Kettlebells Are How Old?

If you’re a fan of kettlebells, you probably think of these two words: Pavel Tsatsouline. Pavel is widely credited as the first man to popularize kettlebells in the United States after the former Soviet Special Forces trainer migrated from Belarus in the late 90s. But that’s wrong! Turns out, the kettlebbell was discovered about a hundred years before Pavel was even born.

Usually, the kettlebell’s modern popularity gets traced to Russia, where it’s called the giro or girya, a term that first appeared in Russian dictionaries in 1704 and originates from the Persian word gerani, meaning “difficult.” It’s also been traced to the ancient Slavic word gur, which means “bubble.” The story goes that Russian farmers used kettlebells as counterweights to measure out grain at the market. As bored farmers learned the weights could be heaved and tossed in feats of strength and endurance, giros began enjoying a central role in farming festivals. Some time around the turn of the nineteenth century, Vladislav Krayevsky, the Russian czar’s personal doctor, realized that the kettlebell deserved a place in sports medicine and popularized kettlebell training in the Russian army which eventually elevated it to a national sport.

As historians unearth more and more documents, it has become clear that kettlebells had a presence in more places than Russia. “There are photographs of strongwomen and men prior to the 1900s who used kettlebells in feats like the bent arm press and extended lateral isometric holds,” Victoria Felkar, a sociocultural sports historian, explains. Many of these old photographs came from Germany, making it was one of the first places where the kettlebell was used as a part of physical fitness culture and strongman routines. The kettlebell isn’t purely Russian after all!

“There are tons of German training manuals and diaries and stuff like that from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that feature the kettlebell, though often under different names,” says Felkar. “Take the Turners System of Gymnastics, created by Friedrich Ludwig Jahn. He was the German physical educator who kind of created this gymnastics system that really is the hallmark of the physical education programs that we have in America today. And there are early photographs of his disciples using kettlebells.”

There’s a good chance that it was at an 1898 gathering of strongmen in Vienna where Dr. Krayevsky became more familiar with the kettlebell as a strength and conditioning tool, after he met with the innovative German trainer, Theodore Siebert. (Heavy kettlebell swings were staples in his programs.) The czar’s physician may have then brought the idea back to his homeland, where he wrote his first book on the topic just two years later.

But now there’s the question of Felkar’s research paper: why did Americans start using kettlebells as a tool for fitness? Why did gyms start carrying kettlebells after decades without them? Felkar more or less agrees that Pavel’s marketing campaigns were extremely influential in spreading kettlebells as a fitness tool. She compares him to Eugen Sandow: he wasn’t the first guy to excel at bodybuilding, but he was a marketing genius who lay a lot of the groundwork for today’s world. But as an academic, she’s not completely satisfied that Pavel is patient zero for the 21st century’s kettlebell epidemic. She points out that scores of ex-Soviet kettlebell athletes fled to America and opened gyms after the Berlin wall fell. But that’s just a theory. More research is necessary. And it seems Felkar is on the case.

What do you think influenced the appearance of the kettlebell in today’s gyms? Leave your thoughts in the comments below. And if you want to learn how to incorporate some kettlebell exercises into your workout routine, click the button below for a Success Studio complimentary strategy session.