Kettlebells are a pretty popular piece of exercise equipment, and people often ask me about them, or more specifically why I never talk about them in any of the nearly 200 fitness videos I’ve got on my YouTube channel.

The answer is simple, I don’t like kettlebells. Don’t get me wrong, they’re unquestionably an awesome piece of exercise equipment that’s sure to produce fantastic results for anyone who uses them, but I personally hate using them.

I did a “Kettlebell 101″ workout back in the summer of 2008 because I was interested in learning more about kettlebells in order to see if I could introduce them into the workouts I run for my clients in Vancouver. It was an intense workout where we ran through many of the most common kettlebell exercises. Despite the workout clearly being incredibly effective, I found the workout (i.e. exercising with kettlebells) to be a miserable experience and not something I would remotely enjoy doing again, much less on a regular basis.

I believe that exercise should be fun, and since I didn’t remotely enjoy exercising with kettlebells, I don’t exercise with them. I use exercise tools that I do enjoy, such as resistance bands and the suspension gym.

But don’t avoid kettlebells just because I don’t like them. Maybe you’ll love them. So if you’re interested in exercising with kettlebells, I encourage you to try a kettlebell workout and then decide for yourself whether exercising with kettlebells something you enjoy and want to do on a regular basis.

I was just doing some research on Google for some new fitness businesses that I’m planning on starting (pertaining to affiliate marketing), and I came across this incredibly ridiculous product.

Behold the Cardio Twister:

What an incredibly stupid product.

Please do yourself a favour and never buy the Cardio Twister. You’ll get better results and save a ton of money with a set of resistance bands, or a suspension gym, or even just by doing bodyweight workouts.

I received the following question today via YouTube:

I’m curious, do you ever workout with weights? The reason I ask is that I’m getting a little tired of working out in the gym with weights and stuff.

My answer is posted below:

No, I do not workout with weights any more. I haven’t so much as touched a barbell or dumbbell in nearly a year.

I stopped working out with weights approximately one year ago after I got extremely bored with exercising at my local health club. I had been exercising in gyms and health clubs ever since I was 15 years old (I’m 31 now), and last year after a decade and a half of that scene I just plain got sick and tired of exercising that way.

After officially deciding that I do not want anything to do with gyms and health clubs any more, I’ve spent most of last year learning how to have effective workouts at home, or outdoors, with little to no equipment. Part of that journey involved launching an Vancouver boot camp program where I learned through trial and error exactly what works, and what doesn’t work, when it comes to effective “gymless” workouts.

Here are a few suggestions based on my discoveries over the past year:

1) You absolutely positively do NOT need to lift weights to get ripped and into the best shape of your life. Take a look at gymnasts. Most of them have never lifted a barbell or dumbbell before in their entire lives and they are among of the most shredded and chiseled athletes on earth.

2) In order to effectively work your legs without any weights, you need to do one-leg exercises. Your legs are simply too strong to get a great workout doing bodyweight only exercise where you’re lifting with both legs (e.g. bodyweight squat, prisoner squat, y squat, etc). But only a very miniscule percentage of the population can do unassisted 1-leg pistol squats, so one of the reasons why I love suspension gym training is that it allows you to effectively do assisted 1-leg squats while you work towards being able to do them unassisted. 1-leg squats on the suspension gym are as effective, if not more so, than any two-leg exercise you could do you in your weight room with a barbell on your shoulders.

3) Suspension gym training WILL provide you with a total-body workout that’s every bit as effective, if not more so, than any workout you could ever have at a health club with free weights and all of the most modern and expensive machines.

4) Resistance bands WILL also provide you with a total-body workout that’s every bit as effective, if not more so, than any workout you could ever have at your local gym using free weights and expensive machines.

5) Combining suspension gym training with resistance band training WILL give you a total-body muscle sculpting workout that’s SUPERIOR to any health club workout. Period. End of story. I guarantee that. I truly consider the ultimate home gym (or just gym, period) to be the suspension gym combined with resistance bands.

So to summarize: no, you do not need to lift weights to get in amazing shape. You can have the same, or better, workouts at home using just a couple of pieces of inexpensive equipment such as the suspension gym and resistance bands.

I hope this response was helpful.

I just saw a TV commercial for a product called the Ab Coaster. What a useless looking piece of exercise equipment.

On the TV commercial, they won’t even say how much the product costs. All they talk about is the “$14.95 trial offer”. I was curious how much the Ab Coaster costs, so I went to the company’s website to have a look. To my utter astonishment, it costs $414.75 USD, or “one convenient payment plan” of $399.80 USD. Jiminy.

Here’s my main problem with the Ab Coaster: it’s not a total-body workout product. It’s a gimmicky ab machine that allows you to perform 2 exercises: leg raises and oblique leg raises. Is that worth $400 to you? I doubt it, unless you have a bunch of extra money lying around to purchase (not to mention space to store) expensive ab exercise equipment that has extremely limited use.

For most people, the only type of home exercise equipment that’s worth buying is compact equipment that is ultra-versatile (i.e. one single piece of equipment that allows for a vast selection of total-body exercises). For this reason, the only two pieces of home exercise equipment that I recommend are the suspension gym and resistance bands. Get them both, or choose one or the other (pick whichever one you think you’ll enjoy exercising with the most).

But stay far away from gimmicky ab gadgets that cost $400+ and allow you to perform only two exercises.