The other night, I sat down with my girlfriend and we watched "The Prestige" featuring Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman. For those who don't know, this movie is all about magic tricks and how magicians - at least the ones in the movie - would stoop to any lows in order to learn the other's secrets. They wanted to be the best magicians, which is something that I'm sure all others in this line of work aim to be. How much more impressive would their acts be if kettlebells were utilized?

One of the most heavily featured tricks in the movie is the water tank escape, which has one person bound by the arms and legs as they attempt to free themselves from the aquatic cubicle. I'd have to imagine that such a stunt would be made only even more interesting with kettlebells. Adding an extra amount of weight would only make things tenser. In addition, the weight could bind to the person's arms, meaning that they'd have to maneuver in different ways in order to escape. The effortless use of such weights is something that fitness like authorities like Lorna can attest to.

A lesser used trick yet one that stands to be mentioned is the Chinese linking rings. Metal rings which are attached to one another have to be removed and it's common for the normal person to be stumped as to how it works. There's a method behind it and I believe such a method could apply to kettlebells as well. One has to be able to maneuver the arms in such a way that the trick is made possible with the use of illusions and skilled motions that only magicians seem to understand the secret of.

There is also one other technique shown in the cinema that I thought was both incredible and suspenseful. Alfred Borden, who is Bale's persona, makes use of the bullet catch trick. The trick goes like this: the bullet is put into the gun but it never reaches the point where firing it off would be deadly, or even painful. Deception is also used in order to mimic the sound and appearance of a gun going off so that the viewing audience is left impressed. It's a trick that only smart magicians can pull off.

As someone who was only a little interested in magic at first, "The Prestige" certainly opened my eyes to a world that I knew very little about. Not only did I learn about the secrets of these tricks - at least to some level - but I saw just how excited these people can become when it comes to their own work. Sometimes they can downright vicious, which is something that I suppose goes for any job where the public eye is present. I still think that these free weights could come into play.