Aleks Salkin - Free kettlebell and bodyweight workouts
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    • 10 Questions To Ask Yourself Before You Start A Kettlebell Workout
    • How Much Should I Pay for Kettelbell Workouts Training?
    • How to put 100 lbs over your head with 1 arm
    • How Do I Know if Kettlebells Are Right for Me?
    • The 7 Most Frequent Questions About Kettlebells
    • The 90-year plan
    • How to become a T-1000 (a review of Flexible Steel)
    • It's not about the bell: 3 Lessons From an RKC Workshop in Israel
    • How To Choose The Right Personal Trainer
    • How To Make Your Snatch Test Easier
    • 40 Days, (Almost) 40 Lessons
    • What is Fitness Minimalism?
    • Clean up your kettlebell clean in 2 steps
    • Why you MUST make your resistance training harder
    • Get Fitter WITHOUT Beating Your Body Up
    • Get Stronger WITHOUT Adding Weight
    • Original Strength For Brute Strength
    • How To Leap Forward After A Layoff
    • 6 Workout Tips For The Newbie Lifter
    • How to persuade your body to hand over new results
    • Best Exercises You're Not Doing: The Pullover
    • How To Break Plateaus In Your Training
    • 5 20-minute, fat-blasting workouts >
      • The Top 5 Reasons YOU Should Get Strong
      • The 3 Things Your Personal Trainer Forgot To Tell You
      • The 2 Lessons You MUST Learn To Improve Your Fitness
    • The Surest Path To Success
    • The 3 Cheapest Ways To Get Fitter And Healthier
    • How to avoid a shitty personal trainer
    • When should I jump to a new program?
    • Get noticeably stronger in 10 seconds
    • Should you abandon the basics?
    • 1 Simple Reason To Love Kettlebells
    • How to build "Old Man Strength"
    • Improve your recovery for faster gains
    • Secrets of Old School Strength
    • You HAVE to train your core
    • A Few Honest-To-God Strength Shortcuts
    • How To Succeed With A Personal Trainer
    • The Fast/Slow Program For Superior Gains
    • The Crawl and Carry Workout that Boosts Strength and Muscle
  • Free Calisthenics Info
    • How to get your first pullup at 50 years old
    • From Bodyweight To Heavyweight: Mining the 1-arm/1-leg pushup for a heavier press
    • The Anytime, Anywhere Bodyweight Strength Program
    • Primal Move: Answer The Call
    • Capture The Flag
    • Crawl your way to a 1-arm pushup
    • What's a Joint Like You Doin' In a Person Like This?
    • Improve your back flexibility with one move
    • 2 handstand "hacks" for faster progress
    • It's Hip To Grip
    • From Body Weight To Heavy Weight
    • From Bodyweight To Heavyweight Pt. 2: Calisthenics For Iron Domination
    • Unjack Your Back
    • Handstand pushups: for legendary upper body power
    • How To Prepare For Your First Handstand
    • How to Kick Ass At Bodyweight Workouts
    • Improve your cardio with 2 bodyweight drills
    • The 10-Second Ab Workout
    • Roll, Rock, and Crawl Your Fat Off
    • Bodyweight Detours For Greater Strength
    • Your Eyes, Your Legs, and Bodyweight Strength
    • Dead Bugs For Life! >
      • The #1 Bodyweight Exercise For Bigger Shoulders and Arms
      • The #1 Step Toward Greater Fitness
    • "Do I really NEED to stretch?"
    • You DON'T need a gym to get fit
    • Find The Right Trainer/Program: Pt. 1
    • Little Things Add Up
    • Fit In A Few Minutes (No Excuses Workouts)
    • Bigger Arms With Bodyweight: Rope Climbing
    • Get better at 1 arm pushups (without doing them)
    • Stop Looking For Fitness Hacks
    • Old School Health and Strength Done Right
    • The Top 5 Reasons YOU Should Be Obsessed With Bodyweight Training
    • A Cool Crawling Workout
    • How (and Why) To Train Around An Injury
    • Exercise Vs. Movement: Which is better?
    • How to Build Brute Strength With Bodyweight Only
    • Five 20-Minute, No Equipment Workouts
    • Why Bodyweight Training Is Important
    • The Fast/Slow Method For Steady Strength Gains
    • Crawl your way to better fitness
    • The Top 5 Reasons YOU should be obsessed with calisthenics training
    • The "Suicide Solution" For Conditioning Gains
    • The No-Equipment Workout To Improve Your Cardio
    • Thank You KBBW
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Why you *must* make your resistance workouts harder

