Two Important Hormonal Benefits from Kettlebell Compound Exercises

Did you know you could be missing out on some major health benefits if you only stick to isolation exercises?  If you want to maximize your health you need to be incorporating compound exercises into your weight lifting routine.

For those not in the know, isolation exercises are lifts that focus only on one muscle group in your body.  Examples of these include bicep curls, leg extensions, and shoulder raises.  Compound exercises, on the other hand, recruit many major muscle groups in order to lift a weight.  Examples of these are squats, dead lifts, and pull-ups.

To someone who lifts weight it may seem like there would not be much of a difference between the two exercise types.  In reality, the difference is quite significant.  Exercises like the squat and dead lift place an extreme amount of load on the body.  This shocks your central nervous system and causes certain hormones to be released.  You simply cannot get the same effect while doing isolation exercises like bicep curls.  Your body will not react the same way to 80lbs. curls as it will to squatting 400lbs.  So, as previously mentioned, once you place you body under heavier loads it will start release certain hormones that are beneficial to your overall fitness.

These two hormones are testosterone and growth hormone.  As a man, these are two things you want!  Suffering from low levels of either hormones will cause your training routine to produce lackluster results.  You will want to make sure your testosterone levels are optimal because it also has a strong connection to your sex drive, energy levels, and even helps protect you from osteoporosis.  Growth hormone is just as important.  In cases where people were deficient in this hormone, medical growth hormone supplementation has provided benefits such as fat loss, increased lean mass, denser bones, improved lipid profile, healthier heart and cardiovascular system, and overall psychosocial well-being.  It should be obvious why you would want to do compound exercises since they stimulate your body to release these hormones.  It would also be smart to check with your doctor to get some blood work and make sure your levels are pretty good before even beginning your training routine.  Low levels of these hormones from the start could be like shooting yourself in the foot.

Once you're set with your doctor, you can use high repetition squats to keep good growth hormone levels. Doing low repetition dead lifts will keep your testosterone levels where they need to be.  The kind of weights you choose to perform these exercises are up to you.  Kettlebells are an excellent choice though since many of their exercises are geared toward compound ones. Grab your two favorite heavy kettlebells and you're ready to do some hard core squatting or dead lifts!

Summary

• Stay away from isolation exercises because they do not put enough load on an average lifter.
• Stick to compound exercises since they stimulate more muscles.
• Using compound exercises can help maintain testosterone and growth hormone.
• These hormones are linked to many positive health benefits.