Home / Weekly Newsletter / Weekly Newsletter July 1, 2020

Weekly Newsletter July 1, 2020

Happy July to you,

Can you believe it, we are now 50% through 2020. 

Have you achieved any of your health or fitness goals?

If you have been a bit slow getting started this year then now is the time to make a change. 

Today, marks the start of the 30 day kettlebell clean challenge.

The challenge is not about lifting too heavy, or breaking any records, it’s designed to help you develop a daily exercise habit

The goal is to finish the challenge, not give up after a week because you’ve overdone things and lost motivation. Just a few focused minutes per day and you’re done!

Any questions you can add them to the comments section on the clean challenge page.

Movement Focus

Using 2 kettlebells together

If you are new to kettlebell training or have been weight training for a while then you may be wondering about using 2 kettlebells together.

Let me begin by saying, I rarely use 2 kettlebells together.

You can train with 1 kettlebell for the rest of life and never need to use 2 together.

There are only 2 reasons why you should consider using 2 kettlebells together.

  1. You want to seriously overload the lower body
  2. You want to speed up your workouts further

Your lower body is considerably stronger than your upper body and this makes perfect sense as it needs to support your upper body through all your natural movements.

Bare in mind, a large proportion of people have a weak lower body because they cheat their natural movements eg. falling into chairs rather than squatting down, using a supporting arm to pick things up from the floor etc. 

People walk less, climb less stairs and will do just about anything to avoid bending their knees. 

When you stand with locked out knees and hips your joints take the strain away from your muscles. Incidentally, this is why you should be stronger holding a weight overhead than pressing it overhead.

So with a stronger lower body often it is hard to overload the muscles with just one kettlebell. It is for this reason that I use 2 kettlebells for some of the leg exercises within my muscle building program.

I’d recommend these 2 kettlebell exercises first:

  • Double racked squat
  • Double split squat / static lunge
  • Double deadlift
  • Double clean (most difficult)
  • Double swing (although 1 heavier kettlebell is better)

Of course you can always make the exercise more challenging and therefore never need to use 2 kettlebells.

You can also use these more complicated exercises with 1 kettlebell:

  • Single leg deadlift
  • Single leg clean
  • Side lunge
  • Pistol squat

For those older in age this is what I recommend. 

You will challenge your mobility, proprioception, balance and coordination more with these exercises without overloading the spine and risking injury.

However, using 2 kettlebells does allow you to perform more in less time by reducing the time needed for switching sides etc. 

What size kettlebells to use?

As I mentioned earlier you never need to use 2 kettlebells to achieve great results but if you are interested to give it a go, here’s what I recommend:

  1. Ensure you are comfortable with using 1 heavy kettlebell first eg. Men 24kg and Women 16kg.
  2. Start with a simple exercise first eg. double split squat and hold the kettlebells by your sides.
  3. Progress to using the kettlebells in the double racked position eg. double squats
  4. Gradually increase your weights, don’t just move from 1 x 24kg to 2 x 24kg, instead use 2 x 16kg. 
  5. You can use uneven weights for progressions eg. 1 x 16kg and 1 x 20kg and then switch sides each set.

One final thought… 

It is worth remembering that 1 kettlebell exercises create a challenging unbalance to the body that forces additional muscles to stabilise and straighten the body eg. the one arm swing activates more muscles than the 2 arm swing.

Experienced lifter? The 30 day clean challenge is a great way to practice using 2 kettlebells

Weekly Workout

Here’s another workout from my 12 Week Muscle Building Program

  • Double Split Squat – 6 reps (3 sets)
  • Double Front Squat – 6 reps (3 sets)
  • Side Lunge – 6 reps (3 sets)

As I explained above, here you can see how I use 2 kettlebells for building muscle when you really need to overload the lower body.

You can tell by the low amount of reps the goals here are muscle and strength.

As this is a muscle building workout you would repeat each exercise for 3 sets taking 90 – 120 seconds of rest in between before moving on to the next exercise.

Let me remind you that this is a level 3 more advanced workout and those not as experienced would use higher reps 8 – 12 and only 1 kettlebell.

Click to download this workout

Training Tools

Kettlebell Workout Wizard App for iPhone and Android

I just want to send out a huge THANK YOU to all those who have left me feedback on the App Store and Google Play.

Not left any feedback yet? What are you waiting for 🙂

Hearing how useful and motivational the app is for helping you with your training is a great compliment for all the time and effort that has gone in to this app.

Plus, I’ve got some great new app updates coming soon so I hope to help you out even more!

That’s all for today. 

Take care,

Greg

P.S. New 30 day kettlebell clean challenge starts today!