What Is IBA?

Fe.  The symbol for iron in the periodic table of the elements.  Strong.  Solid.  Reliable.  Welcome to Ironbell Athletics.  I’ve made a shift in my training focus to Girevoy Sport and Kettlebell Fitness.  Still no secret formulas or programs.  Just honest, hard work, liberally applied.

I’m certified as an American Kettlebell Club coach, but have not actually coached anyone outside of my own immediate family.  I’ve been lifting weights since I was around 18, and got into kettlebells around 2000 (I think!).  Since then I played around with mixing both weight training and kettlebells, but have really narrowed my focus to Girevoy Sport in the last month or so.

Ironbell Athletics started as a name for my blog, and reflected my interests at the time;  1. I loved to deadlift and work with thick handled dumbbells for basic work.  2. I was really into Ironmind’s Captain’s of Crush grippers for a while. 3. I was getting ready to get my RKC cert and was very much into Hardstyle kettlebell training.  So I came up with Ironbell Athletics to write about my training and to keep me honest and goal-oriented.

Since then, I went to the American Kettlebell Club’s certification in March 2007 (mostly because the cost included a complete set of bells).  At the time, the cert was one day and lasted about 12 hours.  Our time with the bells was very limited and the cert was a great deal of lecture and demo by Valery Federenko.

I came out of there feeling less like a coach and more like a newbie with a free set of competition style kettlebells.

So I messed around with Girevoy Sport-style lifting and continued to practice Hardstyle.  In fact, my wife, my son and I completed the Enter The Kettlebell program last summer.  It was (and is) a great program and we made really good progress with our fitness and body composition.

However, I was still in the mindset of playing with free weights and dabbling in GS.I really like the old school weight training programs from the early 1900’s and have done programs from York and Harry Paschall, although I never really felt like I was accomplishing something good.  More like just pushing weight.

I tried the “Blast From The Past” workout from The Art of Strength and posted on my blog that I was going to do the program for 6 weeks to properly evaluate it.  However, after 3 workouts that lasted 1.5 hrs each, I got the same “pushing weight” feeling and dropped it.  I even posted about my feelings regarding weight training and my love of kettlebells.

Now please don’t get the idea I’m anti-AOS.  I’m not.

I’m sure I probably came across as one of those guys who is never satisfied with a program.  So be it.  What I did recognize was that I really, really, enjoyed exercising with kettlebells.  Further, I enjoyed playing with my competition bells way more than my Dragondoor-style bells.

At the same time, I came across a blog entry from an East Bay trainer (workoutiq) about a 5000 rep kettlebell snatch challenge.  Feeling guilty about not completing two previous programs, I decided to complete this one.  I started two weeks late but finished it on the last day.At any rate, I figured my life might be a little less complicated if I focused on one thing.  I found that doing several hundred snatches didn’t kill me and I actually was enjoying the aerobic component.  In addition, Girevoy Sport has several ranking levels which motivates me to set goals and keep regular workouts.

So my focus is on GS right now.  If you peruse my blog, you’ll find advertisements to Dragondoor and Art of Strength and other stuff that’s not GS related, but others might find interesting. 

My goal is to get more videos up, consolidate info about GS from other sources, and try to get some rank in the GS system.  I don’t have a whole lot of time to train outside my home right now, as I’m working a relief shift and my workdays and hours change weekly.  However, I try to post on my blog regularly and hope you’ll drop by to check things out.

Thanks for reading my intro,