I was introduced to kettle bell training last March when I went to Australia for a competition and visit with my old training buddy. I found it to be a pretty good workout for a short amount of time needed. So how many members have or still train with them and what are your thoughts versus traditional weight training in the gym.

Some argue that anything you can do with a kettlebell, you can do with dumbbells. And dumbbells offer finer weight increments.

That said, I like the additional sets of motions that Pavel Tsatsouline and other kettlebell enthusiasts have brought to weight training. The human body is such a great machine. It adapts to challenges so quickly. It's nice to have lots of exercises to vary your routine. That's also why I put so many exercises in Fighter's Mind/Fighter's Body; when your body gets into a rut doing dive bombers for several weeks, you can switch up to dips or some other exercise to introduce a fresh challenge.

I'll use kettlebells for about a month, then switch up to heavy lifts for a month, then all bodyweight for a month, etc.

Interesting about the dumbbell analogy seeing how you have an 'equal' balance per say with a dumbbell depending on how you utilize it for your exercise routine as you would with a kettlebell. I find that using the kettlebell seems to require more focus on using your core versus dumbbells because of the weight all on one end rather than being equally distributed like a dumbbell.

Exactly! That is why they are so benificial to training. Combat Fitness requires you to push pass the plataues.

THe Mad Russian "Ivan" is an awesome trainier. Love most of what he has put out, but then I have had the opportunity to work with men from Spetznatz.