Kettlebell Training Thread

[jblues85]

With the discussion of the ROP program and the imbalances it causes it raises the same concerns I have with a setup I am contemplating starting next week with my 5/3/1 work making sure I hit the main KB movements twice a week:

Bench Press (5/3/1), Double KB Jerks -superset- Rows (5x10), curls - superset - triceps work (3x10)
Front Squats(5/3/1), Front Squats (5x5 FSL), 1 Arm Snatches - superset - Plank
Overhead Press(5/3/1), Clean & Jerks - superset - Chins (5x10/5), shoulder work (lateral raises / face pulls) (3x10)
Deadlift (5/3/1), Deadlift (5x5 FSL), Double Snatches - superset - Ab Wheel (5x10)

My concern is how my shoulders and possibly elbows will hold up with basically doing some type of overhead work every workout. To make sure I stay balanced I am planning on super-setting my KB work on upper body days with rows (bench day) and pull-ups (oh press day) and on lower body days will be some form of ab work. I have pretty much been running this for the past 4 weeks except doing jerks on bench press day. Any suggestions or some ideas you guys might have will be appreciated. My thought right now is run it for 3-6 weeks and see how I recover and how my body feels.

[booksbikesbeer]

Hi jblues,

Written out, it does look like a lot on the shoulders and elbows. But given that you’ve almost been doing this for a while, then it might turn out OK for you.

I’ve never done anything quite like your set up, but as I’ve mentioned, I use the ROP a lot. When I do it with a more challenging weight for me, I cannot pair it with weighted pullups. That’s too much for my elbows. In those sessions, I tend to do a lot more volume of bodyweight pullups (5 after each rung of the ladder, so often 100+ pullups in a workout) and that never bothers my elbows. In fact, it makes my shoulders in particular feel awesome.

I’m curious about a few things. How heavy are you going with the jerks? Are they more for technique and conditioning and assistance? Or are you jerking weights that are heavy enough you can’t strict press them? If it’s the former, you could find that you come through this with bulletproof shoulders and elbows. If it’s the latter, well, I don’t know. It might be too much, or not.

Either way, it looks like you’ve thought it through quite a bit. And I think your plan to give it 3 to 6 weeks and pay close attention to your body is the way to go. But be extra vigilant. Tweaked elbows suck, and they often take forever to heal.

[jblues85]

[quote]booksbikesbeer wrote:
Hi jblues,

Written out, it does look like a lot on the shoulders and elbows. But given that you’ve almost been doing this for a while, then it might turn out OK for you.

I’ve never done anything quite like your set up, but as I’ve mentioned, I use the ROP a lot. When I do it with a more challenging weight for me, I cannot pair it with weighted pullups. That’s too much for my elbows. In those sessions, I tend to do a lot more volume of bodyweight pullups (5 after each rung of the ladder, so often 100+ pullups in a workout) and that never bothers my elbows. In fact, it makes my shoulders in particular feel awesome.

I’m curious about a few things. How heavy are you going with the jerks? Are they more for technique and conditioning and assistance? Or are you jerking weights that are heavy enough you can’t strict press them? If it’s the former, you could find that you come through this with bulletproof shoulders and elbows. If it’s the latter, well, I don’t know. It might be too much, or not.

Either way, it looks like you’ve thought it through quite a bit. And I think your plan to give it 3 to 6 weeks and pay close attention to your body is the way to go. But be extra vigilant. Tweaked elbows suck, and they often take forever to heal.

[/quote]

My jerks will be done with 2-55# Kettlebells and I can strict press these with ease as well as an 80# that I have done strict pressing ladders with pull ups with before. I mainly use kettlebell work for conditioning but have been contemplating a competition if one comes to the southeast region like it did last year. Right now I’m not training for any competition but I am slowly laying the grounds to move to that type of training if I have the opportunity. I figure if I keep getting stronger using barbells and getting better conditioned with kettlebells it shouldn’t be as difficult of a transition to sport training. The only thing that I see that I will have to REALLY improve on is conditioning and grip. Not sitting the kettlebell down and only 1 hand change is pretty daunting during snatches but is something I know I can eventually manage if and when the time comes and I get my training dialed in properly.

