Image by goldberg via Flickr
One of the funnest parts about having a ton of people help you move is that several people get to see what you have accumulated. Luckily I don’t have a porn collection for anyone to find. You should have seen some of the looks that I got when I was taking my guns out to the car. Not to mention how uncomfortable one of the good church going guys was when he found the pistol under my mattress.
Among the fun things that people wondered over were the buffalo. Wait, not the buffalo. That is just a picture suggested by Zemanta with no discernible link to my article. Actually the thing people wondered about were my Kettlebells.
Most of our helpers had never seen one before and were confused at what they were and what they were for. Most of those who wondered gave up quickly just attributing them to “weights”. Some asked but generally we were too busy to wonder further. Unloading them at the storage unit brought on a display of teenage hormones as the Boy Scouts from our ward decided to see who could lift them. That is not the point of kettlebells, just lifting them, as the heaviest one is 55 pounds.
the kids could lift it, but when I showed them that they needed to press it over their heads and walk around with it like that they all gave up. That was pretty much the end of the fascination with the kettlebells from the outsiders.
For myself, it has been a month since I have used the things. I miss them and what they do your body. They are good in so many ways. I give you for example myself. I am overweight. I always have been. I won’t always be, I have been losing a lot of weight recently, well before all of the stress happened. I have always been strong though, able to lift heavy things and move things and work for long periods of time.
My Dad always taught me that you needed to be able to do what was needed, and that is still my philosophy. I don’t care about big showy muscles, I just want to be able to lift a car.
So here is the kettlebell proof to myself. I haven’t used anything else really in my training in the past 2 years. Back in 2006 my Grandfather passed away. Our extended family is small so it was up to my Dad, me, and my Aunt and Uncle to go down and clean out his house. He lived about 5 hours away from Salt Lake in St. George if that gives a reference to anyone.
Anyway, We went down and worked for 2 days cleaning out his house. I got it done but I was so tired and so worn out that it was not even funny. I couldn’t lift things as well as I can now. My Grandpa lived in the real desert here in Utah. He gave up on grass because it was routinely over 100 degrees in the summer, spring and fall. He had gone out into the desert with my Aunt and Grandma and collected many cactuses antiques, and rocks. There are a bunch of fossils and such in this area so he had some good pieces of petrified wood in his yard.
I decided that I wasn’t going to leave the two biggest pieces, so I took them. One wasn’t too hard to lift but the other was a beast. At the time my Dad thought it must weigh over 200 pounds. I could barely lift it into the truck. Now, I know that rock weighs 113 pounds ( I weighed it) and I can lift it over my head several times. It was nothing to pick up and put in the truck.
I also spent the two days we had to move, moving constantly. I didn’t stop. I worked alongside, in front of and after all of our friends had left. I helped to lift every large piece of furniture in the house, all of the beds and the piano. I picked up one end of the piano and it took 2 guys on the other end.
Moving into our new place I did most of it myself. My Wife helped a ton but she had the kids to deal with too. I know that it was working with the kettlebells that gave me that endurance. They gave me the power to lift all of that and not be sore. My hand strength was awesome, I could lift things with my fingers that I would never have thought of before.
Kettlebells are great tools, I unpacked mine and set them in a useful spot yesterday. They now have sweat on them again and the dust is gone.
Have a great weekend, there is more to this story to come next week.
Related articles
- Kettlebells: A Smart Replacement for Dumbbells (webmd.com)
- Make a DIY Kettlebell on the Cheap [DIY] (lifehacker.com) Really folks, don’t do this one. Go find a gym with kettlebells and practice there.
- Nothing But A Pile Of Sticks: Part 1 (justinsbrainpan.com)
- One of the best Swing videos I have ever seen is at Josh Hillis’ Blog
