Bristol Kettlebell club

Do you know the difference between a compound exercise and an isolation exercise?

A compound exercise is an exercise that involves more than one joint.

An isolation exercise is one that only acts on one joint.

Squats create movement at your hips, knees and ankles and to some degree your spine. That’s a compound exercise.

A bicep curl only moves your elbow joint. So it’s isolating the bicep.

A list of common compound exercises

Chin ups
Deadlifts
Lunges
Press ups
Bent over rows
Squats
Dips

These should be your bread and butter when it comes to putting together a training plan.

A list of common isolation exercises

Bicep curls
Skull crushers
Lateral raises
Calf raises

However, with most of these isolation movements, it is possible to move from a secondary joint, so adherence to form is crucial. For instance, when things get hard during curls and skull crushers, your shoulders might get involved. So you need to limit that. That’s where a good personal trainer can be invaluable, because you could be loading the exercise but not seeing any results if it’s not performed correctly.

Hope that helps.

In a future post I’ll discuss why and when you might choose a compound exercise over an isolation, and why you might do one before the other.

Have a great day!

PS - pic taken in Leigh wood’s yesterday. Cooling off under the tree cover.

Over emphasising shoulder strength and muscle development. 2 sets of 6-8 at each angle. Go from horizontal to vertical if you want to emphasise chest development.

Psst!

You wanna lose weight?

You need to slow down.

I know you want 10lbs off and you want it off yesterday, but it just doesn't work like that.

The steps you take need to be smaller. If they're too big, you get overwhelmed and you fail.

Here's a 3 step process

Step 1

Take an audit of your calories (use MFP), find your daily average and reduce it by 100, every 2 weeks until you're at your resting metabolic rate. Heres an example, If you start at 2200 in 12 weeks you'll be at 1600.

Most people jump straight to 1600 and wonder why they can't sutain it for more then a few weeks.

At 1600 calories, you don't have any energy to train hard, you sacrifice muscle tissue and you don't have anywhere to go when your body adapts.

Step 2

Take an audit of your protein intake, find your daily average and increase it by ten grams. If you're succesful at maintaining this for 4 weeks, increase it by another 10-15 grams if necessary.

Protein is seldom converted to body fat, so it just makes sense to reduce carb/fats and increase protein cals. It also helps with blunting hunger, recovery and too many other things to mention.

Step 3

Look at your daily step count (its on your mobile phone), find your daily average and increase it by 2000.

Under 5000 you are considered sedentary, and whilst you can lose weight by controlling calories alone, a body that moves will always look leaner than one that doesn't.

These are 3 small steps you can take that are focused on the biggest levers you can pull to make fat loss happen.

Depending on your starting position, you might need to tackle them one at a time, or you might be able to tackle 1-2 of them together.

You do not have a broken metabolism, your body will reduce body fat when you focus on the right things and for long enough.

Give yourself enough time, 12 weeks is ideal.

If you didn't lose weight after 12 weeks, you missed one of the steps or misunderstood the assignment.

Get in touch and I'll be happy to point you in the right direction.

Pete

Beautiful weather and great energy at last night’s strength session.

The focus was the back, something kettlebells already hit well, but we took it a step further.

• Serratus work to improve shoulder blade function (key for keeping shoulders pain-free)
• Direct rear delt work to support posture and balance
• Spinal erectors trained through both extension and flexion, something most people never do

Strong, resilient backs aren’t built by accident.

I’m running a 4-week beginner kettlebell course soon, perfect if you’ve never trained like this before and want to build real strength in a simple, structured way.

Comment STRONG or message me if you want the details.

Drop-in Strength Training Sessions

Due to increasing demand for more flexible training options, I’ve opened two weekly drop-in strength sessions at the Bristol Kettlebell club gym.

These are fully coached small-group sessions designed to help you build strength safely and progressively.

Times

• Tuesday – 6:30pm

• Thursday – 6:00pm

Details

• Max group: 4 people

• Price: £20

• 24-hour cancellation required

Sessions are organised via WhatsApp.

If you’d like to join the group and start training, comment “YES” and I’ll DM you the details, or use the message button and request to join.

Member achievement 🏆

Massive congratulations to Kelly who completed 100 sn**ches in 5 minutes with a 20kg bell tonight and then a few minutes later completed 5 x 20 two hand swings with a 32kg bell.

That’s a very high level of strength and conditioning and can only be achieved through consistent hard work and effort.

To put it into some sort of context, the SFG kettlebell certification is considered to be one of the hardest trainer certifications to get and has a 30% failure rate.

The sn**ch test for that uses a 16kg bell for women.

Kelly would breeze through it!

22kg next week? 😉

Mark Felix is known for being an exceptional deadlifter and having a strong grip.

So it was interesting to hear that he didn’t train the deadlift as a main lift.

He trained like a bodybuilder and did body part splits.

And they say training like that isn’t functional!

Mark Felix: The Strongman Who Defies Ageing Podcast Episode · The Good, The Bad & The Beast · 10/02/2026 · 1h 46m

I can’t help but feel for this young woman who is only trying to help others.

The abuse she has received must be devastating.

So let’s clear up some facts. She is not in charge of health for an entire country. She’s a volunteer who’s speaking up for women’s health issues.

The minister for health in Wales is Jeremy Miles.

As a nation we need to think before we speak and stop this childish online bullying behaviour!

None of you who abused her would say what you said to her face to face would you?

So stop being cowardly keyboard warriors!

Young woman subjected to disgusting, vile abuse while trying to help people Medical student Athika Ahmed, 23, has been made subject to horrific abuse on social media after appearing on the news

Training opportunity

A space has become available training in a group of three at my gym.

The sessions take place at 7:30am on Tuesday and Friday, but there might be some flexibility there with an earlier start time or on different days.

The training does not follow a group format, you can choose your exercises or I will choose for you and coach/guide.

Get the personal training experience at a reduced rate.

Message me or comment “interested” below and I will contact you.