[booksbikesbeer]

[quote]jblues85 wrote:

[quote]booksbikesbeer wrote:
Hi jblues,

Written out, it does look like a lot on the shoulders and elbows. But given that you’ve almost been doing this for a while, then it might turn out OK for you.

I’ve never done anything quite like your set up, but as I’ve mentioned, I use the ROP a lot. When I do it with a more challenging weight for me, I cannot pair it with weighted pullups. That’s too much for my elbows. In those sessions, I tend to do a lot more volume of bodyweight pullups (5 after each rung of the ladder, so often 100+ pullups in a workout) and that never bothers my elbows. In fact, it makes my shoulders in particular feel awesome.

I’m curious about a few things. How heavy are you going with the jerks? Are they more for technique and conditioning and assistance? Or are you jerking weights that are heavy enough you can’t strict press them? If it’s the former, you could find that you come through this with bulletproof shoulders and elbows. If it’s the latter, well, I don’t know. It might be too much, or not.

Either way, it looks like you’ve thought it through quite a bit. And I think your plan to give it 3 to 6 weeks and pay close attention to your body is the way to go. But be extra vigilant. Tweaked elbows suck, and they often take forever to heal.

[/quote]

My jerks will be done with 2-55# Kettlebells and I can strict press these with ease as well as an 80# that I have done strict pressing ladders with pull ups with before. I mainly use kettlebell work for conditioning but have been contemplating a competition if one comes to the southeast region like it did last year. Right now I’m not training for any competition but I am slowly laying the grounds to move to that type of training if I have the opportunity. I figure if I keep getting stronger using barbells and getting better conditioned with kettlebells it shouldn’t be as difficult of a transition to sport training. The only thing that I see that I will have to REALLY improve on is conditioning and grip. Not sitting the kettlebell down and only 1 hand change is pretty daunting during snatches but is something I know I can eventually manage if and when the time comes and I get my training dialed in properly.
[/quote]

Very cool. I think using the 531 for foundational strength and doing some jerks to practice for a possible competition sounds pretty good.

I just had one thought, though. And I don’t want to change your workout, but the few logs/workouts I’ve seen from guys doing kettlebell sport have a lot of timed sets. Have you considered doing your double jerks for time (maybe 4 to 8 minutes) and shooting for a specific pace (something like 5 reps per minute and going up from there)? I think those kind of sessions become the bread and butter of sport training, and doing even just one a week could give you an even smoother transition. Cuz like you said, not putting those bells down is a whole new ballgame.

Like I said, just an idea. I’d be curious to hear from those who’ve actually done some kettlebell sport training. I really like the mix of your training. Sounds fun and very well rounded.

[furo]

magick: I think the main advantage the kettlebell has over the dumbbell is in hinge movements. There isn’t a huge difference between KBs and DBs when pressing or rowing and the difference is only slight with goblet squats, but cleans, swings and snatches are completely different in my opinion. DB snatches are a much more vertical movement, if that makes sense, whereas in KB snatches the movement is more of an arc. Instead of projecting the weight straight up, you arc it round and then channel it up. I’m not explaining this well. But basically the KB versions work your hamstrings a lot harder and also are a lot more amenable for high rep sets. A huge advantage for KBs, both in terms of fat loss and building strength in grip and upper back, is using pretty heavy weight for pretty high reps (e.g. swinging the 40kg for 20 reps, or the 28kg for 50 reps) which you can’t really do with the DB in the same way (it is much more stop-start with the DB, and the technique is a little less natural in my experience). So in my opinion the KB is a much more versatile tool than the DB, as it can hit all of the main movements in various rep ranges.

JoinInTheChant: Thanks for detailing your training history, it’s very useful. I’d also be interested to hear how you are training these days?

Gorilla: That looks like a great finisher, I’ll have to try that.

[JoinInTheChant]

[quote]booksbikesbeer wrote:

[quote]JoinInTheChant wrote:
snip[/quote]

Thanks for the reply. And that does make a lot of sense. I think most kettlebell programs (and ROP especially) overdevelop the press and hinge/deadlift. So it makes sense those would be your strongest lifts.

And the same is true for me. I guess the main difference would be I don’t have aspirations towards benching and squatting. With the former, I workout at home and don’t have a bench, so I don’t do it. With the latter, things are similar (no squat rack), so when I do squat it’s zercher style or front squat and generally for more reps and less weight. There won’t be any powerlifting in my future.

