Even though they look a bit odd, there are a number of reasons you should use kettlebells. Kettlebells were originally used in Russia to provide a means of weighing crops. As with many different farming tasks, they became part of the contests at festivals, with farmers showing off their strength by lifting them. Eventually the Russian military realized how beneficial they were for training and used them, followed by fitness enthusiasts in the US in the 60s. Today, there are certification programs for instructors to teach kettlebell training.
Kettlebells give overall body training.
You’ll not only get your blood flowing and build your strength and endurance, you’ll work out your cardiovascular system too. The odd shape of the kettlebell makes your moves more challenging than they would be with a dumbbell. The weight is unevenly distributed, so it makes your stabilizer muscles work far harder than they would with ordinary dumbbells. You’ll be building both strength and endurance when working with kettlebells and exercising many different muscles at the same time.
Kettlebells cut your time in the gym.
Since you’re working multiple groups of muscles at once, you won’t spend extra time focusing on each muscle group. Instead, you’ll cut your time in half by working several groups at once and also working on endurance and cardio at the same time. You’ll not only build strength, you’ll also build flexibility and increase your range of motion, which helps prevent injury, making workouts safer. Kettlebells provide both anaerobic and aerobic exercise at the same time. They work the muscles to create a synergistic movement.
Kettlebells burn calories faster, making weight loss quicker.
You’ll be amazed at just how fast you’ll lose weight when you exercise with kettlebells. Kettlebells burn an average of 20 calories every minute you exercise. That’s a whopping 1,200 calories every hour. Jogging at 6 miles per hour burns approximately 700 calories. Tennis burns 450 calories per hour and rock climbing almost 700. As you can probably tell, kettlebells lead the pack. In fact, it burns over twice the number of calories as swimming.
You’ll increase your strength but you won’t develop big muscles with kettlebells. Kettlebells build leaner muscle mass with less bulk, which appeals to both sexes.
A kettlebell workout improves your functional fitness so you can perform everyday tasks better and reduce the potential for injury.
Kettlebell workouts help improve posture.
You’ll be amazed when you see how a kettlebell swing not only works on building your abdominal muscles to flatten your stomach, but also works on your glutes to lift your buttocks at the same time.