The Origins of Hardstyle Kettlebell Training Taught At Your Personal Training Certification
As a personal trainer, you are aware that kettlebell training primarily has two approaches, namely the hard-style and the soft-style. The hard-style is a diluted version of the rigorous free-hand combat practised by elite army units of erstwhile Soviet Union. It has been created so that the general public can perform the workouts easily while gaining all its benefits.
As a kettlebell instructor, you should definitely know more about kettlebell hard-style training while undergoing your personal courses. For those who prefer Spanish, visit the Spanish personal training course.
What is Kettlebell Hard-style Training
Kettlebell hard-style emphasizes on tension and power. The style is categorised as ‘hard-style’ not because it is very difficult to master but because it closely resembles the technique followed in hard combat style of martial art.
The basic focus of the hard-style kettlebell training is to practice absolute compression skill. It teaches you how to concentrate the energy scattered throughout your body and direct it all into one concentrated effort while also keeping injury risks at a minimum.
How it all Started
The hard-style of kettlebell training was introduced in the USA by Pavel Tsatsouline, a Russian immigrant. As taught in kettlebell courses, this approach is a take-off on freehand martial art combat techniques such as the karate. Such hard style training was a part of rigorous hand-to-hand combat practiced by the former Soviet Union army of which Tsatsouline was a member.
Once in the USA, Tsatsouline did extensive research on how to modify such hard-hitting style of workout and remodel it while retaining the essential focus as that even the common man could incorporate it into their daily exercise routine.
Thus was born the hard-style kettlebell training which is being taught in most elite gyms across the world. The style includes complex movements, exact timing of your body’s inherent tension, power breathing, strength practice and emphasizing on the quality of your workout and not how long you spend at the gym.
The Basic Approach
Personal Training courses will teach you that the hard-style of kettlebell training emphasizes on the difference between grinds and ballistic lifts. Grinds are basically pushing presses such as the military press and the Turkish getup. Ballistic lifts refer to fast-paced lifts such as the snatch and the swing.
In case of grinds, extreme tension is applied deliberately in order to increase strength. The idea is that when you apply tension to a particular area of your body, it automatically radiates energy to the adjacent parts. So in hard-style press-ups, you begin by contracting the muscles of your feet which leads to a chain reaction till your entire body become tense with pulsating energy.
A simple press-up thus becomes a whole-body workout where each and every muscle is targeted and put under great tension in order to increase strength.
However, in workouts involving ballistic lifts, a balance is maintained between periods of concentrated effort alternating with short periods of relaxation. For example, in the swing the intensely powerful outward hip hinge is the result of concentrated effort of your hinge while the relaxation period is the split-second time when the kettlebell floats while at the extreme point of the swing. For any further questions that you may have, visit www.ptcertifications.com