Kettlebell Masochism

It's been a while since I've done kettlebells; I was a little bit tentative about getting back into it since being injured but last week, I thought it was about time I gave it a go again. Starting out with the little kettlebells I assessed my back situation. A whole load of encouragement and solid advice on good technique from the brilliantly enthusiastic instructor meant that throughout the session my confidence built and I got back up to throwing the bigguns around = happy Egg.

By the end of the class I was absolutely buzzing and even though I ached for about two days afterwards, I still raved on for ages about how great kettlebells are to all my gym buddies (and to some non-gym buddies who really weren't interested at all).

I managed to convince one of those said gym buddies to join in this evening: one of the infamous 'Ralph sisters', Esther. The Ralph sisters are two of the most hardcore fitness fanatics known to man and are therefore very easily coerced into almost any exercise-related activity. I'm not even sure that they do things like sleeping or sitting down, not unless the sitting down is on a bike or some kind of weights machine.

It was Esther's first kettlebell experience and I was very pleased that within ten minutes - like me - she was absolutely dripping with sweat. It's such an intense activity that I had patches of sweat in completely unexplainable places, when else would you sweat from your shins?!

We started light and silently, but knowingly, pushed each other on to bigger kettlebells with subtle glances in the mirror as the class went on. There was a classic moment when the instructor explained that we would work in pairs and whilst one person did some outrageously difficult exercise the other would do some other outrageously difficult exercise and then swap around. Across the room, faces were full of dread, but Esther and I just looked at each other with a masochistic grin and a satisfied nod before tackling it doggedly.
If you haven't tried it yet, do it. You'll wonder how you ever lived without it!