Will lifting kettlebells make you "bulky"?

Girevoy Sport will not make you look like this!

Ah, the ever-existing stereotype of someone who lifts a lot of weights...

Kettlebells are an amazing tool for building strength, power, muscular endurance, and cardiovascular fitness. However, a kettlebell is a submaximal load that is meant for increasing your strength-endurance and power, not necessarily building bulk and size.

Especially when it comes to Kettlebell Sport / Girevoy Sport (GS) training, where the goal is to lift one or two kettlebells for 10 minutes, getting "bulky" is not a plausible outcome. Like any endurance sport, lifting kettlebells will make the athlete a lean, muscular, efficient machine.

Take, for example, the top female kettlebell athlete in the world: Ksenia Dedukhina.

Here's another example of a world champion in Kettlebell Sport, Denis Vasilev.

Actually, most of the guys who compete in Girevoy Sport have a body type more like Valentin Egorov.

The absolute world champion across all lifts, Ivan Denisov, is about as bulky as it gets when it comes to lifting kettlebells for endurance.

Like any sport, there are lifters of varying body types who have had success in GS. However, scan the following pictures of some of the top lifters in America and you tell me if any of them look like bodybuilders...

If your goal is to get bulky, kettlebells are probably not the #1 tool to get there (try steroids).

If you're afraid of getting bulky, you have nothing to worry about.

I don't actually care where you stand on the issue of being "bulky" - in my opinion, it's really a non-issue. Yes, it's important to have a healthy body, but aesthetics are only skin deep and ultimately, they are temporary.

Lifting kettlebells for endurance is about so much more than what you look like. The confidence you get from lifting kettlebells is much longer lasting than simply looking in the mirror and liking what you see. What lifting kettlebells can give you is the mental tenacity to endure - not just through physical pain and discomfort, but to push past the internal self-doubt and accomplish something you never thought possible. To inspire a strong belief in yourself that no matter what challenge is thrown your way in life... YOU CAN.