If it's not hard, what are you resisting, exactly?
Picture
Wanna know what works for physically transforming yourself?

Resistance training.

Resistance is defined as "the act or power of resisting, opposing, or withstanding." The harder you have to work to physically resist something, the more your body necessarily and physiologically has to change to meet the challenge. That means burn more of that fat you encouraged it to store, build more of that muscle you let get soft and mushy, and lift up that mood you let the gravity of day-to-day life and circumstance bring down.
Ponder, then, your fellow man's seeming obsession with making resistance training easier. What's the point, exactly? If you're constantly striving to make the act of resistance easier, what are you even resisting? It's like wrestling a baby bear, winning, and then publicly patting yourself on the back (so everyone on Facebook can see, of course) for the great work you did. Feel free to brag when you wrestle the mama bear and win by suplex, but don't equate the two. You might as well make it super easy on yourself and stop altogether. At least that way you're efficiently making lack of resistance easy and not wasting your time in Fantasy Land by dancing on the fence.

Performing easier or lighter progressions of an exercise that still challenge you with the goal and mindset of building up strength for harder variations in the future is great and is a fool-proof way of building up toward greater resistance and therefore greater results; no criticism there. Going into your fern-laden mirrored paradise and playing with pink rubber bands while you hoist some tiny weight on a blue Swiss ball will not help you lose pesky inches around your waist, but rather around your pocketbook as you send your overpriced trainer laughing all the way to the bank after he's done counting your nosebleed-high reps.

Resistance isn't futile. Lack of it is. Hoist something heavy and have a kick-ass week (and pass the word off to your pink rubber band-lifting friends. Trust me, they won't put up much resistance).

There are many ways to add resistance.  One, as Arnold Schwarzenegger is demonstrating in the picture above, is to add weight to an exercise you're already performing.  There are other ways to add resistance without adding weight, and the following program for one kettlebell + your own bodyweight will demonstrate how you can squeeze the most strength out of a very small amount of equipment.

Extra Resistance Program

A1) 3-5 Pullups (add a 5 second pause at the top of each rep, and lower to the starting position over the course of 5 seconds)
A2) 5 goblet squats (add a 5 second pause at the bottom, stand up half way, go back down, then stand up fully.  Do this on each rep)
A3) 5 military presses per hand (pause for 5 seconds in the rack, press the bell halfway and pause for 3 seconds, then finish the press to the lockout.  Repeat for each rep)

When you're done, throw this in for good measure: 

B1) 5 slow leg raises lying on your back
B2) 10 power swings

You'll find that regardless of your circumstances, you can *always* find a way to get stronger if your goal is to work both smarter AND harder.

​Enjoy, and happy training!

