girya

Transliteration of Russian ги́ря (gírja).

girya (plural giryas)

1. (weightlifting) A kettlebell; a weight consisting of a cast iron ball with a single handle for gripping the weight during exercise.
   • 2008, Raffi Yessayan, Eight in the Box: A Novel of Suspense, page 145:

     He slammed the giryas back down on the rubber-matted floor.

   • 2011, Dave Randolph, The Ultimate Kettlebells Workbook, page 9:

     Kettlebells, which are Russian in origin (called girya), are believed to have been around since the early 1700s.

   • 2014, Steve Cotter, Kettlebell Training:

     Also called kettlebell sport, this is a Russian national sport in which the girya (kettlebell) is used either in single or double form to accumulate as many repetitions as possible in 10 minutes in order to compare one lifter with the next in a sporting framework.

   • 2018, Mark Vella, New Anatomy for Strength & Fitness Training:

     Soon the farmers began challenging each other to feats of strength using the girya.

Since the 1940s, the term girya has been mostly replaced by the term kettlebell. Most modern authors treat girya as a transliteration of Russian rather than an English word. However, some authors use girya as an English term in a historical context (referring to its use prior to the 1940s) or when referring to this object in the context of the sport of kettlebell lifting.

• kettlebell