Kettlebells are kicking my butt

Baby number two is due in about 6 months. When we were at T-minus 6 months for our first child, I was in great shape. I swam about 50 laps of crawl 5 days a week at the most amazing pool at MIT's Z center. Best shape of my life.

Then our daughter arrived, I never slept, and I ate junk food to keep myself sane for the better part of the first two years of her life. After the first year, I got mono, which knocked me on my ass for about 6 straight months. I packed on some pounds and am now generally a pretty huge weakling. I strain muscles really easily now that I have so little muscle mass. The latest episode involved straining my wrist while unloading a lawn mower to hack my out-of-control-overgrown lawn. The lawn had gotten so overgrown that our little manual push mower wasn't so much cutting grass as combing it, so I had to borrow a friend's power mower. The previous strain involved carrying some luggage into the house after vacation.

These little indignities are getting to be more than just embarrassing. What to do?

I called my SEAL buddy to ask him for his advice on how to get back some functional strength in some simple workouts. His advice:

1. Install pullup bar in a well traveled area of the house. Do pullups (or in my case, attempt pullup) whenever you pass by.

A few notes on this: you can't just put the pullup bar in the basement. It has to be front and center, in a part of the house you visit often during the regular course of the day. If installing the pullup bar doesn't elicit gasps of horror from your spouse because of how the pullup bar's presence ruins the aesthetic of the room, you haven't put the bar in the right place. You want the pullup bar in the most obtrusive spot possible. In my case, it's in the pantry door frame. The lure of the pantry is irresistible: it contains cookies, chocolate, and the coffee grinder. I'm in there at dozen times a day, which means I'm trying pullups a dozen times a day.

I was amazed at how many people report nearly killing themselves doing pullups on improperly installed pullup bars. It's pretty simple: screw it into solid, load bearing wood framing, like a door frame.

2. Get a book by Pavel Tsatsouline and start doing kettlebell workouts with a 25 pound kettlebell.

A few notes on the kettlebell: No way in hell could I handle a 25 pound kettlebell. If I dropped it, I'd either crush my toes, the cat, shatter the floor, or sustain numerous strains at the very least. I picked up a lady's 10 pound bell to start with, just to make sure I could get the technique right before moving up to real man weight. Kettlebell workouts--even with light weights--are killer. Just you try 5 or 10 Turkish getups. You will be huffing and puffing in no time, and as Pavel says for many of his workouts, "Bring a puke bag."

The results, after just 10 days or so, are striking. I find myself with more energy. My arms are well toned--heck, I even have deltoids. Me--deltoids! When I used to lift weights at the gym years ago, I ended up with weird arms--big biceps, smaller triceps, and no shoulders. It's hard to do well-balanced weight lifting workouts what with all the goofy Nautilus equipment, but with a few simple kettlebell moves, you'll be amazed how your body changes.

I've also been amazed at how kettlebells develop real functional strength. Traditional weight lifting isolates your muscles and gives you the ability to lift weights in a particular way. For example, curling 50 pound dumbells makes you really good at...curling 50 pound dumbells. But day-to-day life doesn't present you with the opportunity to bench press something in order to accomplish anything of practical value.

Carrying a squirming two year old up steep stairs with one hand while dragging a 50 pound bag of concrete requires full body functional strength, not just huge biceps. The balance involved in these sorts of tasks is important, as is your body's ability to shift loads around. I find kettlebells are very good at building what I'll call "practical" strength. Ditto for the pullup bar.