Exercise fads are as popular as they are shameful. Instead, take your shriveled muscles for an old school kettlebell workout.

Kettlebells are cannonballs with grips, and were all the rage back when men sported handlebar mustaches and worked out in long underwear. Later the Red Army championed their use -- at first for efficiency, then because the USSR couldn't afford Precor machines.

These aren't just low-rent dumbbells. While a dumbbell's mass is balanced at its center, the unwieldy kettlebell requires stabilization -- exhausting work that guarantees results. To perform the basic regimen, swing and lift the weights while performing calisthenics (this won't sound so silly the morning after, when you wake up too sore to cry). As you grow stronger, the routines become more complex, until you're slinging iron as flamboyantly as Cocktail's Brian Flanagan shook his buttery nipples.

Of course, hoisting cannonballs can wreck your body -- which is why gyms lock them away from people without special certifications. For introductory instruction, try Peak Performance gym, which will start offering hour-long group sessions today for $25 per. To teach the classes, Peak's brought in Kettlebell Concepts' CEO David Ganulin: a man whose entire life revolves around pendulous balls. Drop in after work -- no membership's required, but giant mustaches are encouraged.