Kettlebell Swings, Sex Appeal and the Superbowl

Today is Tuesday, 2 days after the Superbowl and after seeing the thoughts of several people I thought I might weigh in with my own thoughts. If you’ve been reading my stuff for a while you might know I try to use things like this as an opportunity to teach.

First, there was a commercial that featured one of my favorite exercises the kettlebell swing. Unfortunately anytime I see this done by anything resembling mainstream media it’s always butchered.

Yeah, don’t do it that way. The swing is a hip hinge, not a squatting overhead front raise. That is both a back injury and a shoulder impingement waiting to happen.

Do it this way instead. This is the safe and effective way of doing it. Also the woman in the video below was actually one of my instructors when I originally went through the kettlebell personal training certifications back in 2009. With the kettlebell swing, the devil is in the details.

Also one of the things that seem to have people talking is both the sexually suggestive nature of the halftime show and how good Shakira and Jennifer Lopez looked at the age of 50 ish I think.

About the sexually suggestive nature…whatever. I’ve seen worse, we all have. And I’m not a fan at all of their music, I’d much rather see Metallica up there.

And in terms of how good they looked. I’ve seen worse.

I’m not going to say it was all done completely naturally because truth be told, it’s highly unlikely. But I will say that having a sound weight training program alongside healthy nutrition can go a long way to making you look good, feel good and move well as you age.

Here is where the geeky stuff comes in. Have you ever noticed that some people age better than others? There is something called your chronological age, and another called your biological age.

Basically one is how many years you’ve been alive, and the other is how your cells and your body age. See this link for a bit more on this https://www.verywellhealth.com/what-is-chronological-age-2223384

Anyway, there is something in our cells called telomeres that break down as we get older chronologically. As these break down, this is known as our biological age (how old we seem compared to how old we are).

Weight training and cardiovascular training along with healthy nutrition can go a long way towards preserving these telomeres and hence slowing down how we appear to age. This could be one of the reasons that Shakira and Jlo look like they are in their 30’s. I’m pretty sure both of them have full-time personal trainers.

And another thing is that when you train and eat healthily you age with dignity. We’ve all seen people who have taken the plastic surgery thing way to far and instead look like a clown.

On the other hand, we all have seen the ones who simply dedicated themselves to training, eat healthily and even though they are older they still look amazing. And weight training transfers to way more things than plastic surgery does.

Strength gives confidence that transcends the way you look, it has a freedom that comes with it because you are capable of more than you knew before.

The key thing is to quite simply get started. If you need my help let me know.


Eric Moss is a world-record-holding professional performing strongman, author, motivational speaker, and personal trainer. In the tradition of the strongmen during the turn of the century, he performs feats of strength such as bending steel and breaking chains as part of a show and speaks on goal achievement for corporations, nonprofits, government as well as for schools and universities. His exclusive personal training studio is located on Main Street in Boonton New Jersey, is close to Mountain Lakes, Denville, and Parsippany New Jersey.

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