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Kettlebell Success — Personal Trainer Anthony Diluglio

How Anthony Diluglio Scores Major Successes
Using Kettlebells for Rehab

Anthony Diluglio specializes in kettlebell training for people recovering from chronic and acute injuries. The Providence, RI resident received Russian Kettlebell Challenge certification in April of 2003.

Dragon Door: Let's start out by talking about your background.

Anthony Diluglio: I actually started in the muffin business-I created the first fat-free muffin in the United States. East coast, west coast, we did the whole supermarket industry. When I was in L.A., I was 100 lbs overweight. I went through a terrible divorce, miserable lifestyle—very successful—but miserable. I hired a trainer in L.A. and learned a lot about fitness.

I was always in shape, but I was just not genetically in shape. You know how some people have to work out, and some people have it naturally? My family doesn't have it naturally. I was a runner, mountain biker, and I was just fascinated with fitness, especially in conjunction with fat-free products. I did a high-protein, fat-free muffin. Brought that whole concept to Sweden, to Stockholm. I went there for a vacation, and I was there for five years. I didn't come home.

And while I was there, I was introduced to Body-for-Life. Got certified in sports nutrition, started to work with clients, brought the Body-for-Life concept to Stockholm. Opened up a couple of alternative fast food restaurants that served healthy alternative foods. And in Stockholm, you're talking about 10 years ahead of time. That's how far ahead this was; it was just so advanced for these people. They had just gotten a muffin the first year I was there. We did the first muffin. So it was very progressive.

I learned everything there. I worked with Yugoslavian bodybuilders; I worked with a lot of Russian guys that were in Stockholm, and adapting Body-for-Life program. Eating six times a day. Came back to the United States, worked for Crunch gym for a while. That didn't last long at all—too much of a scene there. I like one-on-one contact much more. Moved back to Rhode Island where I originally came from, and started working at a Jewish Community Center as a personal trainer and nutritionist.

I started working with a physiatrist—an M.D. of physical medicine, an alternative to surgery. If you have tendonitis in your elbow like I have, for instance, he may give you a cortisone shot, work on physical therapy, massage therapy. It's an alternative medicine to surgery, basically. Works for most people with chronic pain. You know, you've been to every doctor, they're recommending an X-ray after another X-ray, and think you should go see this guy, and more specialists…and you still have the pain. More medication, more medication.

Dr. Jerrold Rosenberg is the alternative to that. He helps people. One of the biggest parts of his practice now is kettlebell training.

My sister bought me a kettlebell for this past Christmas. She's a fitness buff; she just has to be into the newest of everything, and she found kettlebells through the Vitalics catalog, and mailed it to our house. So she surprised me with a video, a book, and a 36-pound kettlebell. Well, I absolutely fell in love with this thing.

I work with clients all day, and because of my own workouts, my shoulder started to hurt. I'm 37 years old. I didn't realize, I hate to admit it, that as you get older, you're just not capable of the same, everyday traditional lifting, over and over again. You need to be more flexible like Steve Maxwell was showing us this morning. Those joint movements. That's more what I'm wanting to teach people, because it works for me. If it works for me, it can work for just about anyone.

We brought the kettlebells into the physiatrist's office, in a separate office-we built our own kettlebell studio. It just looks like a doctor's office, with some mirrors and some rubber mats, and some cool pictures. And that's where we work with people.

It's phenomenal, the changes in people's lives with chronic carpal tunnel injuries, chronic shoulder injuries. Motorcycle accidents 25 years ago, where these people have not been able to raise their hands over their heads for years. I have them doing windmills. Regardless of the weight. Could be a nine-pound kettlebell, but they're able to do a windmill. People with ruptured discs in their backs are doing side presses.

D.D.: Why do you think KBs help carpal tunnel syndrome?

A.D.: Lack of repetition, that's what I'm finding. Lack of repetition in their hands. Most people have it from typing. I have one guy—this is a professional sailor, and he used to build interiors of boats. So between the contract work he did, and pulling the rigs and the ropes, his arms just atrophied. And he's a big guy, 6'4".

D.D.: I thought you got carpal tunnel from repetition.

A.D.: It is—that's how you get carpal tunnel.

D.D.: So then how do the kettlebells help?

A.D.: Because he has this one isometric hold on the bell. Holding the bottom up, clean. This guy is a great story. He started with the four-kilo kettlebell, and not being able to hold it up with his hand. It would just fall, and it would hurt his wrist. Just that small bang would hurt his wrist. Last week we worked with a 53-pound kettlebell: shoulder presses, clean-and-jerks, windmills with the 53 in one hand a 46-pound kettlebell in the other. This guy has come along. He's basically been released from the doctor's care, and now I just train him. He said, "You gave me my life back. I didn't think I'd be able to sail again, or build interiors, or work on my own home." Young guy—40 years old.

I have a client—a 72-year-old man who has a shoulder that was not rehabbed properly 50 years ago. He was just a kid. He was never able to use his shoulder, it just hangs there. He does kettlebell swings just to get his arm up. He can't raise his arm above a certain height.