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  • Home
  • Meet Aleks
  • Workshops
  • Free Kettlebell Info
    • The 5 Point Kettlebell Checklist
    • The Most Asked Question
    • The Most Asked Question: Part 2
    • 6 Things Most Kettlebell Instructors Don't Know
    • 10 Questions To Ask Yourself Before You Start A Kettlebell Workout
    • How Much Should I Pay for Kettelbell Workouts Training?
    • How to put 100 lbs over your head with 1 arm
    • How Do I Know if Kettlebells Are Right for Me?
    • The 7 Most Frequent Questions About Kettlebells
    • The 90-year plan
    • How to become a T-1000 (a review of Flexible Steel)
    • It's not about the bell: 3 Lessons From an RKC Workshop in Israel
    • How To Choose The Right Personal Trainer
    • How To Make Your Snatch Test Easier
    • 40 Days, (Almost) 40 Lessons
    • What is Fitness Minimalism?
    • Clean up your kettlebell clean in 2 steps
    • Why you MUST make your resistance training harder
    • Get Fitter WITHOUT Beating Your Body Up
    • Get Stronger WITHOUT Adding Weight
    • Original Strength For Brute Strength
    • How To Leap Forward After A Layoff
    • 6 Workout Tips For The Newbie Lifter
    • How to persuade your body to hand over new results
    • Best Exercises You're Not Doing: The Pullover
    • How To Break Plateaus In Your Training
    • 5 20-minute, fat-blasting workouts >
      • The Top 5 Reasons YOU Should Get Strong
      • The 3 Things Your Personal Trainer Forgot To Tell You
      • The 2 Lessons You MUST Learn To Improve Your Fitness
    • The Surest Path To Success
    • The 3 Cheapest Ways To Get Fitter And Healthier
    • How to avoid a shitty personal trainer
    • When should I jump to a new program?
    • Get noticeably stronger in 10 seconds
    • Should you abandon the basics?
    • 1 Simple Reason To Love Kettlebells
    • How to build "Old Man Strength"
    • Improve your recovery for faster gains
    • Secrets of Old School Strength
    • You HAVE to train your core
    • A Few Honest-To-God Strength Shortcuts
    • How To Succeed With A Personal Trainer
    • The Fast/Slow Program For Superior Gains
    • The Crawl and Carry Workout that Boosts Strength and Muscle
  • Free Calisthenics Info
    • How to get your first pullup at 50 years old
    • From Bodyweight To Heavyweight: Mining the 1-arm/1-leg pushup for a heavier press
    • The Anytime, Anywhere Bodyweight Strength Program
    • Primal Move: Answer The Call
    • Capture The Flag
    • Crawl your way to a 1-arm pushup
    • What's a Joint Like You Doin' In a Person Like This?
    • Improve your back flexibility with one move
    • 2 handstand "hacks" for faster progress
    • It's Hip To Grip
    • From Body Weight To Heavy Weight
    • From Bodyweight To Heavyweight Pt. 2: Calisthenics For Iron Domination
    • Unjack Your Back
    • Handstand pushups: for legendary upper body power
    • How To Prepare For Your First Handstand
    • How to Kick Ass At Bodyweight Workouts
    • Improve your cardio with 2 bodyweight drills
    • The 10-Second Ab Workout
    • Roll, Rock, and Crawl Your Fat Off
    • Bodyweight Detours For Greater Strength
    • Your Eyes, Your Legs, and Bodyweight Strength
    • Dead Bugs For Life! >
      • The #1 Bodyweight Exercise For Bigger Shoulders and Arms
      • The #1 Step Toward Greater Fitness
    • "Do I really NEED to stretch?"
    • You DON'T need a gym to get fit
    • Find The Right Trainer/Program: Pt. 1
    • Little Things Add Up
    • Fit In A Few Minutes (No Excuses Workouts)
    • Bigger Arms With Bodyweight: Rope Climbing
    • Get better at 1 arm pushups (without doing them)
    • Stop Looking For Fitness Hacks
    • Old School Health and Strength Done Right
    • The Top 5 Reasons YOU Should Be Obsessed With Bodyweight Training
    • A Cool Crawling Workout
    • How (and Why) To Train Around An Injury
    • Exercise Vs. Movement: Which is better?
    • How to Build Brute Strength With Bodyweight Only
    • Five 20-Minute, No Equipment Workouts
    • Why Bodyweight Training Is Important
    • The Fast/Slow Method For Steady Strength Gains
    • Crawl your way to better fitness
    • The Top 5 Reasons YOU should be obsessed with calisthenics training
    • The "Suicide Solution" For Conditioning Gains
    • The No-Equipment Workout To Improve Your Cardio
    • Thank You KBBW
  • Store
  • What Others Are Saying
  • Free 1-Arm Pushup Report
  • Contact