Training with Kettlebells for Martial Arts

The following is an interview with Steve Cotter done by Alan Orr of www.warriorfunctionaltraining.com. Steve Cotter is a world renowned kettlebell expert and martial artist. Steve is the founder of International Kettlebell and Fitness Federation. He travels around the world to hold courses and educate people on the art of kettlebell lifting. You can find out more about him at www.ikff.net

Alan: How did you get into Kettlebell training?

Steve: I had moved away from full time training and teaching martial arts in 1997; at that time I became a full-time college student, studying kinesiology. So, in the span of a few years, I went from training all day, every day and when not training I was teaching and of course I taught by training. So it would have been no exaggeration to say that I was as well-conditioned and anyone on the planet.

I went from that to full-time student, carrying a back-pack. Training went way down. After a few years of this I started noticing a decline in my fitness both in the sense of performance and aesthetically. I was losing the sharpness that I had taken as my inheritance as a boy who only trained. Now that I was losing that peak, I started to miss what I once had, and I wanted it back. Yet, I knew that I could not and would not train 8-10 hours a day again, 6 days a week like I did as younger man. Even if I could, I didn’t want to anymore. My wife and I had recently had our first child and so, my life was very different from the time when all I did was practically live at the kwoon, or in the gym or on the mountain. I started thinking–a lot–about “how can I get it back, how can I get back to that elite fitness, like I used to have”

There is a saying that when the student is ready the teacher will appear. Well, it appeared in an ad in a martial art catalog.

The ad talked about this Russian form of training called kettlebells and described the snatch and jerk and other full-body lifts, and how it could be done at home. It talked about it being favoured by military and martial artists. I had experimented enough with barbell and dumbbell and machine bodybuilding oriented training to know that the premise made sense and that I wanted to try it. Didn’t have a lot of cash at the time, so I wasn’t quick to spend $120 on something I had never seen or heard of. I told a student of mine about the ad and he bought a couple. First time I tried it, I just did the snatch like in the picture and it felt really good! So, that is when I knew I would incorporate the training into my system of learning.

Kettlebell lifting is an art form. It needs to be studied and understood. There is no one size fits all and the study requires insights and refinement as the student’s progress. It is very much like a martial form in terms of discipline, structure and the coaching and training. That is what attracted it to me and the fact that you can develop great physical strength through its correct training, which is one aspect of martial arts application.

A: You have great functional bodyweight strength and power. Did you have that from you martial training? How does bodyweight training fit in to your personal training programme?

S: I attribute the majority of my fitness development to martial arts in terms of skill and body control. Kettlebell training has enabled me to become more dense and muscular, while being able to maintain suppleness in the muscles and connective tissues. The timing and intention from martial art training and having access to good information with regards to bodyweight conditioning is what laid the foundation.

Mostly now I do kettlebells and qigong with some running here and there. My schedule is very busy with travel and teaching. I teach entirely in seminar fashion, so I have a very minimalist approach to my training currently. It is the only way I can improve since my energy is going out. The way I train myself is going to be very different from how I train someone else.

Bodyweight training is crucial to learn, especially in foundation stages. There will come a point in development, when many basic BW movements no longer offer high-value in terms of the time allowed for training. In a busy schedule, one may only have 15-20 min to devote to any training. So, that time must be filled with high-value movements. That is where kettlebells comes in. I’m not saying that KB is the be-all; no one system can offer everything.   For me personally, I get more intensity from KB now, as I spent many years and many thousands of reps with the BW, so it’s not a struggle for me so much anymore.

A: What have been the main benefits to you in terms of personal fitness and martial application?

S: There have been different phases of development, as I’ve learned more about the subtleties of the art form.

Overall, the increase to my hand, back and shoulder strength has been significant. I’ve always been a late-bloomer, but kettlebells have helped my body to mature in physical strength. There is a different form of strength between a boy and a man, and I think the kettlebell training really sophisticated the use of my body for me. A lot of that has to do with the grounding that is required when you ballistically swing a substantiional weight around in both a concentric and eccentric fashion. The muscles have to brace around a fixed central axis. So, this is a way of training root or connection to the ground. With that foundation, the body can learn how to get stronger in a natural position, one of balance.

