Kettle bells give workouts weight
Five years ago, a serious man named Pavel Tsatsouline, a lean, muscular Russian who listed his former occupation as a physical trainer for Soviet special forces (which I assumed meant KGB), took me through a workout with an odd, low-tech device I'd never seen before called a kettlebell, a dense cast-iron weight, with a handle, that looks like a solid tea pot. As I swung it through my legs and overhead, dead-lifted it, curled it, and pressed it in flowing, natural, joint-friendly movements that weren't difficult but instantly turbocharged my heart rate and beaded me in sweat, Tsatsouline cracked a rare smile. "This is the fitness secret of Russian strongmen," he said. "Everyone will use these someday." He was right. Today, kettlebells are a hot fitness trend; shelves in sporting goods stores bulge with them, alternative designs are sprouting left and right (see below), gyms are rushing to offer kettlebell classes, and "experts" abound, all kneeling before the now-legendary Tsatsouline. When I left that day, relieved it was over and still obsessed with the man's Soviet past, I casually asked, "Have you ever killed anyone?" Tsatsouline smiled a second time. "Only in workouts," he said.