I’ve spent the last year investigating various ways to improve my overall level of strength and general fitness.

By way of context: I’m an entrepreneur / researcher / author, not an athlete. I’m not training for competition, don’t have a ton of time to spend at the gym, and I don’t want to look like a bodybuilder.

That said, there’s an enormous amount of research that strength training is one of the best things you can do for overall health, general fitness, and longevity.

The goal was to find a form of strength training that would:

Produce the best possible results in the minimum possible amount of time.
Minimize the risk of injury.
Fit into my daily routine in a way that doesn’t detract from other priorities.
Here’s what I learned…

Pumping
Kettlebells have a lot going for them:

I found the movements much easier to learn than freeweights, and they feel more comfortable and safer to execute.
The movements train all major muscle groups and encourage the entire body to move in coordination, working accessory muscles and avoiding isolation of any one muscle at a time.
The protocol is time efficient: the entire workout can be completed in 20-30 minutes.
The load on your body is intense, but not so much that you experience significant muscle soreness, and you can safely train every day, making it much easier to build the training into a daily routine.
Swings and TGUs also produce significant cardiovascular load, with average heart rates comparable to running, so you get cardio benefits at the same time as strength training.
Kettlebells are inexpensive, relatively small, easy to store, and require no maintenance. I could’ve easily kept a set of kettlebells in my tiny NYC studio apartment. (A rack of freeweights, not so much.)
I started training with a 12kg (~26lbs) kettlebell. After a few months of training, I’m now completing the full S&S protocol with a 20kg (44lbs) kettlebell without difficulty, and I’m in the best shape of my adult