There is a self-correcting quality to it, which makes it a valuable form of body-awareness training. You cannot do 2 drastically incorrect reps in a row and maintain position. The kettlebell will pull you out of your root. So, in learning the basics, the body learns and maintains certain performance parameters.

I’ve learned how to use kettlebell to get stronger and there is good value in that. However, my new interest with kettlebells is the finer points and maximizing the endurance aspect under load. That is the real power of kettlebell training–developing massive workloads and learning how to relax under load.

The martial application is a double-edged sword. I’m much stronger now, so naturally when we have more strength we want to use it. The key with martial arts is to not use it, so while I am more powerful now, it also in some ways takes longer for me to get new concepts when I’m working outside of my own style. One thing I’ve noticed the most is that I am very hard to take down now. I’d always had strong legs and good agility however the upper body torso strength makes me able to stay upright, and clear grabs easier. So there is a lot of carryover.

A: How has your kettlebell training progressed?

S:Initially it was great because it was so new and different. So I made a lot of progress in the first couple of years.

After a few years I felt that I had mastered the system that I was exposed to. I wasn’t getting as much from it as I knew was possible. Part of that were my own incomplete training habits, and part of that was from incomplete coaching and information. So, without a coach that could guide me to my next level, I became focused on my own teaching rather than training. Later I got interested in the heavier kettlebells. I bought a 56kg and 65kg kettlebell and started playing around with those. I got stronger that’s for sure, but I noticed my repetitions with the 32kg didn’t go up any. So, I got stronger, and bigger, but my skill with the kettlebell repetition lifts didn’t improve. At that point in time I went to Russia and observed a very different way of training and lifting, and since then I’ve taken an interest in the higher levels of development that can be acquired through kettlebell training.

So, now I am at a stage where I focus more on the efficiency and relaxed power of kettlebell lifting and improving repetitions and endurance. The simpler I make it, the better I become.

A: I lot of martial arts practitioners are now working with Kettlebells. What would you say makes Kettlebells different to over resistance training methods.

S: A few key aspects that are unique to kettlebell training or at the least, are less common aspects of training that are best facilitated by kettlebells.

In other words, principles go beyond the methods and tools, and kettlebell has the same quality. It is teaching the body how to move more effectively. Kettlebell is a tool selected to reinforce a given quality; having that quality, it stay when the kettlebell is not in your hand. The tool becomes a prop. As a prop, kettlebells extend the range of movement beyond that of a dumbbell, because it’s centre of mass is well beyond the handle. It created a swinging motion like a pendulum that extends the bodies normal range of strength and motion. So, it is very useful in that regard because martial arts application is all about combined centre of mass. Your centre + your opponents centre. Finding and keeping with that, is the essential of any art form, sticking, following, uprooting, and finishing. It’s using the entire body and you are on your feet and there is a dynamic component, with a heavy grip component. Working the stance and the muscles of the back and spine and abdomen. Great for the shoulder range of motion. The is a unique loading that occurs in the swinging movements–swings, cleans, snatches or the single and double varieties. For example, you cannot swing a barbell between your legs. A kettle bell encourages this eccentric loading of the hips and rear side of the body—the all-important postural, power muscles.

There is also unique leverage points because of the way the bell sits on the forum when doing various overhead and cleaning movement. It gives added control and allow for the weight to be cantered directly over the centre of mass of your body. This is a very important and valuable distinction. You can align the weight without having to stress or strain the wrists. Keeping this neutral alignment of the wrists is more natural and comfortable. It is like holding a guard position with the elbows and forearms close to the body. Fit like a glove.

Most of all, kettlebells is the tool that best encourages work capacity, for a single tool. Repetition ballistics give you more bang for your buck than any other type of fitness training when done in earnest. Fighters in particular need sustained power. Not necessarily 1 strike power, although that is highly valued. Especially for any sport fighter, the ability to strike or otherwise manoeuvre at near-maximal power for a sustained period is a most important quality. Training a powerful anaerobic system is one of the best uses of kettlebells to supplement the martial arts training.

There are different attributes and styles of training with kettlebells also, like in martial arts. There is the classical lifting, contested in sport, there is the general fitness, there is feats of strength and stunts, and there is juggling. The variety that a single kettlebells offers in not found in any other single training tool, and that makes it extremely versatile for a creative trainer and athlete.

