What the hell?



Kettlebell sport. That’s what this is all about.

This site is dedicated to bringing you good, substantiated information on kettlebell lifting from true authorities (not just the ramblings of egomaniacs who purport to be experts).

Why achyball?

The kettlebell is fondly nicknamed ‘achyball’ due to its amazing capacity to cause extreme discomfort.  This is particularly true when the kettlebell is used for what it’s best adapted to: kettlebell sport.

And what the hell is kettlebell sport?

Traditionally, kettlebell sport (also known as Girevoy sport) is 10 min sets of kettlebell jerks, snatches or long cycle clean and jerk.  You can find a brief article on the history of kettlebell sport here.

For men, most competitions have biathlon (10 mins double jerks followed usually at least 30 mins laster by 10 mins snatches) and long cycle (double bells) events.  For women, there may be snatch only events or biathlon and long cycle events, at this stage all women’s events are carried out with single bells.  In competition sets the bells must not be put down, and for single handed lifts only one hand change is permitted.

Kettlebell sport also encompasses power juggling and non-traditional events such as extra long sets (anywhere from 20 mins to 24 hours), max chair presses and more recently a kettlebell strongman/woman competition and ranking system has been introduced in the US.

The principles of kettlebell sport lifting are principles that should be applied to all kettlebell lifting (Ice Chamber Coach, Steven Khuong, gives excellent explanations as to why in this article).

Further, kettlebell sport lifts and training protocols provide excellent supplementary training for other sports, Scott Shetler’s article on using kettlebells for strength athletes gives a great summary of this.  And Jamie Douse has written an in depth article on kettlebell ballistics for MMA (go to the menu on the left and click on ‘Articles’ to get the PDF).

Check out the clips below to get a better idea of what kettlebell sport looks like.

The incredible Fedor Fuglev snatching the 32kg kettlebell 222 times at the age of 48.  Inspirational and a testament to how this style of training can keep your body young.


The famous Ice Chamber women’s kettlebell team.


Ivan Denisov setting a long cycle world record.