Kettlebells, Ultimate Sandbags, & Maces Oh My!
2018-08-17
You may have bee seeing a word trend if you have been following our social media (you can follow here). That is we haven’t been ONLY using Ultimate Sandbags in our DVRT workouts. You may have seen kettlebells and even maces (also known as lever bells) in our programs. Doesn’t that mean we don’t think that Ultimate Sandbags are nearly as powerful as we have talked about for almost 15 years?
That would be logical leap, but also missing the bigger picture. As I wrote about yesterday (you can read here), the perfect gym isn’t about how many tools you use, but how you use the tools to develop specific functional fitness qualities. Using kettlebells, Ultimate Sandbags, and maces together brings a synergy to your training that gives you so much more.
We have long said that DVRT isn’t about Ultimate Sandbags, but how to bring principles of great movement strength training to life. Using not every tool, but the best tools together helps us create more success and better long-term training for everyone. So, what are some examples that open our minds to what is possible? How do these tools work together?
A great example we can start with is using the fact that kettlebells can be used one at a time to help us not only build strength up and down, but to resist movement as well. Holding one kettlebell as we squat actually challenges us in all three planes of motion. We get way more out of our strength training this way than just getting “buff” legs. However, the hardest part in using kettlebells this way is teaching people HOW to resist motion. That is why creating tension can be such a powerful way of reinforcing these concepts.
So, when you see my press out the lever bells as I squat with the kettlebell it is to create tension down the other side of my body to integrate more of my core through the grip and lats to help stabilize. If you don’t know these aspects of movement it just looks like a really goofy way of integrating kettlebells and lever bells right?
Once we establish this foundation we can add complexity with both changing the body position and load position. As DVRT Master, Sean Lettero demonstrates, moving the Ultimate Sandbag to the shoulder position while taking a sprinter stance increases the 3-D strength demands of our squat.
These are powerful ways to integrate these tools, but if you don’t understand how the body works, they just appear like a hot mess of random exercises. That’s just too bad!
Kettlebells, Ultimate Sandbags, and lever bells gives us great potential, but we have to understand how to put the pieces together. We don’t use these tools differently, the techniques may change slightly, but the purpose stays the same. Can you see similarities in these examples?
Now, the big difference is not just showing you cool new movements, but understanding how different tools allow us to create different stimulus to the body. It isn’t just randomly throwing in a variety of tools, but understanding how they fit to one another. WHEN do you use kettlebells, Ultimate Sandbags, and lever bells in a much bigger question to ask than should you use them. We will continue to try to help you better answer these questions over time as they are the real questions you should be asking yourself.
Hopefully though seeing how DVRT puts the tools together gives us a much broader way of thinking about how to use great tools synergistically to create better results. That’s what we want DVRT to represent to your training, not implements, but solutions to your training goals!
Find out more how we use different tools into comprehensive programs with our DVRT workout programs HERE. Save 25% for a very limited time with coupon code “summersale” HERE
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