A: Lets talk about your insights to conditioning for the martial arts.

S: A few key points:

Many fighters do too much ‘cardio’ training; too much long, slow distance, too many sloppy reps;

The sparring and fight training itself is the sport specific part; the cross-training aspects—running, lifting kettlebells, medicine balls, BOSU, plyometrics, barbells etc—that stuff is all supplementary training to enhance and not to dominate the primary fight training

The fundamental plan that will give an athlete a good chance to win has to be in place–the right coaching, the right learning attitude and practice habits, the right team/training partners.

From there, the supplementary training, like a well-executed kettlebell lifting program can enhance the athleticism of the athlete, bringing the physical characteristics like power and conditioning to a peak; this helps to bring the potential out, to the upper limit of that individual athlete.

Things have to be very simple. Most of the energy goes into sparring and bagwork and roadwork, grappling, rolling, the fight training. Most people also have to work. So, there shouldn’t be a lot of time committed to the supplement strength and conditioning training. It has to be very concise and allowing for plenty of recovery.

Look at the strengths; look at the weaknesses of each fighter.

Address both in each training session. Everybody needs the basics; some will need additional mid-section (core) work, some will need extra grip/hand strength emphasis;

You will have usually 3-5 maybe up to 6 or 7 different exercises, but sometimes only 1 or 2.

As a general program, something like this would be very effective for a fighter’s conditioning cross training:

Loosen joints: 3:00

Clean & Jerk: 2x16kg @ 1:00 -warm-up, 2x24kg @ 3:00 x 3-5 sets (rest up to 1:00 bet sets)

Front Squat: 2x16kg @ 3:00

That’s just one possibility of course; but it would be easy to implement, not take too long and work every muscle and physical quality needed for a 3:00 round fighter;

The weights used naturally would be modified accordingly.

It could be modified to 5:00 sets as well; you have to learn to rest while working; it is fundamental to fighting and also to kettlebell lifting.

The quality of the work is as important as the time put in, more so really.

10 minutes of real work is more valuable than an hour of unproductive movement.

Shore up any weak links–neck, wrists/hands, shoulders, ribs, don’t leave any weak links. With training weak links can be addressed

The conditioning program and movements selected for martial artists need to be as intense as applications of the fighting system. The movements selected are to be full-body, focused and precise and the mind-set matches the goal of practice.

This is an art form that comes with understanding the nature of the movements and why to select one technique over another, just as a martial artists chooses one thing over another.

A: Yes, the method you have shown me has already transformed my kettlebell training.

S: Thanks for saying so—the methods are simple to apply; the things that work are always very simple; it takes years of hard work yet the system and the methodology does not and should not be complex; I always say that the little things make the big things; learning how to relax and pace yourself, being patient and control the energy output, these are qualities that we all need and especially martial arts training develops these same qualities. It is a very complimentary pairing, Kettlebells and martial arts. Also, that is why martial arts students can pick up the basics of Kettlebell lifting very quickly with the correct instruction.

A: I’m looking forward to the series of articles you are working on for MAI readers!

S: Yes, it will be very good to be able to contribute some of my experience with these readers. I have investigated the mechanics of various systems of movement and put it the context of training martial artists. Also, the idea that martial artists are athletes and need to prepare like athletes is something that I believe in. At a certain very high level, one relies less on athleticism and more on intention. However, the physical preparation should not ever be underestimated and a well-developed general athleticism gives any martial artist a big advantage in the ability to adapt to new, unfamiliar surroundings, which is what self-defence is really all about. So, I will be sharing my insights into the physical preparation side of things and how to best use the time in cross-training for your martial art.

A: Thank you Steve, I am sure your insights will be well received.

S: The wonderful thing about martial arts and the communities developed within and across the various styles, is that at its foundation it is very honest. One cannot get by on cunning alone. There must be skill and each person, at his or her current level, must be able to back up and validate what is said and done. The practical application of things can and should be tested. So, I know that what I teach works and can prove it. I know that I have a great deal more to learn, and so when I find things that can improve what I do today, I am able to learn and adapt. That is the nature of the student-teacher paradigm. I hope to share some of that.