You will make the greatest and safest barbell progress if you first put your time in bodyweight and kettlebell training. The former will teach you to get tight and linked up. The latter will prep your shoulders, hips, and back and teach you the fundamentals of moving strong when loaded.
Bodyweight
The most obvious advantage is accessibility. You can train anywhere, anytime.
Second, getting better at lifting your own body promotes a healthy body composition. You can “eat your way through a sticking point” in the bench press or squat. Do not try that with pullups.
Third, challenging low rep bodyweight exercises will force you to develop key skills of a strength professional such as staying tight. You could have poor technique and weak abs—and still improve your bench press or jerk.
Good luck cheating the one-arm/one-leg pushup.
Kettlebell
The kettlebell is the most versatile training tool there is—a gym in your hand.
Science and experience agree that kettlebell training develops a wide range of attributes: slow and dynamic strength, various types of endurance, muscle hypertrophy, fat loss, health, etc. “The more I do with kettlebells, the more I think of abandoning every other form of training,” wrote Rob Lawrence. “The workouts simultaneously train *everything*. Strength, speed, endurance… The thing that surprised me most was hamstring flexibility from doing one-armed snatches. There is a great deal of truth to the axiom that all training is a matter of trade-offs, but if anything out there threatens that wisdom, it’s got to be kettlebells.”
Properly used, kettlebells lay a foundation for healthy and powerful movement. Your hips become mobile, your spine stable, your shoulders both mobile and stable… You feel resilient… You start moving like an athlete and are making dramatic changes to your body composition…
Kettlebells are compact, inexpensive, virtually indestructible, and can be used anywhere. Unlike dumbbells, you do not need a whole park of them. Several kettlebells are enough and even one will do.
The kettlebell ought to be your entry point into strength training. Even if you have spent decades under the bar, take on the kettlebell and you will be so much stronger and healthier for it.
Whatever choice you make, StrongFirst got you covered with our gold standard online video courses.
Select your power tool: kettlebell, barbell, or bodyweight.
(If you are not sure, the kettlebell is the right choice.)