I totally agree with you on the pressing volume with ROP. I don’t think it is sustainable and can probably lead to some problems. I tend to stay on it for 2 to 5 months and then move to other things.

What do your workouts look like now? How do you (if you do) incorporate the bells?
[/quote]

Rotating off the ROP every few months like you’re doing is something I should have done. I tried “Return of the Kettlebell” and had to stop, I was trying to use 2x28kg, which was too much, and I didn’t want to buy more bells. I’ve trained “press the bell whenever I walk past it” and “press it a few times every morning” with the 32kg, “tests” with the 40kg indicated that both built my pressing strength, but there are probably better ways to progress.

I tried S&S, but didn’t appreciate laying on the ground every morning for TGUs…so I did it like this:

10 swings, clean, press, windmill, figure-8 to switch hands, repeat until 5 presses/50 swings per side, never drop the bell.

I used the 32kg, sometimes the 24kg, and I tried the 40kg once…but realized I had made an error when I started into the windmill. I viewed this more as “working out” than “training” if that makes any sense, because I didn’t really progress other than doing it more often with the 32 instead of the 24.

[quote]furo wrote:
JoinInTheChant: Thanks for detailing your training history, it’s very useful. I’d also be interested to hear how you are training these days?
[/quote]

HPMass from the Indigo Project works as advertised. I3G, Plazma, and MAG-10 are amazing, if I had to choose between training less often with good peri, and training more often without, I would choose the former. I’ve also used Plazma or MAG-10 in place of solid food to fuel manual labor, I even tried a mini Plazma V-diet when I had two weeks of nothing but labor and sleep, which shredded me right up.

I’ve tried to roll my own programs a few times with limited success (see my posting history, they sounded good in my head, constructive criticism from the forums showed me that they were pretty bad). I just spent the last week testing myself on various exercises, trying to figure out what’s the most joint-friendly and good training maxes.

I get joint problems very easily, and I have a history of head injury that I think puts a limit on my ability to recover neurologically from training (after I did HPMass, I tried CT’s layer system…a “neurologically demanding” deadlift workout basically knocked me out for weeks, and I got busy with other stuff and avoided the gym)

Thanks to this thread, I’m going to start the Pavel and Dan John 40 day workout tomorrow. I’m going to try the RTS “RPE Chart” deailed here: How to Modulate Intensity to “autoregulate” my loads on the 2x5s, which should be an interesting exercise at least. I have two variants, and I haven’t decided which one I’ll do, probably one then the other:

DB Bench (probably on a Swiss ball), Chest supported Row, landmine twists (obliques), reverse hyper, and for the whole body explosive movement…Belt squat for high reps plus one long set to failure with the battle ropes (whole body in two motions, zero spinal loading)

(assisted) Pullup, (assisted) Dip, Hanging Leg raise, long cycle clean and jerk (start at a weight I can do for 20, build to 50, raise weight, repeat), reverse hyper (done the LCCJ loads the spine).

I’m switching deadlifts for reverse hypers while I have access to the machine, I’ll test my deadlift at the end of both of these and see if there was carryover. I’ve also never gotten above three pullups or had access to an assisted pullup/dip machine, so I’d like to see if I can get better at those exercises

[magick]

[quote]furo wrote:
magick: I think the main advantage the kettlebell has over the dumbbell is in hinge movements. There isn’t a huge difference between KBs and DBs when pressing or rowing and the difference is only slight with goblet squats, but cleans, swings and snatches are completely different in my opinion. DB snatches are a much more vertical movement, if that makes sense, whereas in KB snatches the movement is more of an arc. Instead of projecting the weight straight up, you arc it round and then channel it up. I’m not explaining this well. But basically the KB versions work your hamstrings a lot harder and also are a lot more amenable for high rep sets. A huge advantage for KBs, both in terms of fat loss and building strength in grip and upper back, is using pretty heavy weight for pretty high reps (e.g. swinging the 40kg for 20 reps, or the 28kg for 50 reps) which you can’t really do with the DB in the same way (it is much more stop-start with the DB, and the technique is a little less natural in my experience). So in my opinion the KB is a much more versatile tool than the DB, as it can hit all of the main movements in various rep ranges.
[/quote]

Ya, that’s an interesting point.

