Nobody trains at Wolfpack Fitness because it’s easy to get to. The first thing you see when you enter the lane that eventually leads to one of the country’s finest kettlebell gyms is a place called The Dog Paddocks, a doggy playground that according to the promo is ‘the perfect place for dogs to safely run, sniff, play and relax’.
Wolfpack is a further 50 yards back from the road and is essentially a couple of old stables – one housing functional fitness equipment and one specifically for kettlebells – located in a rural part of Nantwich, England. You know you’re in the right place thanks to sign with a picture of a kettlebell, next to a stern message warning people to switch off the lights and lock the gate if they’re last out of the gym. Even once I’ve reach Wolfpack, I somehow take another wrong turn and, instead of heading inside, I am treated to an impromptu solo tour around a small outdoor workout space. It’s stocked with battle ropes and rustic equipment (a barbell constructed from what looks like car wheel rims connected by a steel bar). It’s the middle of January; everything has been left out and has been softly dusted with snow. So far, consider me charmed.
When I finally make my way inside Wolfpack’s kettlebell space, I’m greeted by Oliver ‘Oli’ Mell, 41, a former Royal Marine turned kettlebell athlete, who’s waiting alongside a couple of his most decorated lifters. He’s warned me that the temperature is below freezing in Nantwich right now, and as I walk through the door, I see that he already has a few kettlebells warming next to an open fire for later use. Again, I’m charmed.
Mell is a practitioner of kettlebell sport, a little known ‘sport of reps’ where athletes aim to keep their ‘bell in the air for as long as they can and for as many repetitions as possible. Depending on their exact discipline that could mean snatching a heavy, 40kg kettlebell overhead for 10 minutes or it could mean lifting a slightly lighter, but still heavy, ‘bell for an hour (marathon) or two (supermarathon). In the marathon discipline, drop the ‘bell at any point and your score is null and void – meaning you may as well not have bothered picking it up in the first place. That makes it less about repping more than your opponent and more about doing battle with your own psyche.
Today, Mell has agreed to teach me some of the sport’s basic techniques, how to lift a kettlebell correctly and where to rest it to catch your breath. In just over a week’s time, he’ll be putting these techniques to the test himself when he attempts to beat his own world record of 1,227 reps of clean and press with a 24kg weight over the course of two hours. It’s an ambitious target, and he knows only too well that with a live event like kettlebell sport anything can go wrong.
At last year’s World Champs in Denmark, Mell was also in pursuit of kettlebell glory, competing in four lifts: 30 minutes’ half snatch, 30 minutes’ long cycle, 10 minutes’ long cycle with a 40kg bell and 10 minutes’ half snatch. It was a hot day and before the first event he made the rookie error of over chalking his ‘bell. Within 10 minutes, he knew he was in trouble. ‘The state my hands were in, the fight changed,’ Mell says. ‘I knew straight away the task would be to not quit and to not put the ‘bell down. I might be remembered for that set more than anything else, which is why I feel like I’ve got to go back and prove that I can do it.’
His two-hour set is an opportunity for kettlebell redemption. It’s also, he hopes, crazy enough to draw attention to a sport that few people know exist and even fewer are willing to have a go at.
A Brief History of ‘bells
It’s difficult to ascertain exactly who started swinging kettlebells first. Some people suggest the Ancient Greeks were the first people to use a weighted tool with a handle as a piece of exercise equipment. But everyone from Chinese Shaolin monks, Indian Kushti wrestlers and Scottish Highland Games athletes have trained using something akin to a kettlebell since.
In 1704, the term Girya, referring to a kettlebell, first appeared in the Russian dictionary. Back then it wasn’t describing a training tool but rather a counterweight, which was used by farmers to measure grains and goods. The tale goes that the men who used these weights soon began swinging and lifting them to show off their strength and the practice became a party trick they used at farming festivals.
Fast forward to the 19th century and Dr Vladislav Krajewski, personal physician to the Russian czar, who is also known as the ‘father of heavy athletics’, developed a system of weight training which included the use of kettlebells. Recent research by journalist Nick English and sociocultural sports historian Victoria Felkar suggests that he could have been inspired by a German lifter, with Germany now also being credited as one of the first places to employ kettlebell training.
