SG's Musings

The FILEX fitness expo was held in Sydney over the weekend. Not much that excited me this year. I had actually thought beforehand of having a look at any adjustable dumbbells on display there as a nice addition to my collection of equipment for home training but none to be found. Found something arguably even better though at the Australian Kettlebells stand.

Check this out:

Whole kettlebell

Unscrewing base w. allen key

Base off, all weights inside

One weight removed

Top half of kb

An adjustable kettlebell. Weight ranges from 11.8kg (just bell - actually you can even use just the top half for some exercises which is 6.8kg) to just under 40kg with all of the weight plates inside.

Not quick to adjust weights. You need to remove base of bell with supplied allen key, remove nut inside bell and add/remove weights as necessary. So if doing a timed or circuit workout you really will have to use the same weight for the whole workout. But for more traditional weight training style programs where you have a bit of rest between sets, you’d have time to change the weight. Greatest benefit is as your strength improves you can add weight for subsequent workouts. The obvious downside to regular kettlebells is having to buy a new one if you get stronger.

I am yet to try it for a workout - plan is my 3rd workout this week which is a circuit just requiring kettlebell and/or dumbbells and a swiss ball. So will have more comment after that. But first impression is that it seems like a nice product and worthwhile investment.

Do need to post some comment about accompanying service/information for the product which unfortunately is not so good. Did get shown quickly how to change weight etc at the stand when I bought the bell which was great. However the bell doesn’t come with any written instructions which I think it should have. Just brief notes re. any dos or don’ts and any maintenance requirements. The guy who demoed things advised the weights should be loaded in a particular order and that is the sort of thing I’d definitely like to see accompanying instructions for. I’m also wondering about things like whether the post inside needs regreasing every so often.

Of more concern, I was quite lucky that I had the guys there undo the bell and take some weights out there and then. (That was the only way I was going to be able to carry 40kg home ! Some of the weights went in my backpack, rest stayed in the bell which I carried). The nut inside the bell was screwed on quite tightly - too tight for anyone to undo by hand. There is no spanner supplied with the bell for this nut - idea is it should only be tight enough to remove by hand. But if I hadn’t had it undone at the show, I would not have been able to undo it at home - would have required emergency shopping trip for a spanner.

Updated comments after having tried using the bell for workouts - for my set up which is just a backup option to the gym it’s fine. But if you’re primarily working out at home a lot easier to actually have a set of kbs of varying weights. Changing weights on this one pretty awkward and it is worse if wanting to use 16-20kg as it takes a lot longer to screw on 1 or 2 plates as opposed to more for heavier loads. Looks to be some pretty well-priced standard kbs on ebay, in all honesty, a better option. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.