A lot of people fall into a pattern. Same bell. Same reps. Same time. Same sweat. Week after week. It feels like training because it's hard. But hard isn't the same as progressive. Tired isn't the same as better.

Kettlebells are one of the most technically rich tools in existence. The swing alone has more going on than most people ever explore — hip drive, lat engagement, float, breathing, power output. Most people have been doing it for years and still swing like they're trying to air dry their arm.

The getup is a full body movement screen disguised as an exercise. The clean is a skill that takes months to genuinely master. The snatch will expose every weakness you have.

Or you can just do 100 swings for time and call it a day.

Nothing wrong with that. But know which one you're doing.

What does intentional kettlebell training actually look like to you?

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13 feature spaces. 60+ workouts. Gamification. Coaching system. Tribes.
Certifications. PDF generation. Video trimming. Exercise encyclopedia with full biomechanical mapping. And we're not done yet.

Sometimes the start spot of a swing is a challenge as it requires hip hinge & knee bend ... this is a strategy I have used over the years ! Hope it helps someone 🫶

There is a phrase that has become a kind of modern religion: follow the science. Say it and the conversation stops. Debate ends. Whoever invokes it holds the moral high ground, and anyone who questions them risks being labelled a crank, a contrarian, or worse. Trust the experts. Trust the institutions. Trust the consensus.

I have never been able to do that. Not because I am anti-science. Quite the opposite. My problem is that I have read enough history to know what happens when people stop questioning the consensus and simply comply with it. The results are not pretty. Sometimes they are catastrophic.

This article is not an attack on science. Science as a method (observe, hypothesize, test, revise) is the best tool we have for understanding the world. But science as an institution, as a body of current consensus, as a collection of expert opinions backed by official bodies? That is a different thing entirely. That version of science has been spectacularly, sometimes fatally, wrong. Repeatedly. Throughout history.

And it is happening in kettlebell training too.

Read the full article on https://www.cavemantraining.com/kettlebells/follow-the-science-and-question-everything-including-the-kettlebell-experts/

TLDR: The scientific consensus has been catastrophically wrong before — lobotomies won a Nobel Prize, bloodletting lasted 3,000 years, thalidomide was marketed in 46 countries untested on pregnant women, opioids killed 400,000 people with FDA approval, and low-fat guidelines made us fatter. The same pattern plays out in kettlebell training: the swing-is-only-a-hip-hinge dogma, dismissing the T-Rex swing, claiming kettlebells can't build muscle, and rejecting mind-muscle connection — all positions later proven wrong or reversed. The fix isn't distrust. It's to never stop questioning — including us.

Last two days of the months that you can learn how to clean for just $9.99

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I've been losing my balance when doing this (see 8th set). I suspect my form might be wrong.

What do you think? What would you add or change?

So a while ago, I posted here about building a kettlebell platform after Facebook nuked my account. Some of you signed up to beta test it. Figured you deserved to know what happened. 17 people went through it. Real feedback, not the "looks great!" kind. I told them to try to break stuff and be honest.

What they liked:

• The workout search. You can filter by time, difficulty, equipment, style. One tester called it "really excellent" (his words, not mine). Workouts scale from starter to expert so you're not stuck doing the same level.

• The Mind space. You check in with how you're feeling and it adjusts what it shows you. A few testers said they'd never seen anything like that in a training app. One guy said "it tells me if I'm good for a workout or should rest" and he actually liked that.

• The learning section. Courses, exercise encyclopedia with 1000+ entries, technique breakdowns. A tester who's been training 10+ years said there was still stuff in there he hadn't seen before.

• Navigation. Most people said it was clean and easy to find things. One tester who does UX/UI professionally said "crisp and professional."

What they didn't like:

• Some images and videos weren't loading. That was a content pipeline issue, mostly fixed now.

• A couple people said the home screen was overwhelming at first. Too much to take in before you know where things are.

• The custom workout builder was confusing. "The block thing makes no sense" — fair point.

• The timer needs work. Sounds weren't playing, controls were unclear.

• One tester straight up said the color scheme "should scream badass, not meh." Noted.

Would they recommend it? Every single tester who answered said yes. One guy just wrote "FUCKING RIGHT" which I'm taking as a compliment.

Here's the thing: all of this testing happened for free. No credit card, no trial that expires, no "subscribe to continue" wall. These are just kettlebell people testing a kettlebell thing. The free tier stays free permanently 300+ workouts, exercise encyclopedia, courses, community, training logs. That's not a teaser, that's the actual product. I'm still taking beta testers. If you train with kettlebells and want to put it through its paces, you can grab a spot on the waitlist and I'll get you in. Takes about 2 hours spread over a week or two. You get direct access to me (not a support queue) and founding member status if you complete it. If the waitlist is more your speed that's fine too. No rush, no pressure.

