Kettlebell vs barbell

The kettlebell is the better choice for general fitness and occasional exercise. The barbell is the better choice for maximum strength and focused exercise.

What is your goal

Before we go into the details of what a squat rack can work let me ask you a couple of questions:

Why do you want to change
What happens if you do
What happens if you don’t
How is fitness going to help

When I get the questions from beginners about what to do and why to do it it is usually based in a lack of focus and trust in the process. This is perfectly normal when you are new at something. One of the easiest ways to fix this is to sharpen your focus. The four questions above help with this.

Once you have clarified what you want to achieve and why it becomes a lot easier to pick the right routines to support your goals. So if you feel confused at the moment dig deeper and formulate a detailed goal. An example would be:

I wan to squat 200kg for repetitions within a year of time. This means i have to increase my one repetition maximum on the squat by at least 17% over a year. This is important to me because I have been working in the gym for years and want to write a book about the process to get to 200kg. This will make me more independent of my current job and enable to do more of the things I love like training and spending time with my family.

Make it very detailed and explain the reasons why. The acronym which is often used is SMART to formulate goals. This means

Specific
Measurable
Actionable
Time bound

This makes it a lot more likely for you to achieve the goal. So spent the time to really think about what you specifically want to do.

Maximum strength

When you want to train for maximum strength we are usually talking the

squat
deadlift
Bench press
Clean and jerk
Snatch

As the main competitive lifts which are looking for strength. In Strongman competitions, you will also have the

Log press
Farmers walk
Atlas stone
Keg throw

CrossFit will look for tests like the

Front squat maximum
Kettlebell deadlifts
Clean and jerk maximum max
Snatch max

In track and Field, the main strength disciplines are

Hammer throw
Disc throw
Javelin throw

So for most of these scenarios, the barbell wins to develop maximum strength over the kettlebell as long as you don’t want to specifically throw your equipment around. The barbell can take more weight and can be scaled up and down easier than a kettlebell. There are also more sports specific to the barbell one rep maximum than the kettlebell one repetition maximum.

If you are more into the throwing you probably want to invest in the specific item you want to throw as high or fat as possible.

A well-rounded strength program will likely make use of barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells and other equipment. This depends on the individual's strengths and weaknesses of the athlete, injury and recovery and focuses on which strength patterns need to be developed.

Generally, for most maximum strength scenarios when you are forced to choose between the kettlebell over the barbell, the barbell wins.

Conditioning

The realm of conditioning is a different one from the one-repetition maximum. The goals here are:

Explosiveness
Endurance
Recovery
Shifts

In terms of explosiveness, the kettlebell swing is an exercise that is very hard to beat in terms of free weight training. Yes, the clean and jerk and snatch are also great for this. These two movements are hardener coaches and have a higher risk of injury than kettlebell swings. For continued explosiveness in a team sport, individual sports using a ball or martial arts the kettlebell wins over the barbell.

Endurance training is important for martial artists, long-distance runners, Crossfitters and track and field athletes. While powerlifters, weightlifters and strongmen need a whole lot less of it. To train sustained stress over a long period of time the kettlebell is the better free weight tool than the barbell. This is based on that the kettlebell can be moved in a continuous flow while the barbell design mostly allows for start and stop motion patterns.

Recovery is important to all athletes and a part of conditioning. Recovery and endurance Go Hand in Hand. The kettlebell is a good tool for endurance athletes to train strength and improve bone density. This will lower the risk of injury in the main sport. For strength athletes, the kettlebell can be a good tool to recover from injury or improve grip strength. Also here the kettlebell beats the barbell as a tool for recovery for most athletes for different reasons.

Another part of conditioning is the ability to shift force in different directions. This is especially important in team sports like basketball, football, and rugby. While the kettlebell and barbell are both not the best tools to achieve this, the kettlebell still wins as swings in different directions simulate this better. Better tools to address this and build strength are cones and resistance bands for sprint drills.

All in all, if you are about conditioning, investing in kettlebells gives you more options than a barbell.

Space requirements

Pavel Tsatsoulin likes to describe the kettlebell as the smallest gym you can possibly buy. If you only want to train with one weight and your main goal is conditioning he is absolutely correct.

If you also want to train for max strength, things get a bit more complicated. The main disadvantage of a kettlebell is that it is not modular. This means that you will need a new kettlebell every time you want to go up in weight. Even though there are loadable kettlebell the mechanics are usually crap. If you have a lot of people training you will need a whole shelf of kettlebells to accommodate for them. However, this also means that they will be able to train in parallel. The barbell needs less space to be modular for one person. For a CrossFit class, it eats up more space.

The kettlebell wins this one slightly.

Cost

Kettlebells are costly when you go heavy. They are usually one big piece of metal which gets bought less and less often the higher you go in weight. Here barbells win out as it easier to get plates for cheap as they go with more different barbells and are more commonplace in the market or used when you going heavy. For a starter pack down the road to train at home, the kettlebell wins.

Maintenance

The kettlebell needs little to no maintenance as it is a block of iron. You might want to get rid of excess chalk and not leave it in the rain but that is about it. Barbells need a bit more attention, especially at the sleeves. Get a metal brush to clean out dead skin and chalk from the knurling on a regular basis. Tighten the screws on the end of the barbell for time to time and put oil on the bearing or bushing.

Summary

For general fitness goals, the kettlebells will be the better choice. For maximum strength, goals go for the barbell. For the vest results for any athlete, combine the two based on the goals you have.