extreme Military Fitness here:

If you want to increase your motivation to perform any change in your life and get your mental and volitional “muscles” conditioned, then get Listen Up! and read a couple of pages in the morning before you start your day to get in the right mindset, because it is all about MINDSET!

You can get Listen Up! here:

Read Eric’s complete bio HERE

10 Reasons I Love Kettlebells by Logan Christopher

Jon — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 12:51:47 +0000

I want to share with you all the reasons that I love training with kettlebells.

1 – They’re Different

Back when I first tried a kettlebell I was pretty much a bodyweight only guy. I had been led to believe that “weights didn’t build functional strength”. The thing that led me to believe this was when I worked out in a gym I didn’t get much in the way of results, but when I switched 100% to bodyweight training I started making real gains. Now I know that it wasn’t the weights themselves that caused my lack of gains, but how I was training.

Although as they become more popular, kettlebells are being watered down in many ways. Still, by and large, if you get into kettlebell training, you’re likely going to be doing something very different from “conventional fitness”. This difference is a good thing because most people quite simply don’t get the results they want, and when that happens something different is necessary.

2 – They’re Fun

On a related subject, and this one is certainly open to interpretation, the training that is done with kettlebells tends to be more fun then “conventional fitness”. I don’t know about you but I’d rather swing, press and snatch a kettlebell then run on a treadmill or do a spin class.

This isn’t to say that it’s not going to be hard work, but still a lot more fun can be had in your training with kettlebells.

3 – Quick, Efficient Workouts

With a kettlebell you can do a full body workout that builds both strength and conditioning in 10 to 30 minutes. You don’t need to spend a lot of time on it. Just the other week Forest Vance gave me a challenge workout that he puts a lot of his clients through.

For men with a 24kg kettlebell (of course this can be modified up or down)

2 Clean and Presses each arm
4 Snatches each arm
12 Goblet Squats
16 Alternating Swings

This is one round and you repeat for 5. Try to get it under 5 minutes and you’ll know what a quick, efficient workout is.

4 – Great for Building Explosive Conditioning

Although kettlebells can certainly be used for strength building, doing many exercises just like you’d do with a dumbbell, the true beauty of kettlebells comes in doing higher repetition stuff. They’re built for increasing your work capacity. They are used in explosive ways over and over again. Just try a snatch test and you’ll see.

5 – Kettlebell Snatch Test

The kettlebell snatch is one of my favorite exercises, which is why I pursued it to such a high level. There are some different versions of this test. Typically its 10 minutes long, but that can be changed. In one version you can only switch hands one time. In another version multiple hand switches are allowed. Both are brutal although in different ways.

It’s a phenomenal test of both your technique in the movement and your conditioning ability. When you can put a bell overhead more than 200 times in ten minutes you’re doing pretty well.

6 – Grip Strength

Swinging and snatching kettlebells will work your hands quite well. Depending on the kettlebell you have you’ll likely find a thicker handle than a barbell or dumbbell has, which will build up this often neglected part in your body.

If you want to take it to another level try the various “bottoms up” exercises that can be done with a kettlebell like the clean and press. Instead of the ball of the kettlebell resting against your forearm it will be inverted and you’ll be gripping the handle hard to keep the bell balanced.

7 – The Swing

You can’t really talk about the kettlebell without talking about the swing. All the ballistics are built off of it. Plus this by itself can be pursued to a super high level. My friend Bud Jeffries lost over 100 lbs. with training built primarily around the swing, while working up to workouts that involved 1000’s of reps.

It can also be made really heavy which is a great athletic power builder.

8 – Jump Higher and Longer

I was not born athletic. It was only through my training that I was made so. One benefit I’ve found from all the kettlebell ballistic exercises is that it transfers over to jumping. I’ve done some gymnastics myself and one move I was really happy to achieve was the back flip. Now my technique for this move isn’t that great. I hardly tuck at all. But I can jump quite high so that I don’t need to tuck very hard. When I tested it my standing long jump was quite good, for never work specifically on long jumping.

9 – All in One Gym

If you have just one kettlebell you can get a great workout with it. Depending on the size you’ll have to change up your exercise selection but it doesn’t matter if its light or heavy, you can train with it. Of course, a wide selection of kettlebells just improves your options, but you only need one. With it you can build strength, endurance, flexibility, coordination and even more.

You learn how to train with kettlebells and your bodyweight and you can go very far. I believe there are distinct benefits from using other tools like barbells and many more, but if I had to choose just two it would be bodyweight training and kettlebells.

10 – Kettlebell Juggling

I saved the best for last. In my opinion kettlebell juggling gives you the best of just about everything above and it’s the most fun training I’ve ever come across. Now its not actual juggling, as in throwing three balls or clubs from hand to hand. Instead it’s the flipping, spinning, and catching of (usually) a single kettlebell.

This builds strength, conditioning, coordination, and grip all at once. As you improve in your skills you’ll also have tons of fun. It needs to be practiced outside in a safe area because you will drop it but other than that there is no reason not to give it a try.

So there you have it. There are even more reasons than this to use kettlebells, and if you read this far its likely you’ve already got your own. But I hope I’ve given you a few new ideas of things to try the next time you use them.

Logan Christopher has been called a Physical Culture Renaissance Man for doing many different things in the world of strength. Some of his most famous feats include pulling a firetruck by his hair and juggling a kettlebell that was on fire. His average training is a combination of hand balancing, gymnastic skills, kettlebells, heavy weight lifting and more. He especially likes to focus on the mental training needed to regularly perform at a peak level. You can find more about him at www.LegendaryStrength.com