Whether it’s your first time or you’ve let a few years (or decades) slip by, getting started on your fitness journey can seem like a daunting task. It’s easy to get caught up in what the perfect diet or training plan would look like and then find yourself in the abyss of paralysis by analysis. Spoiler alert: there’s no perfect plan. The best thing you can do is focus on what’s practical given your technical abilities, current fitness level, equipment, and overall stress levels. 

If you’re brand-spanking new to the wide world of fitness then baby steps are the name of the game. The simple act of incorporating a daily, brisk walk can get the ball rolling. Consistency beats intensity. There’s a level of discomfort you’ll have to feel at first, but not only does it go away, but you’ll crave the challenge. A simple full body workout with basic equipment done a one to two  times a week is the best thing you can do in...

How To Gauge Intensity for Your Workouts

By: Aaron Guyett

Intensity is this ambiguous term for most of us...but we can help you gauge it for progress.

Intensity is usually correlated with weight or perceived exertion, and it can be very helpful to know when to ramp up or lower down the intensity for your fitness results.

What weight should I use for what intensity?

Light weight will usually result in low intensity, which can be helpful if you are trying to grow your muscular endurance or aerobic efficiency, however it will not help with you booty gains, muscular gains, or improving your basal metabolic rate (the amount of calories you burn at rest).

Choose your weight, exertion, and intensity based on your programming, and if you aren’t sure how to program to create a certain results, check out our programs here:

Workout Plans or Memberships Here

What is power?

Power output is force times distance over time, or put in a simple way it is how much force you can generate over a specific distance within a certain amount of time. Think about a squat repetition...if you load more weight on the bar, squat deeper, and do it faster, it will create far more power output than if you take weights off of the bar, do quarter squats, and do the rep slower, your power output will be drastically reduced.

The same physics works with battle ropes.

If moving more slack in the rope makes me produce more force, and I move over a greater distance, and I do each repetition faster, I am going to produce far more power output, than if I have too much tension in the rope, move it just a short distance per rep, and move the rope slower, my power output will be drastically reduced.

With that in mind, why would we use arc movements like rainbows, smiles, and figure eights to help produce more power output?

On top of the physics of power...

Most people want it all and they want it yesterday. Having goals with your training and physique are important, but when you spread yourself too thin you end up further away from where you want to be. The best thing you can do to see results is get clear on what you want to achieve the most and then stay consistent with anything that supports that.

Finding the perfect program is a trap. There is no perfect program. The key is to stick to a program long enough to see the results you intended to get with it. Tracking and assessing are all part of the results process. When you jump from program to program you sabotage yourself and make sure the results take as long as humanly possible (if they ever come at all).

When you stick to a program for at least 3-4 weeks, be consistent with the plan and put everything you’ve got into it you’d be shocked at how well it serves you. We love hearing about people who’ve gone through our programs like Minimum Space...

When you’re a high-level athlete where a fraction of difference in your performance can be the difference between silver and gold your training needs to match with incredible specificity and consistent intensity. For the rest of us, it’s important to assess why we're working out and what results we’re looking for. In this world of fitness it’s common for people to draw lines in the sand and designate something as a waste of time. Slow, low intensity cardio, walking, flow, kettlebells, isolation exercises, HIIT, and the list goes on. 

What about if you can get better results doing something else? What if all the research indicates that type X cardio will give you what you want at a faster rate than type Y? Most people will go all in at least for a little while. What’s more important is which cardio or type of training will get you results even if it takes a little longer IF it’s something you enjoy and will actually be...

Nutrition can be incredibly confusing.

Especially when you are trying to get specific results, and it doesn’t help that there are a lot of opposing views being marketed to us all of the time.

How do we clear a path to a better you?

As the Education Director for Living.Fit, I give a pretty simple and effective way to create lifelong change in your nutrition, by a small and slow and steady approach.

Marcus Martinez, our Kettlebell Master Coach, gives another incredibly simple way to make effective and easy changes to your nutrition.

Finding what works for you requires some experimentation and tracking. The best diet in the world might not be the best diet for you personally. It’s important to be mindful of the way your body responds to certain foods and meal timing. Even the “healthiest” foods in the world might cause a gut reaction that makes it less optimal for you. 

The same goes for meal timing. Fasting is all the rage and has helped many...

Aaron Guyett, our Education Director starts off a little crazy with curling in the squat rack, or squatting in the curl rack, but it soon finds practical ground as Marcus, Julia, and Aaron talk through aesthetics and training.

This show is a blast, because it is all about that space where functionality meets aesthetics.

Whether you are after performance, strength, power, endurance, fat loss, or muscle growth, we all have exercises that can be misunderstood.

Aaron, Julia, and Marcus breakdown training to look good, even if we are training with other goals in mind.

Whether you are curling in the squat rack or you are squatting in the curl rack, we have something for you in this video.

For programs that help you with both check out: https://www.kettlebellkings.com/workout-plans/

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:  ...

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...

On this episode we talk with the amazing Jen Esquer about establishing routines to make you a better, healthier, pain-free mover. We discuss her best practices and dive deeper into what inspires her to help so many people move and feel their best. 

Jen Esquer, PT, DPT, is an internationally-renown physical therapist who specializes in helping people overcome chronic pain and maximize physical performance. As the founder of two transformative programs, “The Mobility Method” and “The Optimal Body,” she brings a unique, whole body approach to strength, mobility and pain-free living. In 2019, Jen was named one of the top 50 most influential healthcare professionals. 

Jen’s easily accessible approach has garnered her more than half a million followers on social media and more than more than 5+ million views of her health and fitness videos. Jen has been featured in Shape Magazine, Self Magazine, Men’s Fitness and Muscle and...