Kettlebell lifting and athletic gymnastics
Kettlebell Lifting at a New Stage
English summary of Tyazhelaya Atletika. Ezhegodnik 1986 (Moscow: Fizkultura i Sport, 1986), pp. 47–50: the text is paraphrased, not translated.
Few sports reach so deep into our people’s history as kettlebell lifting. The celebrated heavyweights Leonid Zhabotinsky and Vasily Alekseev both practised it. The twice Olympic champion and world record holder recalls how, in the village of Uspenskoye, Sumy Region, the boys found a pood kettlebell in the smithy and pulled it with each hand until they ached: “Those were my first contests in lifting weights.”1
History and growth
The first Soviet kettlebell competition, in 1948, was an all-union contest of strongmen lifting a two-pood kettlebell; 200,000 took part, and A. Protopopov won by lifting it 1,002 times with one arm. It revealed many talents who joined weightlifting teams.
Since the 1970s kettlebell lifting has been a national sport in several Union republics, which hold tournaments and award republican Master and Candidate titles. In Ukraine, the RSFSR and the Baltic republics athletes competed in a three-event programme: press with each arm without rest, clean and jerk of two kettlebells, and one-arm snatch.
The republican Leonid Zhabotinsky Cup was held for the fourteenth time in 1986. The all-union memorial of Hero of the Soviet Union F. G. Umansky at Belovodsk, Voroshilovgrad Region, has become traditional, for adults and youths; about 100 youths met Master and Candidate standards there. The all-union Cup of the Sailors of Klaipeda is held each May.
At the 1984 Umansky memorial the 35-year-old Sumy teacher Mikhail Levchenko pressed a 32 kg kettlebell 700 times with the right arm and at once 101 times with the left. The press was soon abolished, and lifters moved to a two-event programme: snatch with one arm then the other without rest without lowering the kettlebell, and clean and jerk of two kettlebells. Fyodor Usenko of Sumy Region (up to 90 kg) jerked two 32 kg kettlebells 78 times at the Zhabotinsky Cup in Tatarbunary, Odessa Region, in December 1984. At the Ukrainian championships the eighth-grader Leonid Bezdetnykh jerked two 32 kg kettlebells 18 times, and the tenth-grader Sergey Shkred set a new adult Ukrainian record in the 32 kg snatch, 32 repetitions with each arm; both lifted up to 60 kg.
All-round development
Strength and endurance combine into strength endurance, the ability to work “through I can’t”, needed in life, study and especially military service. Our school shows the sport develops the whole person: most of our lifters also belong to the running club “Tavria” and run 5 to 30 km. Candidate for Master of Sport Gennady Didukh is district cross-country champion and holds Class III for 20 km road running. Master of Sport Sergey Shkred holds Class III in weightlifting, swimming and 1,000 m cross-country and does 31 pull-ups, while candidates Vladimir Gulich and Aleksandr Koban do 25 and 20 upstarts on the bar.
Kettlebell lifting is accessible: the technique is simple and all ages can practise it. Schoolchildren should begin at 13–14, and lifters of 20–50 train alongside them. At the Kherson Region championships in Novaya Kakhovka in December 1984, the 50-year-old Grigory Bulakh met the Ukrainian Candidate for Master of Sport standard.
Since 1974, when the sport became national, many have become masters; Ukraine alone has over 400, many over forty, such as Yury Cherepanov of the Crimea and Vladimir Semenov and Aleksandr Padolka of Kherson. Among the best coaches of youths are Masters of Sport Sergey Chetveryakov (Donetsk, “Kolos”) and Ivan Korolenko (Voroshilovgrad Region), with over ten youth masters between them.
Kettlebell lifting and health
Oleg Strambovsky, a graduate of our school and Candidate for Master of Sport, was born with paralysis of the right foot and did not walk until five; he now serves in the army. Vladimir Nedashkovsky of Uzhgorod, badly injured in the back in 1969, rose from his hospital bed, became a master and still competes. Vasily Kubanov of Kirovograd Region had a complex abdominal operation at 29, refused disability status and rebuilt his health with dumbbells and then kettlebells; a master at 33, he is now a sports instructor on his collective farm.
The strength juggler Valentin Dikul, disabled for years by a broken spine, recovered through dumbbell gymnastics and kettlebell exercises and at 46 performs unique feats in the circus. The founder of this health direction was the enthusiast Evgeny Revuka, who initiated the tournament “Kettlebell Lifters of Dnepropetrovsk Region”. Long ill, he became one of Ukraine’s strongest lifters. At the “Ukrelektrochermet” production association he gathered a group, many of whom forgot their ailments, and trained over 20 masters.
Popularity and the correspondence school
The sport is popular in schools and on farms in Ukraine, the Lipetsk and Voronezh regions, the Baltic republics, Kazakhstan and Altai Territory, above all in the countryside, with tournaments honouring harvest and war heroes. Lifters delighted spectators at the opening of the VIII Summer Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR. Yet only 170,000 schoolchildren practise it, and the number must grow.
At our “Hercules” club a correspondence school has worked for several years, with letters from Komi, Georgia, Latvia, Kiev, Leningrad, Moscow and elsewhere. Among the first pupils were rural schoolboys Igor Klymyuk (Ivano-Frankovsk Region) and Mikhail Krasnov (Voroshilovgrad Region), who snatches a pood kettlebell 600 times. We send advice, plans, photographs of technique and reading lists, and many pupils have grown stronger and met standards. In four years the club received over 500 letters and answered all. Under its leader Oleg Strambovsky, members made a photo stand, an album and a map of where pupils train; many have visited our village.
1. A. Medvedev, Take Up Weightlifting (Moscow: Fizkultura i sport, 1971), pp. 3–4.