This is a guest post from Logan Christopher of LegendaryStrength.com. Logan studies many forms of training we readily cover here at Diesel, including grip feats like bending steel and tearing cards as well as hand balancing and kettlebell juggling. His DVD, the Definitive Guide to Kettlebell Juggling, is a smorgasbord of kettlebell juggling information.

 

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

 

Jedd wrote a post awhile back on the basics of kettlebell juggling (How to Do Kettlebell Juggling) and he covered them well.

CHECK OUT THE REST OF THIS KILLER POST AFTER THE JUMP

In this post I want to talk about why you may want to move beyond just the basics. Sure you can go heavier and longer in kettlebell swings, or just doing the basic flips, and this will improve your strength and conditioning. But moving onto more advanced moves can give you other benefits swings and basic flips won‘t give you.

Advanced kettlebell juggling builds strength from every angle. You can work in a direct line moving forward with a swing or snatch, but can you use your strength behind your back and to your sides?

The ballistic exercises of kettlebells teaches your body how to absorb shock and redirect force. Kettlebell juggling takes these to another level, again coming from all different directions and angles.

Throwing weights around takes quick reflexes and hand-eye coordination. While this can be built just by juggling balls, with the kettlebells you have the strength and endurance tied in.

These are just a few of the benefits. They’re huge especially if you practice any form of martial arts. And certainly most athletes in any sport could stand to improve these traits. Quite simply, kettlebell juggling will make you more athletic with the chaotic elements of this form of training.

There are different areas of kettlebell juggling that will emphasize certain areas more or less.

• You can do overhead or under body throws to add in fast footwork and build those reflexes even further.
• You can go behind the back or to the sides to build that multi-directional force.
• You can do double kettlebell juggling to quadruple the difficulty.

But for now I want to talk about one of my favorites, bottoms up kettlebell juggling. This will build an explosive and precise grip fast. And this allows you to get a killer workout with just a light kettlebell, like a 16kg, even for guys who close tough grippers and bend steel.

If you’ve never heard of it don’t worry, here‘s what its all about. Bottoms up kettlebell juggling involves throwing and flipping the kettlebell into and out of the bottoms up position, that is with the mass of the weight held above the handle. This video shows what I’m talking about.

Bottoms up kettlebell juggling is not easy work. Before you go out and try these moves, realize you need a firm foundation in the basics of kettlebell juggling before you have a chance. You can check out my site, KettlebellJuggling.com, which has tons of videos to get you started. And if you want it all the techniques and details check out The Definitive Guide to Kettlebell Juggling.

The good thing is you don’t need these skills in order to get the benefits. Simply working towards them will do it, and the skills will come quickly.

With these exercises you have no excuse the next time you only have a light kettlebell to work with. You can go out and blast your grip in a few minutes. Of course if you’re crazy you can try these moves with even heavier weights.

*********

Logan Christopher is a physical culture renaissance man doing feats of strength, hand balancing, kettlebell juggling, bodyweight training, heavy partials and much, much more. He runs Legendary Strength which is devoted to helping people attain the best health, fitness, strength and skills ever.

Articles You Might Also Like:

• Basic Kettlebell Juggling – EXPLAINED
• The Top 5 Reasons You Should Use Kettlebells For Building Bad-ass Power
• Grip Training Using Kettlebells
• Bi-Polar Training: Inch Dumbbell Plus Kettlebell Flip
• Explosive Kettlebell Training – Power Training for Athletes

Tags: flipping kettlebells, how to flip kettlebells, how to juggle kettlebells, juggling kettlebells, kettlebell feats, kettlebell flipping, kettlebell juggling, kettlebell juggling dvd

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 5th, 2010 at 10:01 pm and is filed under advanced kettlebell training feats, feats, feats of strength, kettlebell training, old strongman feats of strength, strongman feats. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.