Edited by Fabio Silverio
Here we are: the optimal training to have a super toned and powerful body has arrived, it has existed for decades but few people and few colleagues have noticed it.
I have been working in the fitness field as a personal trainer for many years and for about a year I have found the right solution for the female universe and not only: the kettlebell, a cannonball with a handle of different weights: 4kg, 8kg, 12kg, 16kg, 24kg, 32kg.
You may wonder what the difference is between a classic tool and a kettlebell: well, this spherical weight is unbeatable for conditioning the body and controlling deceleration.
Think of all the sudden changes in direction or sudden braking that an American football athlete, a soccer player, a tennis player, etc. performs during a game. If you are not prepared to control these forces, the performance will be diminished in terms of effectiveness and there will be the risk of incurring injuries. Traditional training with overloads and even Olympic lifts do not prepare the body to handle these sudden and abrupt actions, since during training the weight is often controlled during the negative phase or is deliberately dropped. The compact shape of the kettlebell instead allows it to reach positions that other tools cannot even approximate.
This form of dynamic loading predisposes the musculature that surrounds and originates from the pelvis to contract powerfully. The kettlebell is the definitive tool for developing pelvic thrust, an action that generates power in many athletic gestures. Whether it is a jump, a kick or a fist, when these actions are performed expertly, they are generated by the pelvis.
The kettlebell center of gravity, displaced with respect to the handle, allows it to offer unparalleled effects in terms of strength, flexibility and health of the shoulder joint. Just think of the fact that many Russians have never heard of the rotator cuff since (apart from those encountered in the fight) injuries to the shoulders are practically non-existent among the Russian armed forces. The military are subjected to tests that require the execution of a high number of snatches (tears) with a kettlebell weighing 24 kg, rather than being subjected to the practice of push-ups.
A common mistake, especially in women, consists in training with light weights by doing many repetitions, a practice that ends up making the muscles swollen and not very functional, since they increase the non-contractile fibers but without a significant increase in strength; on the contrary, strength training promotes myofibrillar hypertrophy, an increase in volume that makes the muscles denser and stronger. For best results, therefore, it would be better to prefer a lot of weight and few repetitions.
And I would like to reassure the female public also about the fear of excessive muscle growth: don't worry! Men have a testosterone production 10/15 times higher than yours, and yet they make a great effort to hypertrophy the muscle. In short, beware of those personal trainers who offer you exhausting treadmill, bike or other kinds of sessions, giving you two-hour training sessions or endless series / repetitions for each exercise. The workouts should be short but intense, maximum 50 minutes, and the rest of the time devoted to stretching and mobility exercises of the spine (in this regard, do not neglect Pilates!).
Finally, here is a training card (remember, however, the importance of personalizing everything with your instructor, based on your fitness and experience level):
| Run | 5 ' | ||
| One arm clean | 2x6 | rec 1 ' | |
| Squat with 2 KETTLEBELL | 3x8 | rec 2 ' | |
| Swing with two arms | 3x12 | rec 1 ' | |
| Run | 5 ' | ||
| Swissball crunch | 2xmax | rec 1 ' | |
| Push-ups with arms on KETTLEBELL | 2x8 | rec 1'30 " | |
| Single rower with KETTLEBELL | 2x10 | rec 1 ' | |
| Run | 5 ' | ||
| Bike | 5 ' | ||
| Legs out of flow | |||
| Stretching | |||
| Exercises for the mobility of the spine |