When I do DB clean and press or snatches, the weight just travels straight up. I would imagine that’s not really possible with a KB though, since the weight isn’t balanced or distributed the same way as a DB.

And you certainly can’t do DB swings.

[BCFlynn]

When I did 5/3/1, I used kettlebells for my de-load week.

For both ROP and when I did Return of the Kettlebell, I found myself getting knicked up a little bit. I did ROP for 6 months and used a 70 for 12 weeks. Almost too much volume.

Simple and Sinister is a good finisher in my opinion. I can do it in about 12-13 minutes. I have never been a big advocate of the program minimum. Decent program but the way some of the toadies on other forums swear by it, is a bit much. I have my 12 year old doing it a couple of times a week. A good beginner plan.

My wife has been stuck in the house do to all the snow and can’t run. She’s been doing a kind of hybrid of the 10000 swing challenge
Swing x 30 with a 45 lb. bell
Press x 10 each side with a 15 lb. bell
Swing x 30
Row x 10 each side with a 25 lb. bell
Swing x 30
Reverse lunge 10 each side with a 25
Swing x 30
Goblet Squat x 10

Repeat 3 times.

[booksbikesbeer]

[quote]BCFlynn wrote:

Simple and Sinister [ . . . ]Decent program but the way some of the toadies on other forums swear by it, is a bit much. I have my 12 year old doing it a couple of times a week. A good beginner plan.

[/quote]

Lol. So true. I do enjoy the other forum, but at times it can to be a little too, I don’t know. By the book and sycophantic, I guess.

I do actually love that program, though. But I’m also a fan of minimalism in many things. Oh, and way less strong than you. I hope to do the ROP with the 70 some day (using the 28kg right now).

Looks like your wife is doing some pretty serious work. I bet she feels quite strong when she hits the roads in a few weeks.

[kaijugo]

Furo- Mainly bjj, I’m mma focused so a reasonable amount of wrestling thrown into the mix.

[jblues85]

[quote]booksbikesbeer wrote:

[quote]jblues85 wrote:

[quote]booksbikesbeer wrote:
Hi jblues,

Written out, it does look like a lot on the shoulders and elbows. But given that you’ve almost been doing this for a while, then it might turn out OK for you.

I’ve never done anything quite like your set up, but as I’ve mentioned, I use the ROP a lot. When I do it with a more challenging weight for me, I cannot pair it with weighted pullups. That’s too much for my elbows. In those sessions, I tend to do a lot more volume of bodyweight pullups (5 after each rung of the ladder, so often 100+ pullups in a workout) and that never bothers my elbows. In fact, it makes my shoulders in particular feel awesome.

I’m curious about a few things. How heavy are you going with the jerks? Are they more for technique and conditioning and assistance? Or are you jerking weights that are heavy enough you can’t strict press them? If it’s the former, you could find that you come through this with bulletproof shoulders and elbows. If it’s the latter, well, I don’t know. It might be too much, or not.

Either way, it looks like you’ve thought it through quite a bit. And I think your plan to give it 3 to 6 weeks and pay close attention to your body is the way to go. But be extra vigilant. Tweaked elbows suck, and they often take forever to heal.

[/quote]

My jerks will be done with 2-55# Kettlebells and I can strict press these with ease as well as an 80# that I have done strict pressing ladders with pull ups with before. I mainly use kettlebell work for conditioning but have been contemplating a competition if one comes to the southeast region like it did last year. Right now I’m not training for any competition but I am slowly laying the grounds to move to that type of training if I have the opportunity. I figure if I keep getting stronger using barbells and getting better conditioned with kettlebells it shouldn’t be as difficult of a transition to sport training. The only thing that I see that I will have to REALLY improve on is conditioning and grip. Not sitting the kettlebell down and only 1 hand change is pretty daunting during snatches but is something I know I can eventually manage if and when the time comes and I get my training dialed in properly.
[/quote]

Very cool. I think using the 531 for foundational strength and doing some jerks to practice for a possible competition sounds pretty good.