There are many stories. The most amazing story is Phillip Barr's. He was in the Station nightclub fire in Rhode Island. He was in the hospital for six weeks. Had a tracheotomy, couldn't breath, has about 40-50% lung capacity. He's a competitive swimmer at Bates College, 21 years old. His mother and father are very supportive of him, and they went around looking for therapy for him when he couldn't find it. The hospital told him, "Look, just go to a local gym, and work out until you get tired." That was the advice from the doctors and staff at the hospital.

And his mom refused to believe that that was going to be rehab for her son. So she, through the Yellow Pages, stumbled across the doctor I work with. She interviewed about six doctors and physical therapists, and just liked the feeling, she said, of the way he Dr. Rosenberg presented himself. He's a little unorthodox in his way; he's from Manhattan and living in RI, all his offices have jazz music playing from CD players. She felt very comfortable in his natural approach to things. He said, "I have just the guy for your son to work with," which was me, with kettlebells.

From the first day when he started, I was told that his heart rate hadn't been over 88-95 beats per minute. The first day, with just one set of swings, his heart rate went up to 153-167. We have an oxygen meter that we put on his finger to make sure he's oxygenating 96-99%. He was consistently at 94-95%. Three weeks into this, his heart rate is at 155-167, consistently, oxygenating at 97-98%. Only kettlebells. I don't do anything else with him.

It's building back his strength with a variety of exercises. I could go through every one of them, but pretty much what's on Pavel's tapes, because at the time, that's all I had to work with. And I made up a lot of things, you know I've choreographed things like a snatch into an overhead squat, without stopping. Change hands, and use a lot of escalated density training from Charles Staley. So I've incorporated those two concepts together, which have worked fantastic for him.

It's been about three weeks, and he and his parents absolutely love this. He was interviewed by one of the local stations, and he said, "No, you have to come and meet Anthony. I want you to see what I'm doing."

I was actually going to go in search of someone, or people who were injured in the RI fire knowing that this would work. So this came to us by accident; I didn't go looking for it, but I wanted to.

When I was in New York I put the word out that I wanted to train people and help people recover from, whether they were injured or not, just get their lives back—people who had lost friends and family in the World Trade Center disaster. And I did that; I was working at the W hotel. Just to get a routine back in their lives, not just sit at home and be depressed, and work out. We did a lot of boxing. I have a friend who's a professional kickboxer from Croatia, and he and I put together a program at the W hotel. Matter of fact, I called him and told him to get turned on to kettlebells.

But it's been amazing to see what it does for people in rehab. I have 35 clients, and I have every single client working with kettlebells, regardless of their age. I've recommended to people I train, if they choose not to do KBs for some reason, not because of a physical injury, but because they just don't believe in it or understand it, I tell them to go get another trainer. That's what we're doing right now, that's what I'm into, that's what I'm teaching. Believing, really believing wholeheartedly that's the best thing for them.

Most of my clients are between 40-60 years old. I have a little guy, seven or eight years old. I have him hold a little kettlebell over his head, and have him do the squats, just teaching balance. Obviously I can't lift weights with them, but isometrically, they can do quite a few things with the kettlebell.

One of my number one clients lost 85 lbs doing mostly the Warrior Diet, and I have her doing kettlebell swings. She was 400 lbs, this woman. She's got her life back. She's active, she walks. Her first exercise with me was to walk with two canes backwards. That's what we used to do. She was just too heavy to do anything else.

I was quitting this whole industry. I was going back into the food business, until these kettlebells.

My sister knew it, that's why she bought one for me for Christmas. She said, "You're going to quit, aren't you?" I said, "I may quit and go back to Los Angeles or something because I can't—this is too closed in." It's hard to teach people in a very small state. Very closed-minded, small town mentality, but this has really opened people's eyes to quite a few new ideas about themselves. It's pushing them to another level that they weren't even aware of.

I mean, you get a guy who has arthritis in his back, and the doctors are telling him, "Don't ever bend over, don't pick anything up, don't twist…" and I have him doing windmills at 57 with full-blown arthritis in his back and shoulders. There's something to say for that. You know, having him losing body fat and just being more agile, it's just tremendous. He's on the Warrior Diet as well. I have a bunch of people on that diet. I think it's fantastic.

I think people want to be part of a culture. People want to be a part of something. They want to be a part of what Pavel's doing, and why should I take credit? I'll help people learn this, and that's the credit I'll get. As long as someone's getting a benefit. I did it with Body-for-Life. Everyone said, "Why are you using his program? You should make up your own." I don't have a book out. I don't have the wherewithal to create a book, but to teach this program—I have so many people who buy these books, Pavel's books, and for the average layperson to read that book and understand it, it's almost impossible.

The average guy who's deconditioned: he'll buy it, he'll look at it, he'll buy a kettlebell or maybe if he's got some money he'll say, "Aw, I want the whole set." He'll never pick them up. It's like home equipment. But if there's someone there to teach him, he'll quickly learn what the benefit is and he'll do it on his own.