At least that’s what I like to call it. I hadn’t even heard of a kettlebell until I saw them at the gym at the college I go to. Since I’ve started working out with them I have pretty much stopped all other weight training. Kettlebell workouts are great for working your core and for cardio as well. Overall strength is what kettlebells excel at. Getting a feel for how kettlebells are properly used is hard to discern by reading it off a website page so this video should help you understand how they are used. I do not own this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFHMwVUjubo

Now that you know understand how they are used, lets get to a good workout. The weight of the kettlebell you should use will depend on your weight and your fitness level. I am 6’1” 195 lbs and I use a 50lb kettlebell. I do not recommend using one this heavy right off the bat. Familiarize yourself with them first and move your way up as you feel comfortable. Keep in mind with the kettlebell, the options are endless for the workouts you can do. Experiment. Be creative and find what fits your style and helps improves your PFT numbers the fastest.
Here is an example of a kettlebell exercise I do.

50 sit ups
50 kettlebell snatches
25 push ups
50 kettlebell burpees
50 mountain climbers
50 kettlebell swings

I like to alternate “normal” exercises (situps, pushps, and mountain climbers) with the kettlebell exercises, but that is just my preference. Again, what I love so much about these balls of iron is that there is no one way you have to use them. My exercise above is simply an example of the endless ways they can be used. If you have access to a gym that has these then I recommend you go and try them out. If they don’t have them at the gym then adapt, achieve and overcome! Find a way! They are that worth it!

• Find a grip that is comfortable for you, you can do palms facing out, palms facing in, hands close together, or far apart, find what works best for you.

• Tilt your head back so that your chin extends into the air, since only your chin must pass the bar for the rep to be counted you can reduce the distance your need to travel by doing this

• Drop down quickly into the dead hang position, the longer it takes to go return to the bottom, the more energy your wasting.  Also minimize the amount of time you spend hanging, as this burns energy as well.

• Don’t forget to breathe; breathe in on your way down, and then push out the air on your way up, as with any exercise proper breathing will help you a lot.

• Try switching grips; you are allowed to change your grip on the bar as long as you don’t touch the ground, so if you find you cant do any more, give it a try, its a good way to add on 1 or 2 pullups right way.

• The picture below gives you a good idea of what your hand should look like on the bar, the position of the thumb does make a notable difference so if your doing it like the “not recommended” give the other way  a try and see if it works better for you, if it doesn’t, do whats more comfortable for you.

Starting with 1 pullup, 2 pushups 3 crunches, increase each set by 1 pullup, 3 crunches, and 2 pushups.  There is no rest period, move from each exercise to the next with no delay.  Move up the later until you cannot complete anymore pullups, for example, you get to 10 pullups but next set cannot get 11, this is when you start moving down the pyramid, so the next set you attempt 9.  Go as high as you can, we will use 10 for the example but go until failure.

Pullups: 1, 2, 3, 4,  5,  6,  7,  8,  9, 10, 9,  8,  7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
Pushups: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2
Crunches:3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 27, 30, 27, 24, 21, 18, 15, 12, 9, 6, 3

Pyramid workouts are very effective for more than just pullups, running pyramids, pushup pyramids, etc are an extremely effective way to train, especially when attempting to break through plateaus.

If you have any advice to offer others, feel free to leave your advice in a comment below.