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Everett firefighter Tom Corrigan and his comrades at the Seattle Kettlebell Club have taken a firm grip on a sport that dates back to czarist Russia, a time when every village had its champion strongman.
The Russian kettlebell -- a longtime training tool for the Russian military and Olympic teams -- is a cast-iron weight resembling a cannonball. Flat-bottomed with a thick, rounded handle, kettlebells are measured in Russian poods. A pood equals 16 kilograms, or about 36 pounds for refusenik's who've yet to bow to the decrees of the metric system.
Traditional kettlebells come in weights ranging from one to two poods, but smaller and larger sizes are available. A healthy, average-sized man usually starts with a 36-pounder and gradually increases the weight over time. A novice woman might use a one-half pood kettlebell weighing 18 pounds.
"Technique is utterly important," Corrigan said during an off-duty work out last week at Everett Fire Station No. 3, "because if done incorrectly, this isn't safe. You need to respect it, take your time and work into it."
That means no juggling or one-legged squats, at least not until you become a full-fledged girevik, or kettlebell man, as Corrigan is.
In competition -- the first in the United States took place last November at Harvard University -- athletes perform the clean-and-jerk with two kettlebells and the snatch with one. Both events are scored based on repetitions.
Corrigan's second-place finish in the inaugural Washington State Kettlebell Sport Championship in Seattle on July 26 included snatching 72 pounds from the floor to high above his head 18 times with each hand.
His highlight, however, was attending a seminar featuring Russian fitness and combat expert Pavel Tsatouline, who popularized kettlebell training in this country.
"He's very personable and just a great guy," Corrigan said of the wiry, 175-pound Tsatouline, who has been known to workout with a 97-pound behemoth known as "The Bulldog."
For Corrigan, 37, it is the practical application of his kettlebell workouts that is the attraction. The lack of balance in the swinging kettlebell produces a ballistic-shock effect far more realistic than regular weight training.
"It teaches you to tighten your core and protect the spine with your abs and back, builds grip strength and eye-hand coordination," Corrigan said. "On the job as firefighters, we never lay on a bench and lift in a slow, controlled way. Firefighters lift heavy things, we lift awkward things and we do it in awkward positions."
A former history teacher, Corrigan is fascinated by the tradition of kettlebell training in the Russian military, especially in the special forces, where strength, agility and stamina are requisites.
"For the Russian soldiers in Siberia, you can't go out running with eight feet of snow on the ground," Corrigan said with a laugh.
The long dominance of Soviet Olympic strongmen -- including the great weightlifter Vasily Alexeyev, who was known to warm up by flinging about a 158-pound kettlebell -- was rooted in kettlebell training.
Said Corrigan: "(The Soviets asked) how do you win gold medals? How do you really get strong?"
In recent years the kettlebell has been used by the U.S. military and law-enforcement agencies. Marines undergoing martial arts courses at Quantico, Va., have been exposed to the training and some have taken that knowledge -- and their kettlebells -- to field assignments, according to former Marine Nick Nibler.
Nibler, a police officer and co-owner of a Seattle-based performance training organization, said Corrigan's ringing endorsement of the kettlebell is not surprising.
"It's interesting," Nibler said, "kettlebells seem to generate that in quite a few people."
A former football player and wrestler at Mariner High School, the 6-foot, 210-pound Corrigan was a longtime weight lifter before discovering kettlebells about two years ago. He acknowledged there are benefits to traditional training methods, but asserted many hardcore fitness buffs lack what he calls "Grandpa strength."
"How many times have you seen guys unable to open a jar and then old grandpa comes along and twists it right off?" he asked. "Grandpa strength comes from having done hard, manual labor all of your life."
Corrigan, whose fingers, wrists and elbows are thicker as a direct result of kettlebell training, views the regimen as an alternative for those who don't buck bales or wield wrenches and hammers for a living.
"This builds functional, whole-body strength," Corrigan said as he prepared to do something called a windmill. "It's so much better than those hamster workouts."
Then, leaning sideways, with his left hand nearly touching the ground, he hoisted a 72-pounder aloft with his right. "This builds unbelievable obliques," he said.
Corrigan said a friend dropped his weight from 290 pounds to 215 using kettlebell workouts.
"You can't get a better workout than swinging the kettlebell around," Corrigan said as he demonstrated the crush curl, squeezing the 72-pounder tightly at his waist and curling it to his chest.
If you thought cat juggling was cruel, wait until you see an airborne kettlebell spinning in front of a man's face.
"You catch it, flip it, spin it, catch it, flip it, spin it," Corrigan said. "This is not easy, but it's fun to do."
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