Jillian Michaels and Me

I was flattered to see a plug for The New Rules of Lifting and The New Rules of Lifting for Women in this article by James Fell:

To find the right program, you need to become sort of an expert by reading advice written by experts. I’ve read a lot of good and a lot of bad weightlifting books, but here are some I recommend:

For Women:
• The New Rules of Lifting for Women
• Women’s Strength Training Anatomy

For Men:
• The New Rules of Lifting
• Strength Training Anatomy

Did you see a pattern up there?

Depending on your gender, buy these two books and study them, and then figure out a weightlifting program that is right for you.

What does that have to do with Jillian Michaels? Nothing, except that Fell also wrote a recent article for the L.A. Times about Michaels’ unfortunate venture into kettlebell training. Here’s a taste:

Michaels obtained some introductory fitness certifications (National Exercise & Sports Trainers Assn. and Aerobics and Fitness Assn. of America) 17 years ago and does not seem to ever have recertified. The biography on her website goes on and on about her multimedia endeavors, but there is not a single mention of any health-and-fitness education or credentials.

And now, seemingly without any qualifications, Michaels is teaching amateurs how to use kettle bells in her latest DVD, “Shred-It With Weights.” Her toned, tanned and possibly Photoshopped physique stands proudly on the cover holding a kettle bell, while a bubble on the cover exclaims, “Lose up to 5 pounds a week!”

Lose 5 pounds a week? Sure, if you start off weighing more than a Smart Car.

It’s not the first time she’s made such a claim. Even though it takes hundreds of hours for a serious professional to become certified as a yoga instructor, Michaels made a yoga DVD that also promises you can lose up to 5 pounds a week, which is about as likely as Paris Hilton winning the Nobel Prize in physics.

I have no ax to grind with Michaels. I’ve never seen her show, never read her books, never even heard her speak until I checked out this kettlebell demo on YouTube. I just know she makes fuckloads of money, and if I made a list of all the rich people I’m jealous of she wouldn’t be in the top 100.

Still, I’m always up for a good laugh at a celebrity’s expense, and after reading James’ description of her form (he quotes a certified kettlebell instructor saying “her technique is appalling”), I clicked on her video expecting to see a real bloodbath, with ligaments snapping like 10-year-old rubber bands and raw crab meat oozing out of ruptured spinal discs. What I saw was … well, the best word might be “mediocre.”

I’m no expert; all I know about kettlebells I learned in one afternoon from Steve Cotter. To my eyes, her form on the basic kettlebell swing just isn’t very good. Her torso remains upright, limiting her range of motion and thus limiting the effect of the exercise. She does achieve complete hip extension, snapping her hips forward to finish each rep.

Given the fact she’s marketing to an audience of overweight, untrained, not-young women, I’m not convinced an upright torso and shortened range of motion is a terrible way to do that particular exercise. It might be a bad idea to push kettlebell training on that audience in the first place, but that’s a separate issue.

Unfortunately for Michaels, she finishes her YouTube demo with a crazy swing variation in which she overextends the range of motion, putting her lower back into flexion. If her audience tries that one, yeah, someone’s probably going to get hurt.

If only she’d stopped at “mediocre” …

Tags: Tags: bad form, biggest loser, books, jillian michaels, kettlebells, new rules of lifting