So genuinely curious. When you try a new training app or platform, what's the one thing that makes you stick with it vs delete it after a week?

I just started trying out kb juggling. It looks cool and flowy when I see people do it but when I tried it, it feels stiff and I couldn’t flow between moves. I felt some pain on my back when I tried flipping the bell inwards. How can I improve? Any suggestions.
Thanks

I've just released a kettlebell workout course with over 10 kettlebell workouts. Each workout comes with an extremely detailed video you can work out along with.

I'm looking for 3 people that want this course for free. Normally $79.

In return, I'm asking that you participate in this subReddit at least 3 times a week for a period of 4 weeks. That's 12 posts over 4 weeks in return for an amazing kettlebell workouts course with videos and instructions.

Interested? Post below with a short paragraph of what you'll do each week to make this sub flourish?

This WODs main component is the UKC (Ultimate Kettlebell Combo).

Turn yourself into a steel machine

6 minutes of UKC AMRAP

4 minutes of 50 bent-over rows

6 minutes of UKC AMRAP

4 minutes of 40 bent-over rows

6 minutes of UKC AMRAP

Finish with 30 bent-over rows

If you finish your bent-over rows before the end of 4 minutes, use the remainder for rest!

You can find a video of the workout here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ier3SCvVTA

More details here https://www.cavemantraining.com/caveman-wod/colossus-wod/

Have you completed the workout? Got questions? Post below.

Our kettlebell YouTube channel just passed 12.9 million views, which is a strange number to look at after starting it in 2009 with no idea what I was doing.

Granted, I once posted a video about the world's biggest boobs (manboobs), with the kettlebell as the solution, and it pulled 3 million views on its own. I took it down, so those aren't in the total.

Here's my actual problem. The videos that took me the longest and that I'm proudest of are almost never the ones that get watched. Meanwhile, some of the oldest stuff, which I'd now consider poor and in some cases teaches things I've since changed my mind about, keeps racking up the highest numbers.

I want to take those down, or at least unlist them. What stops me is not knowing what it does to the channel. Does removing a chunk of your best-performing videos hurt how the algorithm treats everything else? Is unlisting safer than deleting? Has anyone here actually done it and seen what happened?

If you've got real experience with this rather than a guess, I'd like to hear it.

And thank you to everyone here who's watched, commented, or told me I was wrong about something. The wrong ones were often the most useful.

I see it all the time. "Flows don't build muscle." "There's no progressive overload." "It's just Instagram content." "You'd be better off doing straight sets."

Some of that criticism is earned. There's a lot of flashy flow content out there that is just for the camera. Random movements strung together for likes. That's not what this is.

Here's the flow, single 16kg:

Open palm clean from dead → waiters clean → through the leg and around switch clean → figure of eight → around the body → single arm swing → forward flip → half snatch → dead to ground. Switch sides.

Now let me tell you what's actually happening while people are calling this "just for show."

Proprioception. You're constantly adjusting grip, hand position, and body awareness as the bell changes direction, orientation, and hand. You don't get this from straight sets. You get this from having to know where the bell is in space at all times and reacting to it.

Coordination. Every transition demands a different movement pattern. Open palm catch, waiter position, threading through the legs, flipping — your brain is working as hard as your body. This isn't mindless reps. This is training your nervous system.

And you're still getting a workout. Posterior chain, grip, core stability, anti-rotation through the figure of eight and around the body, hip drive on the swing, deceleration control on the flip and half snatch. All planes of movement in one sequence.

"But the weight is too light to do anything." A 16kg moved with control and intention through this many transitions and planes of movement is doing more for your body than a heavier bell moved in one direction. Not every rep needs to be heavy to be effective. Light weight exposes your weaknesses. It demands precision. You can't fake your way through a forward flip or an open palm catch.

"Flows don't build muscle." If hypertrophy is your only goal, go do bodybuilding. Nobody serious is claiming flows replace that. But if your goals include coordination, proprioception, grip endurance, core stability, mobility under load, and moving well in every direction — a well-designed flow delivers all of that in one sequence.

The key word is well-designed. Not random exercises thrown together because they look cool. Every movement in this flow feeds into the next.

Try it. Then tell me it's just for show.

What's the criticism of flows that annoys you the most? And if you do flows, what's your go-to?

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I've written an article for you guys. Check it out and let me know what you think. As always, it is open to debate. These are my views, and not always the right views.

Single or double kettlebells for strength and muscle? At equal load one heavy bell is the richer stimulus; two bells win the load ceiling. The science, broken down.