I just had one thought, though. And I don’t want to change your workout, but the few logs/workouts I’ve seen from guys doing kettlebell sport have a lot of timed sets. Have you considered doing your double jerks for time (maybe 4 to 8 minutes) and shooting for a specific pace (something like 5 reps per minute and going up from there)? I think those kind of sessions become the bread and butter of sport training, and doing even just one a week could give you an even smoother transition. Cuz like you said, not putting those bells down is a whole new ballgame.

Like I said, just an idea. I’d be curious to hear from those who’ve actually done some kettlebell sport training. I really like the mix of your training. Sounds fun and very well rounded.
[/quote]

Thanks. I will do timed sets later down the road once I feel like my Double Jerk and Long Cycle technique is a little better. My plan for that though is to move to a 2 day a week 5/3/1 setup and have kettlebells on their own days so I can put maximal effort into them. Most likely my time will be dictated by the roll of a dice which worked really well for me when going for the 100 snatches in 5 minutes. Your idea about reps per minute is something I have read a lot about when it comes to sport training and makes a lot of sense when it comes to pacing yourself. It’s a little weird because I almost have to ignore most of what Pavel has mentioned in the books I have read because he is mostly about strength, power and staying really tight. The sport guys (at least what I’ve read) say you have to stay pretty loose and relaxed because if you stay tight and use maximal power the whole time you will tire yourself out after 3-5 minutes.

[jblues85]

Other good movements that I really enjoyed doing over the Summer when the weather was really nice was various weighted carries with my 55# and 80# Kettlebells. For example, I would do a waiters walk with my 55 and have my 80 in the rack position and walk about 100 yards, sit them down switch hands with each one and walk back the other way and that counted as 1 rep. Some days I would do all 5 sets that way our I would do 5 different carries. Here is a list of some of the carries and positions I would use:

55# Waiters Walk with 80# Rack
80# Waiters Walk with 55# Rack (shorter distance)
55# Rack with 80# Suitcase
55# & 80# Rack Position
55# & 80# Suitcase Carry

I would typically perform these movements after my timed sets of swings or snatches. Normally after my swings or snatches I would walk around for 3-5 minutes to catch my breath and let my hands rest for a while. Double 55# Waiters Walks seems pretty fun and will try this once the weather gets more reasonable in the Spring and Summer. Last year I got kind of lazy with these style of carries and training and just opted for 50-100 meter sprints and stair sprints instead of timed kettlebell sets and carries for conditioning. About that time is when I moved to a 3 day a week 5/3/1 Full Body template and sort of took a break from kettlebells for a few months.

[furo]

Lol about the other forum. I enjoy it too, but I agree that it gets too much lol.

That’s awesome that your 12 year old is doing program minimum BCFlynn, that must be an ideal starter routine :).

Kaijugo: That’s really cool, I’ve done a fair bit of MMA training myself (although never competed) and I can really see how the TGU would help. No other exercise works on moving on the ground in the same way, and that it is obviously really important to the sport lol. When I was doing it I was just doing barbell training and I always felt weak when grappling, I think the TGU would really change that.

Thanks for the info JoinInTheChant.

jblues: Weighted carries are something I really neglect myself, those look like really interesting movements. I’ve never done the waiter’s walk, I’ll have to try it.

[jblues85]

I came across the name Ivan Denisov and he is the kettlebell sport record holder in all 3 major kettlebell lifts. The dude is an absolute beast. They showed him deadlifting 600lbs after he set the record for Long Cycle in one of his competitions. For those of you who are interested in the sport check out some of his videos on YouTube. Obviously some of the videos are pretty long but for us kettlebell enthusiast on this thread we can definitely appreciate the technique, strength and conditioning it takes to pull off some of the stuff he has done. I just finished watching him (with a little fast forwarding) do 730 reps in 35 minutes with a 24kg bell. He did 425 reps with his right hand before switching to his left and then managed to crank out 305 with is left hand. Of course he is Russian!!!

