Crazy Kettlebells!

This is Nikolay Gorn, and he is awesome. Mr. Gorn, as his glorious video will report, posted this when he'd already lost 43 pounds, apparently through a very Mother Russia approach to kettlebell work (they call it Girevoy Sport).

I am not making fun of Nikolay. He could kick my ass and he's a middle-aged beast, which is what I aspire to be. A big part of why I even bother with any of these posts is how tired I am of the messages men and women have always received (generally speaking) about the significance of being in one's forties--how once you hit 45 you're supposedly closer to peepaw picking up his AARP card than your 30-something bro on the mountain bike. Of course your body does change and yes, you are aging--but as Nikolay demonstrates, us forty-somethings still have plenty of inner bear (or bearess? Bearina? I don't know) to spare.

The music and design of his video, though, are Youtube gold standard for the weird kettlebell stuff I've found. I don't know what it is about that particular kind of workout that seems to draw the fixated and strange and then prompt them to make delightful videos of all kinds, but I am not complaining.

My wife says I'm 'fixated' on kettlebells, which isn't really true. I do like them but I'm constitutionally incapable of seizing on one single solution for my fitness needs. Some people, though, definitely find one hobbyhorse--long-distance running, bodybuilding, kettlebells--and they ride the hell out of it. They are often convinced they've found a magic bullet or golden ticket or some third totemic item that symbolizes The Answer. I become more convinced every day that the answer is all the answers, to some degree. Bits of this, pieces of that. Make it up as you go along, but never forget good form and remember sometimes pain doesn't mean gain, it means you have a hernia.

Anyway, the main point of this post is just to introduce you to Nikolay's video. He's the tip of the iceberg for unintentionally funny (though I suspect Nikolay maybe intended a bit of funny) kettlebell videos. I may post more as I find them.

Speaking of funny--I want to be funnier in all these posts. A lot of people who read them come here from Twitter, where they're used to me being a smartass and making jokes all the time. I'm not going to try (that's a sure way to fail) but I am going to take a little extra time working on posts to find angles that amuse me, make me laugh. Weird and dark as my sense of humor seems to be, that approach usually translates better than some artificial attempt to "make the funny."

Now. Watch video! Enjoy girevik, swinging girya! Have the vodka, swing the girya, good times!