Senior Maxbells Instructor

• 35 years of experience in fitness training and coaching.
• Master's Degree in Exercise Science from West Chester State University, in PA.
• First American to earn a black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, certified by Relson Gracie.
• Holds many Brazilian Jiu Jitsu titles, including Six Pan-American Championships and three International Master-Senior Championships.
• One of three American black belts to hold a world title in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
• Taught the first kettlebell classes in the nation, at Maxercise, which he owned/operated as a top gym in Philadelphia for 16 years before John Disimone took over.
• Leads seminars around the world for Strength & Conditioning, Joint Mobility, Kettlebells, and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
• First RKC Senior Instructor, influential in many of the movements and concepts in the RKC curriculum.
• AKC certified.
• Has worked with various government agencies, including the DEA, Secret Service, and FBI.
• Trained professional athletes, including those from the Phillies, Dodgers, and Eagles.
• Named one of the top 100 trainers in the US by Men's Journal.
• Published or featured in numerous books and magazines, including Men's Journal, Men's Health, Muscle Media, Hard Style, The Russian Kettlebell Challenge, and The Naked Warrior.
• Produced numerous training videos for Strength & Conditioning and Kettlebells.
• Widely known for ability to connect with clients and students, bringing out their best performance.

More than nine years ago, long before RKC certifications - and before anyone had ever heard of Pavel Tsatsouline or Valery Federenko - I was busy experimenting with a crude pair of homemade kettlebells at Maxercise in Philadelphia.

I was on the ground floor of Pavel's first certification in St. Paul, MN, where I introduced many of the movements and concepts now a part of the RKC curriculum. I was the first person to be asked to be a Senior instructor and of the cadre, I was the only full-time professional teacher and trainer. My personal training gym, Maxercise, was the first kettlebell gym in modern times, and the first one to specialize in kettlebell classes. I had a huge advantage over others in the field because I was able to guinea pig my own clients and use real life experimenting to test out my theories. I learned through trial and error, (the best way), how to train large groups of health and fitness seekers with kettlebells. Most of the clients I dealt with were not athletes, though there were plenty of athletes at all levels of sport, but everyday people - mostly deconditioned. Another advantage: I was trained as a teacher of physical education and had years of coaching and teaching experience already behind me.

I have extensive experience with the two competing kettlebell associations, the RKC and the AKC. On the RKC side, the idea is the kettlebell is a versatile training tool that can be used for a whole range of fitness and strength training purposes - everything from fat loss to maximum strength. Basically, they claim that pretty much anything that can be done with a dumbbell can be done with a kettlebell. The AKC philosophy promotes the use of kettlebells only as a tool suitable for high-rep, strength-endurance training, primarily in the form of four exercises. My involvement in both fields of thought allowed me to draw out and apply the best elements of each, resulting in a system using kettlebells in a wide variety of results-producing applications outside the narrow confines of either merely sport kettlebell lifting or strictly fat loss.

For these and other reasons, I'm now leading my own teacher-training certifications. By now, I've distinguished myself as the best man for the job. There aren't too many things I haven't tried with a kettlebell! And I'm prepared to show the health-and-fitness-truth-seeker everything I've learned along the way. If you really want to learn from someone who's been out there in the trenches and taught people from every walk of life, you're going to get the best return on your dollar from training with Steve Maxwell.
 
 
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