6K(-ish) Swing Challenge - summary
“Hey SvenG: You just finished 14K swings in 12 days. What’re you going to do next?”
I’m going to Disney World!
Seriously, though, I finished up Thursday evening at home and got up at 0200 on Friday to hop a plane to Orlando! A few days at the beach, then several days at the parks. Not a bad way to celebrate—and let’s be frank: 14K in 12 days is worth celebrating!
I totally underestimated myself at this beginning of this challenge. I had 12 days, so I figured 12 days out of 20 meant 6K swings, and maybe a few extra when I was feeling good… 6K-ish should be doable. Uh, yeah—doable and then some!
But it wasn’t easy. I was working hard in every session, I was pumped at the end of every workout, my hands were chewed up, and I was ready for the end by the end. Here’s how it went down:
I started with an extra round for 600 swings on Day 1, tried a twice-a-day on Day 2, and quickly settled into that pattern for the duration. It took me a few workouts to settle into the right weights for the lifts:
- I started with 155 lbs for the press on Day 1, but by Round 3 I realized that was too aggressive, so I dropped the 10-lbs plates on each side to finish out at 135. I went with 145 lbs on the next swing & press day, and kept it at that weight through the end.
- I started with 75 lbs for the dips on Day 2, but that was too light. Moved up to 90 lbs on Day 4 and stuck with that through the end.
- I started with goblets squats using a 65-lbs DB, my heaviest. That was also too light, so I swapped in BB front squats at 185 lbs on Day 5. I regretted that decision at the time, but it was the right weight and I finished out with that.
- I started with 25 lbs for the chins on Day 3, felt like I could move up, tried 35 lbs on Day 5 and smashed it. Really decided to push the limits on Day 8 and found I could handle 45 lbs for chins—but just barely: the chin-ups themselves were hard, but grip was the real challenge on those days. Anyway, I stuck with that through the end.
For the actual swings, I used the Rx weight of 24 kg for the first 10 workouts, but then moved up to 28 kg (my heaviest KB) for the next 10—I didn’t want anyone, mostly me, thinking I might be “underbelled,” particularly once I realized I could handle twice-a-day workouts while still improving.
Grip started out as the big challenge, but I adjusted quickly: I think it was Day 3 or so when it just didn’t seem to be an issue anymore. Yes, swing & chin day challenged it—particularly when I started chinning 45 lbs—but even then, grip wasn’t the limiting factor.
I ended up doing a few penalty rounds if I started shortening the ROM on swings, which happened a few times near the end of the 50-rep sets in later rounds. I did two of those: Day 8 (swing & chin) and Day 9 (swing & press), so that’s 200 more swings, and an extra 6 reps each of chin and press. I also messed up the number of reps on dips in the swing & press/dip session on Day 11, so I ended up re-doing all 3 dips rounds again the next morning for another 300 swings and 30 dips. I did not count these penalty swings in my 14K total.
From Day 2 forward I settled into twice-daily workouts of 6 rounds for 600 swings and 36 reps of press/squat/chin or 60 reps of dips. I carried that pattern forward through the 20 Rx workouts, which I finished up in the first workout of Day 11. That left 3 more workouts, so I combined swing & press/dip for the first of those, swing & squat/chin for the second, and a swing-only for the third. At that point I was done: 13.8K swings in 12 days!
But then Mrs. SvenG challenged me to round out with an even 14K, so I hit up a third session of two swing-only rounds to bring the total to 14K. I really just wanted her to congratulate me at the time, but now, on the other side of all the work, I’m SO glad she pushed me to hit 14K.
My time improved pretty steadily for each workout (more or less), and I was absolutely crushing the swing-only workouts by the end:
I wasn’t quite doing 100 reps straight—I put the KB down for about 10 seconds (or less) between the sets and for maybe 30 seconds or so between rounds. I could probably trim a bit more time off by doing 100 reps straight, but that sounds totally miserable even now, a few days later. (Maybe next time, haha!)
I was able to trim down the time between sets of swings and press or squat simply by not resting much at all, but dips and chins were slower because I had to get in and out of the belt—for those, I tried to cut time with shorter rest periods between rounds.
I didn’t wear gloves and I tried wearing my normal workout shorts, but after the third workout, I had no hair left on my inner thighs, there were some awesome bruises there, and the skin was pretty raw. I decided I needed long shorts to finish out the challenge, and I don’t regret that decision at all.
The early morning workouts were fasted, and energy was almost never an issue. Sometimes the afternoon (or mid-morning penalty sessions) were fasted too, but that was more a consequence of my schedule than anything else—it certainly wasn’t my intent to do the later work without eating.
Speaking of that, my appetite was reasonable, but not off the charts. I ate well, particularly at dinner in the evenings, but I wasn’t stuffing my face—I ate until I was full and I stopped. That felt great after Hardgainers, where I was eating beyond fullness just so I could be ready to go the next morning. (And even then I often felt like I was NOT ready to go the next morning, haha!) Once or twice my appetite did catch up with me, and so I ate big (like Hardgainers or BBB big), but that was not a daily occurrence. In fact, I kinda fell into a 16/8 eating pattern after a few days on this challenge: I didn’t end up eating anything until lunch. That meal was more-or-less normal: maybe a little less volume, and I eliminated an element here and there, like skipping the peanut butter on my celery or foregoing the second serving of Greek yogurt or whatever. Skipping breakfast wasn’t intentional at first, but eventually I realized I was becoming leaner without trying too hard, so I confess that pattern became deliberate by the end.
Here’s me on Friday morning:
and flexed, under anabolic lighting:
I think it’s fair to say I got leaner: my abs are popping in the right light, and I think my love handles actually shrunk a little, too. That normally takes real—and potentially (mentally) unhealthy—effort.
Beyond that, I was actually excited to train for the first time in a long time, and that feeling kept up throughout most of the 12 days. Things got a little harder mentally after I hit 10K, and then again after I hit 12K, but I stuck it out and ended up at 14K swings with only one or two workouts really feeling like a genuine mental battle.
So yeah, it was awesome. I could see myself running the Rx 10K Swing Challenge over 20 straight days on top of 5/3/1 (or whatever) as my second workout. I also think 10K in a week is within reach for me, but it would have to proceed like the 14K swings here: It would be my sole focus for the duration—not like Pwn’s 10K in a week run, where he kept up on his other work, too. And I might have to break it out over 3 workouts, maybe something like my last day of this run: 600, 600, and 300. But under those caveats, I think I could handle it.
Oh, yeah, I still owe curls: 141 for Saturday, 10/15; 142 for Saturday, 10/22, and (likely) 143 for Saturday, 10/29.
For now, though, I’m on vacation and I am intentionally NOT training while we’re away. And I’m not really thinking about what’s next just yet, either.
But you know me: I’ll be back at it when we return and, yes, it’ll probably be 5/3/1 something-or-other!