Whatever its exact history, we do know the point that kettlebells started to move from training methodology to sport. In 1948, Russia, then the Soviet Union, abstained from the first post-war Olympic Games held in London. Later that same year, the nation held its own kettlebell sport competition where the champions from 15 Soviet republics travelled to Moscow to compete against each other in two events: the ‘long jerk’, which is a clean and jerk with two bells, and the ‘biathlon’, a set of jerks with two ‘bells followed by a set of snatches.
It took almost another half century for the kettlebell to gain international recognition. In 1998, the man widely credited with introducing the kettlebell to the United States, Pavel Tsatsouline published an article called ‘Vodka, Pickle Juice, Kettlebell Lifting and other Russian Pastimes’ in the US journal, MILO: Journal for Serious Strength Athletes. That paper, and Tsatsouline’s ability to sell kettlebell training, went a long way to swinging the kettlebell into the Western world’s consciousness. A few years later, in 2002, Rolling Stone magazine named it the ‘hot weight of the year’.
Whether they know it or not, many lifters have been influenced by Tsatsouline since. Mell, for example, was working as a personal trainer when he first began to train with kettlebells, using them to train in the ‘hardstyle’ of kettlebell lifting popularised by Tsatsouline. Hardstyle uses many of the same exercises as kettlebell sport but instead of requiring athletes to be fluid and relaxed with the ‘bell, hardstyle practitioners rely on tension and ‘the grind’.
Mell discovered kettlebell sport a few years later, just as he was set to leave his PT career and join the Royal Marines. Four years on from that, after becoming one of the oldest people to pass out from Commando Training Centre, Lymstone and being deployed around the world, he left the Marines and began seriously competing, first as an amateur and then as a professional. Wolfpack Fitness started because he wanted somewhere to train that allowed him to share the mentality he forged while serving.
‘I was teaching kettlebells in various gyms, and I just couldn’t find somewhere that brought me back to that feeling of being in the open, doing different forms of very challenging physical fitness that weren’t as formatted as three sets of 10 reps type of thing,’ says Mell. ‘When I wanted to open my own place, my job was to create a gym I’d want to join and see if other people would want to join it, too.’
Why it Appeals to All Lifters Great and Small
What’s amazing and very noticeable about Wolfpack Fitness specifically, and kettlebell sport more generally, is the variety of lifters it attracts. As Mell says, ‘You don’t have to be athletic or 6ft. You don’t have to have incredibly long hamstrings. You don’t have to have a perfect lever for a press. You just have to put the time into the ‘bell.’
Łukasz ‘Luki’ Danielski, 41, is a former powerlifter from Poland. At 100kg, he’s a big, hulking man. His began powerlifting at age to 17 and by the time he’d finished, aged 30, he’d achieved a bronze medal in the 2003 Polish Championships, as well as a 250kg deadlift, a 250kg squat and a 187kg bench.
Between finishing powerlifting and beginning kettlebell sports, Danielski took on an 80-mile ultra marathon around Loch Ness to prove that big guys like him can run too. ‘It’s not big challenge if your skinny,’ he says. ‘But if you have 100kg and more, this is a challenge for you.’ That’s his idea of ‘fun’.
Despite his obvious sporting prowess, the transition to kettlebell sport wasn’t easy. ‘When I tried my first lift in kettlebell, a 24kg ‘bell, it killed me. I say, “How is this fucking possible?” I know I’m strong, and this is only 24kg. It smashed me to the ground. You can be strong, but you need to know how you can use this power. If you don’t know how to breathe, you die.’
With Mell’s help, he learned how to use his power and has since won gold medals in the International Kettlebell Marathon Federation’s (IKMF) pentathlon (five lifts each performed for six minutes with a five-minute break between each) and World Games (a 10-minute one-arm half snatch using a 40kg ‘bell).
His story and personality couldn’t be more different to those of Alistair Lee, 40, who found the sport as a final throw of the dice before major weightloss surgery. Before kettlebells, Lee had spent most of his adult life at around 172kg. Over the years he’d put himself through various crash diets and tried everything from triathlon to Muay Thai to psychiatry to help him lose weight. Four years ago, he was on the NHS waitlist for gastric band surgery – something that he desperately wanted to avoid. Giving lifting a go was his final attempt at losing the weight himself.
Once they started training together, Mell guessed that Lee’s strength may translate well to kettlebells and helped him get started, at this point for fitness not for sport. Three years later, he was the captain of the England team for the World Championship in Poland. He’s now a seven-times world champion, as well as a world and British record-holder. He’ s also got his weight down to a stable and manageable 115kg. He didn’t need the gastric band.
