Having worked with the 40 kg for awhile now, regular two-handed swings with a 20/24 kg bell feel extremely light, only suitable for warming up or finishing off a workout (not to say that the bells are too light, period; the bells are still plenty useful for other exercises, especially snatches. I mean that tey are light for me to get much out of regular two-handed swings with them unless I push the reps really high).
Of course exactly what “heavy” is will vary based on strength of the trainee - some people on here would find the 40 kg far too light and might need a 48 kg or more, and smaller trainees might find the 24 kg plenty heavy.
Point is, once I started swinging a 40 kg bell and got the groove with it, I started re-thinking what the swing was really supposed to feel like. My heart rate skyrockets quickly, and my body feels absolutely worked over by a few sets of swings with the 40 kg in a way that never happened doing swings with my lighter KB’s.[/quote]
I had a stressful day today and had some extra carbs in the afternoon, but I’ll keep the evening carb-free. My bodyweight is continuing to drop nicely, so I’m confident I’ve at least stopped myself from gaining weight. I felt really stiff so I skipped the swings, so as not to risk injury.
I felt a little sluggish for this one, but managed the same as for my last pull-up/dip session. Slipped up a bit on the diet again, but will keep the evening carb-free.
Weighing in on heavy kettlebells. Today I hit 500 total two hand swings with the 40kg bell (30,29,28,etc all the way down to 10, then a few extra sets of 10), and it wasn’t overly difficult on anything cardiovascular or muscular wise other than my grip (not denying I’ll be sore tomorrow). Aside from it being probably much more volume than is necessary, do you think multiple sets in the 20-30 rep range are valuable for strength and/or fatloss/conditioning? What would be a good way to progress the rep range here? Shorten rest periods? Aim for something like 50 reps in a single set? I’m quite enjoying training with the kettlebells, it’s a nice change of pace and since I don’t have the right equipment to train my power lifts heavy trying to set myself ridiculous challenges with them is keeping me motivated.
Have you ever considered trying the 10,000 kettlebell swing program? Im thinking of giving it a go for something different once my football season is over.
[quote]MaazerSmiit wrote:
Weighing in on heavy kettlebells. Today I hit 500 total two hand swings with the 40kg bell (30,29,28,etc all the way down to 10, then a few extra sets of 10), and it wasn’t overly difficult on anything cardiovascular or muscular wise other than my grip (not denying I’ll be sore tomorrow). Aside from it being probably much more volume than is necessary, do you think multiple sets in the 20-30 rep range are valuable for strength and/or fatloss/conditioning? What would be a good way to progress the rep range here? Shorten rest periods? Aim for something like 50 reps in a single set? I’m quite enjoying training with the kettlebells, it’s a nice change of pace and since I don’t have the right equipment to train my power lifts heavy trying to set myself ridiculous challenges with them is keeping me motivated.[/quote]
That’s really impressive bud! I’m really no expert. It seems to me that you’re at the stage where you’d probably benefit from getting a heavier kettlebell - I think that sets of around 20 reps are great for conditioning while still being really good for strength, but if you start doing sets over 30 reps I’m less sure. To be honest it’s not something I’ve had much experience of, I max out at 20 reps for work sets. One technique I really like is to do on-the-minute training, and it’s particularly good for keeping you in an effective rep range if your weight is slightly too light. Try doing 10 sets of 10 reps, every minute on the minute, and then add a rep each session so you’re doing 10x11, then 10x12 up to 10x20 (which would be awesome). The first few sets feel quite good, but then it suddenly gets horrible. It’s a really good way to hit conditioning and strength/hypertrophy in pretty equal measure. But what you’re already doing sounds great too!
Have you ever considered trying the 10,000 kettlebell swing program? Im thinking of giving it a go for something different once my football season is over.
Enjoy your well deserved week off.
Uncle Bird.
tweet[/quote]
Thanks bird! I’ve actually done the 10,000 swing programme. I did the full version 18 months ago and since then I’ve done 2 modified versions. I really like it overall, although I prefer to swing heavier!
