Can we trust everything we see online?

Aaron Guyett and Marcus Martinez talk about this, as well as the good, the bad, and the ugly with online fitness personalities.

There are really excellent and very authentic online fitness personalities, but there are also money-hungry pretenders online as well.

Marcus and Aaron give a few tips on how to tell the difference between these two types of online fitness personalities.

Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Check out more interviews and articles from Marcus Martinez and Aaron Guyett in the blog, or get full versions by subscribing to our membership here:  https://www.living.fit/kettlebell-workout-plans-and-memberships

The Clean is a deceptive exercise. It looks like a curl, but moves from the ground to your shoulder in an entirely different way. The key thing for those new to the clean to understand is the trajectory the kettlebell needs to take and the primary movers. 

Here are a handful of regressions that will help you on that path! 

1. Two hand Cheat Curl Clean - This is helping you understand that the bell doesn't come end over end as it finishes in the rack. Even with speed the kettlebell should nestle itself in the rack like a baby bird as opposed to a wrecking ball. 
2. Two hand Hang Clean - Once the pathway has been set, now we want to add some hip timing of the hinge and extension. The primary mover is not the upper body, so this will help you practice that. You’ll still use your other arm for half the work here. 
3. Assisted Hang Clean - Now we’re speed and less intervention from the other hand. This will help use work the lower body with a powerful drive, but...

The swing is a powerful movement that helps the strongest and most powerful athlete get even more explosive. Two hand swings are great and have their uses, but here are five swing variations you might not have tried before.

1. One Arm Staggered Swing 

Here you’re going to take the mechanics of the swing (strong hip drive, tense upper body, tall standing position), but instead of staying in a bilateral stance with your feet at an equal distance you’re going to stagger your feet. This allows you to focus slightly more on one side (your front leg) as you drive through to the top of the exercise. On this variation avoid rotating your torso on the downswing. Sink into your front glute on the downswing to add a greater unilateral focus to the movement. 

1. Alternating Staggered Rotational Swing 

This is by far one of my favorite kettlebell exercises. You get the timing of the alternating position from the hand to hand transfer as well as your foot position, the...

One of the biggest issues we talk about is only thinking about an exercise, or a method, or an attribute as THE exercise, method, or attribute for fitness results. However, if you are a hammer or if you only have a hammer, then everything is a nail.

 Introducing Marcus and Aaron with Living.Fit

 Marcus Martinez and Aaron Guyett are both Master Coaches with Living.Fit, and Aaron Guyett is the Education Director as well. Every month they talk through a few topics to help clear a path to a better you on the Living.Fit Show.

 The Perfect Hammer

 As humans, we want to believe that there is a perfect exercise, or a perfect methodology, or a perfect fill-in-the-blank. Unfortunately, this is just not true. Humans compared to animals are incredibly alike, but one human compared to another, are drastically different...not to mention that each human is going to go through a very different life experience than other humans. So to say that there is a perfect exercise or...

5 Ways to Perform Alternating Waves with Battle Ropes

To get the most out of each movement, you will need to understand all the ways to make that movement happen. Alternating waves is an incredible movement for cross-patterning, strength, endurance, and coordination, bringing brain health and body fitness improvements every time you train them.

 Whether you are trying to go the distance with your alternating waves, or you just want to squeeze every drop of goodness and sweat out of your alternating waves training on the battle ropes...here are 5 ways to make this movement happen.

 Do you like our content? You can subscribe to one of our memberships for access to exclusive content here: https://www.living.fit/kettlebell-workout-plans-and-memberships

 Bi’s and Tri’s Alternating Waves

 For those of you looking to put some pump in your arms, or you are looking to isolate your biceps and triceps with some great antagonist work, the bicep and tricep...

The Kettlebell Clean:

The Kettlebell Clean is a powerful exercise that has the potential to build a stronger body or trash your forearms if you’re not careful. There are many regressions that will help you understand the path the kettlebell takes and the timing required to avoid bruised arms. The two hand cheat curl clean is the easiest way to take that kettlebell on the journey from hanging to the rack position with as little momentum as possible. I used this with great success on new clients. The next regression came out of necessity and to fill a much needed step on the path to great cleans.

The Cheat Curl: 

The cheat curl is great for learning the trajectory of the bell, but does nothing with hip speed or the timing of the pull. Once my client understands the pathway it’s time to kick it up a notch. Once you’ve tried this under complete control adding some speed will help add more parts to the movement, but too much speed can break you.

For the full...

In this video Marcus Martinez breaks down the differences between the Kettlebell Complex, Circuit, and Flow.

While they look similar, what you will find as you learn a bit more, each is very different, and all three can be effective ways to train with kettlebells.

Complex

A complex is a string of exercises where you don't put the kettlebell down.

Circuit

A variety of exercises, and you have breaks in between.

Flow

Focusing on being present, and exploring both creativity and what you can do effectively with a kettlebell without putting the bell down.

If you want to learn more from Marcus about complexes, circuits, and flows, subscribe to our Reading and Demonstrations below.

The simplicity of the kettlebell can’t be beat. I love the idea of grabbing a bell or two, finding a park with a pull up bar and getting to work. With a couple of kettlebells you can do just about anything except change the weight of the bell. Most people have access to a bell or two (or three if you’re REALLY lucky), but few have access to a rack of kettlebells as you’d see with dumbbells. Let’s say you take a lesson or a course and fall in love with kettlebell training. You find a bell, start progressing, but then there’s a gap between getting your next bell.

 What to do?

 In order to get stronger you need to adhere to the principle of Progressive Overload. With a bar or dumbbells, it’s fairly easy to add another 5lbs every few sessions, but that’s not going to work with the kettlebell. 

 When I first started I only had access to a few bells so out of necessity I tried progressing in different ways. Little did I know...

Living.fit is now all around the world. We've had people from Saudi Arabia, Netherlands, India, Dubai, England, Ireland, Germany, France, and the list goes on.

What is Living.Fit's big differentiator?

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The two from Marcus's perspective are the amount of technical knowledge that goes into these plans, and the amount of plans.

Normally, you find a lot of not the highest quality programs, or really technical and really great programs, but you get very, very few of them. We wanted to do high quality, high quantity, so that way, there was so much to pull from. Whether you are a coach, whether you are a fitness enthusiast, dabbling with battle ropes and kettle bells, we have every base covered.

For Aaron, it is a bit different. How can you get them the ground floor, so to speak, and be able to go all the way up to the highest levels? Or if you're at the highest level, how are you gonna get benefit?...

If you’ve picked up even the slightest bit of kettlebell knowledge you’ll have learned about the Get Up. Not only is it a powerful, full body strengthening exercise, but it’s a great way to assess core, shoulder, and leg strength as well as mobility and coordination. There’s time under tension from the second you start until you bring the bell down safely to the ground.  

Traditionally you’ll be starting from the ground with a bell overhead and work your way up through a series of positions until you’re fully standing. You’ll then reverse the movement and make your way back to the starting position on your back on the ground. 

If we’re talking efficacy and functionality it’s a fantastic movement. Practicing getting up from the supine position is enough for most. Adding in load makes it significantly more challenging. Why is it so effective? For one thing it’s multiple movements in one. For a standard get up...