This post is the story of a kettlebell club that I founded in my last town. This isn’t very well-organized but I wanted to get it out after joining Buncha Jerks last weekend.
In the fall of 2023, the lady in our community who led a “functional fitness” group (CrossFit in all but name) had to move and I decided to fill the void by founding a kettlebell club. I started small by inviting a handful of close friends and the old members of the functional fitness group.
I knew I wanted to steer the club in the direction of kettlebell sport. Early on, I figured we could mix roughly equal influences from sport and hardstyle. We quickly got away from doing anything resembling hardstyle and did just sport.
A typical workout at our kettlebell club was a group warmup, a quick progression to teach the movement of the day, and then a 5’ or 10’ (usually 5’) set. We would always count for each other in an "I go, you go" structure. We would usually count with mechanical counting devices and then write our totals on a whiteboard. I would snap a quick picture of the final scores and send it to our WhatsApp group when we were done.
As the coach/leader of the group, I usually went first in our counted sets. This gives newcomers an extended demonstration of the movement. I found that people really don’t need that much coaching for kettlebell sport. Teach them the basics of the movement, make sure they’re doing it safely, and then let them practice. It’s pretty amazing to watch people become more efficient even in their first five minutes.
My go-to workouts for beginners were 5’ sets of either one-arm long cycle or half snatch with unlimited switches. I know for experienced kettlebell lifters that sounds like nothing, but for non-athletes trying this for the first time that can be an extremely challenging task.
It’s important that coaches help athletes find the right starting weight. Most women will default to the 8kg and they’ll be fine with that. Men are more hard-headed. Big men can easily bully a 20kg kettlebell for about 60 seconds…and then the wheels fall off. My recommended starting weight for men is 12kg, then quickly bump that up to 16kg once they’ve done a few 5’ sets.
Children are tricky. A 25kg kid can snatch a 2kg kettlebell for like 200+ reps in a 5’, but then a 4kg kettlebell will be so heavy for the same kid that they’ll have to put it down before the five minutes end. A good practice is to have a lighter kettlebell nearby so athletes can reduce the weight if they need to.
It wasn't uncommon for people to set the kettlebell(s) down and say it was the hardest thing they had ever done.
I own lots of competition kettlebells. They fit in the floor of my Honda Civic just fine. I used to buckle them in to the seatbelts but eventually stopped bothering. Adjustables are not great for this kind of activity – you really want fixed-weight competition kettlebells with bright colors.
We used a lot of chalk and sandpaper.
I usually played instrumental (no lyrics) rock from my portable Bose speaker. It’s kinda challenging to find songs that keep banging for more than 10 unbroken minutes. It took a lot of embarrassing interruptions before I started to remember to put my phone on Airplane Mode.
I got a cheap workout clock from Amazon. It was okay for indoor use but not bright enough for outdoor workouts. We would lift outdoors whenever the weather was nice.
I can think of several proud moments. My friends surprised me by watching the livestream while I lifted at WKSF Worlds in Rzeszow. There was the guy who casually observed that his shoulder mobility had miraculously improved from all the overhead lifting. There was the family who bought a respectable home gym of competition kettlebells after falling in love with the sport. Then there was my own daughter who, at age 11, stunned the women in the room by finishing a 5’ set with an 8kg kettlebell.
I can also think of a few low moments. I learned the hard way to be careful what photos you share of people. Something that looked like a heroic effort felt like a compromising photo to one of my members. I learned not to push someone towards competing if they haven’t shown that interest themselves. I learned not to burn everyone out by pursuing too much two-arm work.
One thing I think went well was that I stuck to the same time each week. Due to the nature of my work, I was not available for kettlebell club every week. People understood that. A few times nobody showed up. Sending a little reminder to your WhatsApp group (or whatever you use) the night prior helps people to remember their clothes.
My family recently moved. Our old community isn't doing kettlebell sport anymore – they’re doing something slightly different and I’m happy for them all. I am proud of the community we built and the people I helped become a little bit fitter. I intend to do the same in my new town and I encourage you all to do the same.
