Getting Back Under the Bells

When I used to play rugby (union, for all those wondering which code), we had a pretty simple, non-sophisticated way of measuring age…

If you could play a full 80 minutes on a Saturday afternoon, sink a double-figure number of beers in the bar afterwards, go out on the town for the rest of the evening, demolish a kebab on the way home, and still train on Monday night, you were not only one of the elite club members, you were also probably under 25.

If you could do most of the above and still make training by Wednesday, you were somewhere between 25 and 35.

If you managed everything up to the kebab but skipped training altogether, then turned up the following Saturday still aching from the previous week’s game… well, that was simply a sign of the times.

Oh, for those younger days.

These days, I can spend a few extra hours at my PC using a mouse and an RSI I never even knew I had decides to rear its ugly head and put me out of training for weeks.

Seriously.

So much so that I had to withdraw from the IKFF NorCal 2026 competition (it’s actually taking place this week) and ask Denis Vasilev, the founder of the IKFF, to defer my entry until February 2027.

I’m not best pleased, but I’d rather miss one competition than spend the next year wondering why I tried to train through an injury.

Anyway, after almost three weeks away from kettlebells, I decided it was time to pick the bells up again.

Nothing heroic. Just under five minutes with two 8 kg kettlebells. My timer decided to pack up after three minutes, so I simply finished the session by completing 50 reps—the equivalent of 10 reps per minute if the timer had behaved itself.

Was it a great session?

No.

Was it enough?

Absolutely.

Sometimes getting back under the bells is the hardest part.