IronBody Fitness - Louisville's Only Kettlebell Gym

What weight should I use?

"What weight should I use??" It's a question I get almost every workout and the answer is "It depends".

So to help clarify things let's look at choosing the right kettlebell weight, not only for a given exercise but in context of the overall workout.

Some workout are strength focused. The majority of the lifts are being performed using sets and reps, typically 5 sets of 5 (5x5), 5x3 and similar schemes.In a strength focused workout I will typically have my clients do the first set with a moderate weight which lets the body get used to the movements and helps warm them up. The second set I have them go up one size bell and on each successive set they go up as well until they've hit their max for a specific lift. From there they can either stay at the max weight or drop back down if they are getting too fatigued to handle the weight.

By progressively increasing the weight you are preparing your body to go heavy and you may set some new PRs (personal records) this way, just make sure you aren't sacrificing form.

Other workouts are more "cardio" focused. You can generally tell because the exercises are done for a period of time rather than for reps. These "interval" workouts are meant to be strength-endurance and as such require you to use a lighter weight so you can do the most work in the allotted time as well as maintaining good form. The intervals can be anything from a Tabata (20 seconds of work and 10 seconds of rest), to 2 minutes of work and 1 minute of rest or any other interval. The goal with these is building work capacity which will help the fat burning process.

A problem arises when the client either doesn't understand or doesn't realize the workout is a strength-endurance session or lets their ego get in the way. "Hey I lifted 32k in the snatch workout the other day (which was a strength day) so I'm going to use it in this workout too! It's just more snatches". The problem with this is the body doesn't have the work capacity to do more than a few good reps at that weight and in order to work for the time required by the exercise you'll wind up cheating and using poor form which can lead to injuries quickly.

Also if you are not feeling as strong one day it's a good idea to stay on the light side, that way you'll reduce the risk of injury.

So the rule of thumb is use a smaller kettlebell when doing high intensity interval work and go heavy on strength days.

Better safe than sorry! Check your ego at the door. Train Smarter not Harder are all good cliche's keep them in mind the next time you train

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