The question “can kettlebells build muscle” comes up almost weekly.
My answer?
Yes. End of article.
Ok, you might need a little more information than that.
Any modality can build muscle as long as there’s progressive intensity and volume combined with a caloric surplus and enough rest to facilitate growth. That goes for bodyweight training, dumbbells, barbells, sandbags, etc. As long as the muscle fibers are stimulated with enough weight for a long enough time you’re golden.
So why don’t we see huge kettlebellers?
There’s a few reasons here…
- Too much ballistic work with not enough weight
- Too many circuits that burn too many calories
- That’s not the goal for most
When I owned and operated a kettlebell-centric gym do you know how many people came in saying “I want to get huuuuuuuuge!”
I can’t even remember one.
The goals were always I want to...