Training: I didn’t do any set training this week, and I didn’t run as I planned as those few sessions before really hurt my knees. However I got a tonne of general activity in - lots of walking, cycling and swimming.
Nutrition: Not great in terms of food choices - a lot of bread etc - but quantities were pretty controlled.
I did the pull-ups in the morning and the lower body stuff in the evening. The pull-ups and swings felt particularly good, while the squats felt a little weaker than usual. I had sharp pains in my right knee on sets 2 and 3. Overall a good day.
Thanks for your thoughts Big fan of EMOM stuff, I did it with sets of 10 for 20 minutes a couple of days before the 500 rep workout, and I could tell that eating into the rest time with any more reps would’ve made it a lot more hellish. I’ll see if I can come up with a way to make the weight a bit heavier, maybe swing the 40 and 24 at the same time. I’ll set myself some more lofty goals for higher reps too, see what happens.
Always enjoy the consistency in here, props for dropping weight and actually keeping it off! Not bad chin ups for a heavier guy either - have you noticed those getting easier as you drop weight?
Bird, I gave the 10,000 swing challenge a go and really enjoyed it, but I don’t think I actually ended up hitting the total 10,000 in the end. I was treating it as a way to get better conditioned for sport and lose some weight, and after a few weeks I’d more than halved my time to around the 20 minute mark and wasn’t progressing any further so I moved onto the next horrendously tiring thing - I always viewed conditioning as being more valuable if you genuinely struggled to get through it.
[quote]furo wrote:
Thanks bird! I’ve actually done the 10,000 swing programme. I did the full version 18 months ago and since then I’ve done 2 modified versions. I really like it overall, although I prefer to swing heavier!
[/quote]
Sorry that I missed that. I have a bad memory.
Did you enjoy the 10,000 program? Did you do anything else to supplement it with? What were your main lifts that you used? Any tips/advice before I attempt it? Im thinking of using the recommended 24 kg kettlebell, do you think that is heavy enough? Maybe change to a heavier bell half way through the program?
[quote]MaazerSmiit wrote:
Bird, I gave the 10,000 swing challenge a go and really enjoyed it, but I don’t think I actually ended up hitting the total 10,000 in the end. I was treating it as a way to get better conditioned for sport and lose some weight, and after a few weeks I’d more than halved my time to around the 20 minute mark and wasn’t progressing any further so I moved onto the next horrendously tiring thing - I always viewed conditioning as being more valuable if you genuinely struggled to get through it.[/quote]
So you did 2 weeks, and then stopped progressing?
I took my time from something like 50 minutes to around 20, and although my time was still getting faster by a few seconds each workout, it was nothing like the progress I had been seeing in the first couple of weeks (losing several minutes each new workout). Since I kept my intensity/effort the same throughout the process, and my time halved, I viewed that as essentially me doing half as much cardio work as I had been doing before, so I started doing a load of different conditioning work and also moved back to moving heavy barbells.
Regarding the actual program, I’m like Activities Guy and Furo in that I feel like the 24 is too light for me now (if I remember right it’s the one he recommends you use though right?). I like it for snatches and strict presses and warming up, and if I ever want to hit a set into the hundreds it’s definitely useful for that. It was definitely enough for the start of the program though. Switching to a heavier kb halfway through the program could be a good idea - at the end of the day you’re just changing a variable and continuing to try to progress. You could feasibly do more than the requisite 500 reps per workout as well. I don’t know, your experience will probably differ from mine since you actually play a sport which requires good conditioning, and I just make feeble attempts to maintain a base level of fitness to allow me to play a game of rugby once in a while.
[quote]MaazerSmiit wrote:
Thanks for your thoughts Big fan of EMOM stuff, I did it with sets of 10 for 20 minutes a couple of days before the 500 rep workout, and I could tell that eating into the rest time with any more reps would’ve made it a lot more hellish. I’ll see if I can come up with a way to make the weight a bit heavier, maybe swing the 40 and 24 at the same time. I’ll set myself some more lofty goals for higher reps too, see what happens.
Always enjoy the consistency in here, props for dropping weight and actually keeping it off! Not bad chin ups for a heavier guy either - have you noticed those getting easier as you drop weight?
