US Kettlebells/ Iron Woody

[Guest guest]

Well, I tried one out today (http://www.uskettlebells.com/) and while

everything else about it's cool, I don't care for the shape of the

handle. Too squared off for me to do a comfortable two-handed swing.

The hands get crowded breadth-wise.

The one I was playing with was set too heavy for me to do much--I

think it was 62#--but I cleaned it a few times to see if the corners

affect a one-hand grip. Not a big deal on a clean but, of course,

overhead stuff is a little trickier especially with multiple reps.

It's nice-looking, spherical, and well-constructed so one needn't fear

a plate-shower.

But I prefer the rounded handles because of the easy way the hands

move in it. I wonder why US kettlebells used a square shape.

I also tried out the Iron Woody bells:

http://www.ironwoodyfitness.com/kettlebells.html

and those were interesting. I thought this guy was using an

excessively heavy bell for an all-day training but since these bells

are of uniform size, so it just looked heavier to my eye. Was the size

of a 70, but weighed 55#. The lighter ones are filled with aluminum

to take more space.

Strangely, the square handle on the Iron Woody is less annoying than

that of the USK, but the finish is a little slippy for me. Nor do I

see any benefit in the uniform sizes, because I prefer distinguishing

the weight by size, instead of picking the thing up and reading the

small print..but maybe there's something to their claims. I just

don't find adjusting to a larger, heavier bell, when needed, to be

problematic.

B.

[Guest guest]

>

> ³I also tried out the Iron Woody bells:

>

> http://www.ironwoodyfitness.com/kettlebells.html

>

> and those were interesting. I thought this guy was using an

> excessively heavy bell for an all-day training but since these bells

> are of uniform size, so it just looked heavier to my eye. Was the size

> of a 70, but weighed 55#. The lighter ones are filled with aluminum

> to take more space.

>

> Strangely, the square handle on the Iron Woody is less annoying than

> that of the USK, but the finish is a little slippy for me. Nor do I

> see any benefit in the uniform sizes, because I prefer distinguishing

> the weight by size, instead of picking the thing up and reading the

> small print..but maybe there's something to their claims. I just

> don't find adjusting to a larger, heavier bell, when needed, to be

> problematic.

>

> B.²

>

> I used some competition style kettlebells for awhile, and I thought that using

> the 70 kg size for lighter weights made a big difference ­ I was not used to

> doing jerks with the larger sized kettlebells, and found it awkward. I suppose

> that this is really of little concern if you¹re not interested in your numbers

> in competition exercises, but the competition Russian ones are uniform in

> size.

>

> While I have an uncomfortably large contingent of the Dragondoor kettlebells

> for a small apt, I do plan to get some of the new Fedorenko bells which use

> the uniform sizes and also the slightly thinner, regulation handle. I don¹t

> care about competing, so I¹ll probably just get one each of the 24 and the 32

> kg, to use for swings and snatches, where the smaller handles fit my hands

> better.

>

>

>

>