Staying on top of your game in this business is very important. While doing some continuing ed recently, I found out one glaring weakness in my training arsenal – kettlebells. You see them in every gym and studio these days, and I have to admit that I knew little about their use and benefits.

In doing some research into it, I learned about one of the front-runners in this field, who himself started as a Personal Trainer and is now the world’s leading educator on kettlebells: Steve Cotter.

A lot of times in Personal Training, we see trainers with little technical knowledge or personal experience getting ahead on just personality and connections. But that’s not the case with Steve. He’s an example of someone that’s really paid his dues, first as a full contact fighting champion, and then earning his degree in kinesiology and as I mentioned, beginning his career as a Personal Trainer. Rather than becoming a professional fighter or getting involved in the hype of the fighting industry, he went a different route. He decided to become an educator, and is now a leader in the training of athletes, and if you ask around his respect in the field is tremendous.

What started as a talk about kettelbells turned into a deep and insightful conversation covering a lot of bases. We also discussed training, marketing, the state of the fitness industry today, and even some metaphysics. Steve was good enough to do over a half hour with me, so there are four clips all together to this interview. Listen closely and consider it your continuing ed for the week (sorry, no credits available at this time):

Clip 1:
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Clip 2:
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Clip 3:
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Clip 4:
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Steve has an excellent blog at www.fullkontact.com – you can find out about some of the amazing training he does there, like work he did with the Navy Seals and kettlebell certifications he’s given internationally. And you can find out about his organization and more about kettlebell training at www.ikff.com.

And look him up on youtube if you want to see some crazy exercises that’ll make your joints hurt! I’ve been trying some of the pistols you’ll see him doing on there, which are deep, unsupported one-legged squats. These aren’t exercises you’ll want to break out on new clients!

Steve’s career stands out also as an excellent example of what a great training career can look like. What began as passion for fitness, became a great Personal Tranining career; then through specialization, a very important part of the accumulation of knowledge, it’s turned into a tremendous leadership position in that area. His primary role is now as an educator, giving certification seminars to packed houses several times a month at over $1,000 a head, in addition to many other projects. Although we all may not take the same exact route, we do need to have a plan for our entire career arc in mind. Success like the kind Steve is having doesn’t happen overnight; it’s a reflection of all the time and effort he put in building up to it.

So it turns out my search into new training techniques resulted in much more than I expected. I hope this conversation with Steve got you enough information to add kettlebells to your training arsenal; at least until he brings his show into town!