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KETTLEBELL
COMPETITION 2005
UKKA
Kettlebell Competition 2007.
UKKA
Kettlebell Competition 2008.
UKKA
Level 1 Instructors Course
The
Kettle Bell Bible
KETTLE
BELLS IN OUR SCHOOLS
UKKA
INSTRUCTORS
For
the Girls
NUTRITION
TRAINING
ARTICLES
Competition
Results
Picture
Gallery
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Malcolm
Howlett
Contact 01223
721843
After training for around 24 years in karate without a lot of weight
training, but rather relying on the usual body weight exercises. Harry
Cook impressed on me how useful he had found kettlebells, over and
above
the more traditional karate weights such as chishi.
I bought a 11 & 16kg from Stan Pike, and in pre-'kettlebell bible'
days
used some of Pavel Tsoutaline's books to get me started, which were
later
superceded by the Kettlebell bible. It soon became apparent to me
that
these were great tools for building strength and stamina, but that
I
wanted to make sure I was doing this properly inorder to avoid injury.
Stan put me in contact with Steve Angell (alias 'Mighty Mitts of Milton
Keynes'), who showed Lia and I a number of ways of improving our use
of
the kettlebells.
Using the knowledge we gained from Steve has helped us integrate the
whole
body into exercise, and has notably increased the power of our techniques.
Indeed the core strength it has given me in the hips, lower abdomen
has
made me reassess how I understand and teach karate technique.
However it has not been me that has really noticed the difference
but
rather the people I've trained with. For me the punches and kicks
hitting
the bags seem to sink in that bit deeper, but training partners now
take
that little bit extra work from partners to stop them hitting them.
The
improvement in grip strength and core started to really come into
play in
when working closer in.
It is not just in karate, over the summer of 2007 I helped train the
Junior Professional at Cambridge Real Tennis club in preparation for
his
season, building his core strength and stamina with a variety of basic
kettlebell drills. He reports it has really helped him be able to
dig the
ball out tight corners, and as I write this in February 2008 he has
become
the 'Most Improved Player' in his National league.
What has also been notable is that these improvements, both with myself
and the Professional, have been made using relatively light 12,16
and 20kg
kettlebells. I am progressing slowly to the 25KG, but still get a
lot of
use from these lighter bells.
All in all I think my kettlebell experience can best be summarised
when
one of my karate colleagues said to me the other week, "You know,
training
with you was much easier before you started using those kettlebells,
do you think you could stop, please?". I don't know of better
recommendation
than that.
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