Athlo Blog

I lifted free weights regularly for about 14 years.  The past two years I have focused primarily on running and biking, rarely touching weights.  I’ve felt like something has been missing from my training but didn’t want to go back to the gym because weight lifting is more about building mass and the extra weight would only slow me down while riding or running.  Then I discovered kettlebell training.

What is a kettlebell

In simplest terms, it is an iron ball with an iron handle attached.  They range from less than 10 lbs to over 100 lbs.  They have been used by the Russian military for centuries.  Kettlebells have not been used in the US until recently but have gained popularity in past few years.

Kettlebell training

Kettlebell training is oftentimes combined with other exercises that incorporate bags, bricks, crawls, runs, ropes, bungees, and body weight resistance but the bell is the core of the workout.  Exercises like bear crawls or lunges can even be done with kettlebells in each hand to really make them challenging.  Building functional strength is the key difference between kettlebell training and free weights.  In very few sports or activities would it be useful for you to bench press 300 lbs.

Advantages over free weights

One of the biggest advantages of kettlebells is in the time it takes to do your three sets of a particular lift, you could have done three different kettlebell exercises that blasted your entire body and kept your heart rate elevated the entire time.  Free weight workouts are more resting than activity whereas kettlebell training is all about nonstop resistance and activity.  Kettlebell training can be done without a spotter as well (although I recommend a personal trainer when first starting out).  Kettlebells can also be great during the off-season when an athlete may want to focus less on power weight training and more on general fitness and functional strength.  

Safety

It is highly recommended to get a personal trainer or take a kettlebell class before ever starting on your own, especially if you have limited experience working out with weights.  You will probably want to stay with the class or trainer anyway.  They will show you the safest way to use kettlebells and how to maximize your workout.  They will also put you through the most grueling but rewarding workouts of your life.  

After your first kettlebell workout you’ll feel like you’ve been smacked around with kettlebells.  But, after a couple kettlebell workouts you’ll feel like you are carved from stone.

We posted some significant, yet seamless, updates to the form that allows you to add new workouts.  Now when you add a workout, you have a few new options:

1. Add exercises.  This is a significant enhancement that let’s you add multiple exercises to a single workout.  For example, if you’re workout consists of a warm-up, run, and cool-down, then log these as three separate exercises within the same workout.  Each exercise has a set of relevant quantifiers that let you track things like your pace, time, distance, etc.  In time, these quantifiers will be the basis of a great deal of insight into your performance.
2. Auto-save.  Never worry about clicking that save button again.  As you type in the workout/exercise form, your data is saved automatically.  Just open, edit, and close … one less step.  That’s how we try to approach most everything on the site: clean and simple.
3. Add notes, or not.  In every workout there is an “add notes” link.  If you have some extra text you’d like to add to your workout, this is the place for it.  If not, it remains hidden out of sight for a cleaner form.
4. Start Time of Day.  There is no requirement to use this when creating workouts, however it will be an important feature when group workout scheduling goes live.  We’re scaling the site for bigger and better things so be sure to check back time and again for what Athlo can do for your athletic lifestyle.

In other news, we’ve been working hard on getting one of the exciting features ready to lauch: training plan generation.  We’ll keep you posted on the development, but so far it’s coming together quite nicely.

Athlo has reached a major milestone in the site’s feature development. The training calendar is now live and the link can be found in your main title bar after logging in. Simply click on “training” and you will be able to view your calendar. It will become the foundation for training at Athlo and keeping you on the path to achieving your goals.

The calendar is simple, yet highly functional and easy to use. The drag and drop feature makes creating new workouts, saving workouts and creating your own training plan fast and easy. Give us your feedback and let us know what you think.

We have also added an RSS feed to make it easier for you to keep up with the latest developments and announcements on Athlo. Subscribe to ensure that you’re immediately notified of new features as we roll them out.

Athlo has many more great things coming up. The training calendar will tie together many of the features we have planned over the next few weeks so check back often to see what’s available.