The Top 3 Kettlebell Exercises for More Muscle Mass
Hint: they’re not swings, military presses, or Turkish Get Ups
Without a doubt, when it comes to kettlebell training, a heavy military press is the peak of achievement for most people.
It signals that you are a serious trainee, that you have put in a lot of effort, and that you deserve all those jealous stares you’re getting from strangers as they watch you hoist heavy kettlebells aloft in your yard or at the nearby park.
But a lot of people never reach that peak and are instead forever mired in a purgatory of handling light to moderate weights.
What gives?
Well, keep this in mind: a good peak is only as strong as its base — and one of the biggest frustrations people run into while military pressing is that they focus only on specific practice (i.e. military pressing) without first making sure their base is rock solid.
So how can you build up a stronger base to take your peak higher than ever before?
There are a lot of ways, but a major one is making sure that you have packed on enough muscle to back up your heavy strength efforts.
Let’s focus on 3 of the movements that will go the longest way toward packing on the strength and muscle you need to safely and effectively drive your strength levels higher and higher.
#1: Bridge Floor Press
One of my all-time faves.
The bridge floor press powerfully strengthens all of your pressing muscles while simultaneously getting a strong contraction out of your legs and glutes — the unsung keys of any powerful press.
Best of all, it will allow you to use much heavier weights than you could otherwise overhead press. For example, if you have a set of bells you could military press, say, 3–5 times, you’ll probably be able to bridge floor press them for a set of 8–10 for multiple sets.
Here’s a video tutorial for ya:
#2: Bent over row
There’s a saying in kettlebell training: “your press is only as good as your clean”.
And what makes for a good clean? A good, strong row!
Bent over rows will pack strength and muscle onto your back like there’s no tomorrow, and also make cleaning much heavier bells a breeze, as they teach you how to move the kettlebells through the full arc of movement they travel through in a clean
#3: Front squats
Strong legs = strong body.
One of the oft-ignored secrets of upper body strength is simply maintaining (or building) great lower body strength.
Former Master SFG Geoff Neupert tells of having separated his shoulder in college and not being able to press for several weeks. In that time he did squats and good mornings (a move where you have a barbell on your back and you bend forward). When he was able to press again, he lost only 5 pounds off his military press and zero pounds off his bench press.
Combined with the necessary mobility requirements, these 3 movements help you set down a foundation for a powerful, impressive military press that you will still have to work hard for but won’t have to struggle with nearly as much.
Putting It All Together
A program with these three exercises should be mercifully simple; the kind you can use to get in, out, and strong in short order.
- Choose weights that correspond to roughly your 12 rep max with each movement
- Select 3 days a week you can dedicate to training
- After doing a few warm-up sets, aim to do 3 working sets of 8 reps for each exercise.
- Do them in a circuit.
That is, do one set of each exercise in a series, and simply repeat the series until you’ve done all your working sets.
Be sure to place at least 2 minutes of rest between those sets, and maybe 3 if you’re finding you need the extra recovery time.
Once you can do 3 sets of 8 of each movement, your next mission — should you choose to accept it — is to reach 3 sets of 9 reps. Once you can do that, keep the process going of adding 1 rep per working set until you reach 3 sets of 12.
When you’ve reached 3 sets of 12, feel free to go back to your “business as usual training” and see if you don’t start seeing your progress charge boldly forward for the first time in possibly quite a while.
And of course, drop me a note and let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you.
And while you’re on your journey toward making mad gains, you might want to give yourself a boost with my 9-Minute Kettlebell and Bodyweight Challenge.
It’s designed around the most foundational of all movements — your gait pattern — and many people have written in to tell me they’ve either maintained or even improved on their favorite kettlebell and bodyweight exercises, even without practicing them.
Oh, and it’s free. What’s not to love?
Get thee thine own copy here => http://www.9MinuteChallenge.com
Have fun and happy training!
Aleks Salkin