‘I always struggled with team sports because I always felt like I was letting the team down. I wasn’t good enough,’ he says. ‘This sport is a team sport. There’s a team around you. There’s a social group that you do it with. But equally, no one’s dependent on you to deliver anything. You just do your absolute best. That’s what I love about it.’
Jonathan ‘Johnny’ Skinner and Del Wilson meanwhile are more friends of Wolfpack Fitness than regular members. Again, in terms of personality, they couldn’t be more different. Skinner is 42, brash, confident and cocky. He’s also one of the, if not the, best in the world at single arm jerk, who has won gold medals at competitions around the world and has a personal record of 172 reps in 10 minutes with a 40kg kettlebell. Wilson, 58, meanwhile is a mild-mannered former formula one race car technician who took up the sport in his mid 40s and has won world championships in Denmark (twice) Hungary, Spain, Belgium (twice) and Poland since.
How to Get Better at Kettlebell Sport
Most of the people who started their kettlebell sport journey at Wolfpack Fitness didn’t start off as athletes. In most cases, Mell explains, ‘They’ve been very average people and quite late in their life.’ But what they do all have in common is a willingness to work hard and a shared mentality.
Mell brings up the term ‘beast mode’. He isn’t a fan. During his forthcoming two-hour attempt, he will have to go into a zone, but it’s not a place of anger, it’s a ‘mentally relaxed and peaceful place’. He won’t get to that place of zen by ‘flicking a switch’ or activating beast mode, he’ll get there by doing a little more each and every day in preparation.
‘It took 32 weeks of military training to turn me from a civilian into somebody capable of going and doing what Royal Marine commandos do,’ he says. ‘They’re never looking for someone who from the start can be this really hardened creature that will just destroy what’s in its path and operate in extreme mental circumstances. You do it in phases. And each time you do it, the phase gets more difficult.’
During my own training at Wolfpack Fitness, I progressed from a three-minute kettlebell set to a five-minute set. For Mell’s supermarathon, he’s been doing hour-long sets with a 36kg kettlebell (8kg heavier than the ‘bell he’ll be using for his record attempt). His speed sets, meanwhile, are done later in the week, when his hands have recovered, and with a 24kg kettlebell. Mell adds 15 minutes to his training duration each week, staring at an hour of lifting and ending, on week four, at 1 hour 45 minutes. His other athletes train similarly and alongside all of their ‘bell work they all put time into endurance cardio – running and rowing – and strength endurance doing 25-30 rep sets of deadlifts, leg press, squats, lat pull downs and shoulder press. Flexibility work is encouraged but optional.
It’s a demanding schedule, especially when you consider that the athletes are all older, with families, work commitments and are competing in a sport with little to no funding. Mell has a partner and two daughters. It’s not uncommon for his days to start at 4:30am and finish at 10pm. Bringing new blood in the sport is a definite goal and part of the reason why he chooses to out himself though challenging supermarathon attempts – for the spectacle and interest it brings to the sport.
Just before my piece on Wolfpack Fitness and kettlebell sport is due to be finished, I receive a text from Mell. It reads simply: ‘1,249 new world record’. A short statement of fact, which belies the blood sweat and tears that went into achieving it. One of the best endurance athletes you’ve never heard of has proved, once again, that he can still do it.
The Best Kettlebell Exercises
If you’re considering giving kettlebell sport a go, build your foundations with these lifts, explained by athlete and coach Oliver Mell.
Snatch
Swing the ‘bell from between your legs in one motion to an overhead fixation. When the ‘bell is overhead and completely still the judge awards the rep. Drop the weight back between your legs in a single motion and repeat.
Jerk
The ‘bell is cleaned into the rack position and then jerked with a double dip. When the judge has awarded the rep the athlete lowers back into the rack position ready for the next rep.
Long Cycle
The kettlebell is swung between the legs and cleaned into the rack position and then must be fixed for the judge to see before the athlete performs a jerk repetition. Once the rep is awarded the athlete returns the kettlebell into rack position and finally back into the swing.
Push Press
Similar to the jerk, the athlete cleans the kettlebell into the rack position and then pushes the kettlebell overhead, using their legs to assist. Once the kettlebell is still overhead and the judge awards the rep, return the ‘bell to the rack position for the next rep.