[twojarslave]

[quote]jblues85 wrote:
I came across the name Ivan Denisov and he is the kettlebell sport record holder in all 3 major kettlebell lifts. The dude is an absolute beast. They showed him deadlifting 600lbs after he set the record for Long Cycle in one of his competitions. For those of you who are interested in the sport check out some of his videos on YouTube. Obviously some of the videos are pretty long but for us kettlebell enthusiast on this thread we can definitely appreciate the technique, strength and conditioning it takes to pull off some of the stuff he has done. I just finished watching him (with a little fast forwarding) do 730 reps in 35 minutes with a 24kg bell. He did 425 reps with his right hand before switching to his left and then managed to crank out 305 with is left hand. Of course he is Russian!!! [/quote]

Wait, so they make a 600 pound kettlebell? Or was that deadlift feat done with a plain old boring barbell loaded with 555 pounds of plates?

[booksbikesbeer]

Your plan sounds really good, jblues. And I totally know what you mean about Pavel’s stuff v. kettlebell sport stuff. The constant tension does not work at all. It always amazes me watching videos of sport competitors. It’s most evident when you see a 110# junior girl killing it with the 24kg bell. She’ll make it look like nothing.

And Denisov is in a category all his own. I saw his deadlift video a little while back. If I remember right, he had never trained deadlift, right? Crazy.

Of course, it was just with a plain old barbell and plates. Sorry twojarslave.

[jblues85]

[quote]twojarslave wrote:

[quote]jblues85 wrote:
I came across the name Ivan Denisov and he is the kettlebell sport record holder in all 3 major kettlebell lifts. The dude is an absolute beast. They showed him deadlifting 600lbs after he set the record for Long Cycle in one of his competitions. For those of you who are interested in the sport check out some of his videos on YouTube. Obviously some of the videos are pretty long but for us kettlebell enthusiast on this thread we can definitely appreciate the technique, strength and conditioning it takes to pull off some of the stuff he has done. I just finished watching him (with a little fast forwarding) do 730 reps in 35 minutes with a 24kg bell. He did 425 reps with his right hand before switching to his left and then managed to crank out 305 with is left hand. Of course he is Russian!!! [/quote]

Wait, so they make a 600 pound kettlebell? Or was that deadlift feat done with a plain old boring barbell loaded with 555 pounds of plates?
[/quote]

It was a plain old boring barbell and he made it look super easy. I would love to see exactly how big a 600 pound kettlebell would be. Granted I’m sure Ivan could probably swing it one handed for 1,000 reps if he wanted to!

[jblues85]

[quote]booksbikesbeer wrote:

And Denisov is in a category all his own. I saw his deadlift video a little while back. If I remember right, he had never trained deadlift, right? Crazy.
[/quote]

I remember them saying in the video he didn’t train deadlift which to a degree I find a little hard to believe but could very well be possible. I’m sure he is swinging bells that are way heavier than anything we could possibly imagine. He is also a freak of nature. After seeing his big freakin’ legs it makes me wonder if at least he is doing squats as an assistance exercise to his kettlebell work. Of course it could all relate back to the freak of nature part!

[BCFlynn]

Bump

But seriously guys, what is everyone working on?

I’m taking a strength focus right now. Debating joining a gym.

So 2 days into my version of the 40 days. Did it before and got good gains. Also greasing the groove with military press. Here’s what today looked like

10 sets of 1 Double Military Press, double 70’s on the hour
300 one hand swings, 70. 15 R, 15 L after each press

40 day workout routine
Double 70 Squat 2 x 5
Double 70 Row 2 x 5
Double 55 Military Press 2 x 5
Deadlift Double 88’s 2 x 10
Double 70 Swing Outside the Knees 1 x 21
TGU 70 5L 5R switching hands after each rep
Farmers Carries. 70’s 3 sets of 100 paces

[furo]

That looks awesome BCFlynn. I’ve just completed my second week of the 40-day routine. Obviously it is early days, but I’m loving it so far. All lifts feel a lot easier. I’m structuring it like this: 2x5 40kg goblet squat, 2x5 28kg press, 2x5 40kg row, 1x20 40kg swing, 1x5 ab rollouts. Just for the last 2 sessions I’ve been adding in 5min continuous snatches with the 10kg as a way of getting some cardio in and also to work up to trying out the 5min snatch test at some point. So it looks like our training is very similar!

In terms of my next move I’m considering getting a second 28kg and incorporating a lot of doubles stuff. Not completely sure though. I also really want to find a way to do pull-ups regularly as I don’t have anything set up at home.