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No worries, glad I can help! One option to make the weight heavier would be to do one-arm swings, although there is a bit of a learning curve on them. You’ll find that they hit your grip, core and lower back a lot harder, although there isn’t as much of a difference with the glutes/hamstrings as they are working bilaterally (although they do have to work a little harder to keep things balanced).
Thanks a lot man. Probably the most boring log on T-Nation haha, but it seems to be working. I don’t think there has been a huge difference in chin-ups since losing weight. Certainly no difference in max strength, but I can think I can squeeze out a couple of extra reps of bodyweight.
Regarding the 10,000 swing routine Bird, I think overall it’s a really good choice. It works well for conditioning and fat loss, and it helps reinforce swing technique. And it’s just a 4-5 week programme so even if you don’t like it, it doesn’t last long!
In general I think a 24kg kettlebell is too light to see the main benefits of swings, but in this particular programme it would work well. The sheer volume of swings makes heavier kettlebells too taxing on grip for you to be able to really push your conditioning. There’s no use having your heart and lungs ready for another set while you can barely make a fist! I think that using a heavier kettlebell in the 10,000 swing programme would work well, but only once you have really conditioned your forearms to it, and I’d recommend doing the full 4-5 weeks with the 24kg.
The first time I did the full programme I did weighted ring dips, weighted pull-ups and pistol squats as my strength movements. I think these were good choices but I approached them the wrong way. Instead of working on progressing by reducing my time, I focussed too much on adding weight to the strength exercises. This meant that by the end of the programme I hadn’t knocked much time off, and I hadn’t gotten much leaner - which was the whole point.
I can’t remember what I did the second time but it didn’t last long and I gave up pretty quickly. The most recent time, which was only a month or two ago, I used the 10,000 swing template on my lower body days with double kettlebell front squats as my strength movement. My upper body sessions were completely separate. I think doing it that way worked quite well, but it obviously didn’t have the same impact as doing every session that way and so it wasn’t as transformative as it could have been.
Overall I think it’s a good choice of routine, especially if you are relatively new to swings as it will really ingrain the technique. My main advice would be:
Use pull-ups; dips/bench press; squats/lunges as your strength movements
Use a weight that is challenging for your strength movements (I think 5-8RM is probably good), but crucially do not focus overly on improving this
Instead, focus on progressing by sharpening your technique and decreasing your total time
Ideally you want to complete the programme with a marginal improvement on your strength lifts, a much more solid and explosive swing technique and a much quicker time. I have to say that I am by no means an expert though and I will definitely revisit this routine at some point and try to take some of my own advice! Hope that helps
Warm-Up [/b]
Front raises and machine chest presses
Neutral Grip Pull-Ups
BW: 10-8-6
Dips
BW: 5-10-15
Stationary Bike
High resistance: 5 min
Bodyweight: 95.1kg
This session was an absolute grindfest, but I’m really happy I got all of the reps in. Apart from the first set of 5 dips, all sets were a huge struggle. I’m really not too bothered about this however, as I’ve just had some time off and I still managed to get all of the work done.
Tomorrow I think I’m going to splash out and get some supplements (although for convenience reasons these will have to be inferior non-Biotest products lol). I’m thinking of getting some pre-workout and protein bars. It’s been years since I used supplements with any sort of consistency and so it will be interesting to see if they have any effect.
Just in case you’re interested in looking over it Bird I did my most recent lower body swing stuff in this log between week 3 (page 1) and week 9 (page 3). I used it for almost all of my lower body sessions, but sometimes I just did straight sets. The time I did the full 10,000 swings starts on page 15 of my previous log (Furo’s Kettlebell Log). Doesn’t make for very interesting reading, but it might be useful!
[quote]furo wrote:
Just in case you’re interested in looking over it Bird I did my most recent lower body swing stuff in this log between week 3 (page 1) and week 9 (page 3). I used it for almost all of my lower body sessions, but sometimes I just did straight sets. The time I did the full 10,000 swings starts on page 15 of my previous log (Furo’s Kettlebell Log). Doesn’t make for very interesting reading, but it might be useful!
