Kettlebell Training Thread

Training
81

[quote]furo wrote:
Thanks a lot jblues85! Those sound like great ideas, I particularly like the dice one! What do you think of keeping the 5x5 front squats and rows consistent but vary the clean and jerks with dice. Maybe one die for the weight and two dice for the time. I hadn’t thought of putting the kettlebells down mindset but that sounds like a very sensible idea.[/quote]

I would certainly keep the front squats and rows because that will help you get stronger and stay balanced. Also keep on with your ab work you have been doing since starting your 40 day program. The ability to not have to sit the bells down will come in time. I remember when I first starting doing snatches and after 5-10 reps with one hand I had to switch, do 5-10 more with the other hand and had to sit the bell down. Now I can get 35 on a decent day with each hand.

Snatches taught me a pretty hard lesson that this stuff takes time and practice (I hate the word practice just like Allen Iverson). Keep up the good work, hopefully a few months from now we both (including ActivitesGuy) can laugh about how we thought Long Cycle was so difficult!

82

With the same medium-light KB weight, do you think the swing would work more than a fast paced, but safe DL, or straight leg DL?

83

[quote]isis07734 wrote:
With the same medium-light KB weight, do you think the swing would work more than a fast paced, but safe DL, or straight leg DL?[/quote]

It all depends on your deadlift strength if you ask me. If you have a double bodyweight deadlift then swinging a 35-55 pound kettlebell for reps will help your posterior chain a little but it would be more of a conditioning workout than a strength movement. In terms of muscular development if you are wanting to build some decent hamstrings I would probably stick with Straight Leg Deadlifts or Romanian Deadlifts. Unless you are swinging a 65-105lb kettlebell (depending on your level) you may not see as much muscular gains but with what you have you can greatly increase your work capacity with high rep swings.

84

Furo,

If you want to improve your conditioning, try kettlebell complexes 3 days a week.

Do you have sets of lighter doubles like 20 kg?

You could do time sets

Double swing x 20 seconds
Double clean and jerk x 20 seconds
Double squat x 20 seconds
Double military press x 20
Double snatch x 20 seonds 100 seconds work, rest for 200 seconds. Do 3-5 rounds

Or if only a single, take a 24 or a 28. Set timer for 20 minutes. Do a set of jerks on each side for sets of 5, rest to the top of each minute.

Another great one would be with doubles
Long Cycle x 10
Squats x 10
Rows x 10

85

[quote]BCFlynn wrote:
Set timer for 20 minutes. Do a set of jerks on each side for sets of 5, rest to the top of each minute.
[/quote]

I’ve been doing something like this for a lot of my workouts. Really enjoying it.

86

[quote]isis07734 wrote:
With the same medium-light KB weight, do you think the swing would work more than a fast paced, but safe DL, or straight leg DL?[/quote]

This is a interesting question, but I suppose the answer depends on your goals.

For me, I view the KB swing as a conditioning movement. The Deadlift is a strength movement. Each has their advantages and their place in my training. I’ll use my workout last night to illustrate.

My top set on deads was 475x7. When I was done with that I was drenched in sweat, seeing stars and sucking gas for a good minute. My goal with those was to equal or better past efforts at that weight, which I did by doing one more rep than I did the last time I loaded the bar to that weight. Mission accomplished.

I did one set of 50 swings with a 50 lb kettlebell at the very end of my workout. I was already drenched in sweat and had put quite a bit of work in, so my goal with those was an explosive hip drive, an elevated heart rate and to do as many as I could in a set. Mission accomplished.

Kettlebells are great, but they are not a substitute for holding a very heavy weight in your hands and loading up your entire musculoskeletal system with hundreds of pounds. Even for a beginner, chances are you do not have access to a kettlebell that comes anywhere close to what you can deadlift. A 50lb kettlebell is as heavy as I can get my hands on, whereas I have all of the plates I will ever need for pushing my deadlift strength as high as it can go.

Your body will respond to those stimuli in a much different manner. There is no real substitute to loading up your spine with ridiculous amounts of weight. But that’s not what a KB swing does at all, so I don’t really see them as being at all comparable.

Now, I could probably load the bar to, say, 315 and bang out a ton of reps on a deadlift set and call it conditioning. For me that is a light weight and I could probably get 15 or so reps, maybe more (I’ve never tried). I also believe that such an approach would put me at an unreasonably elevated risk for injury, which is why I always stay away from high-rep deadlifts. 315 is still enough weight to damage my body if my form breaks down, which is almost a given on a high rep set.

Why bother with that, when I can just deadlift heavy and swing my kettlebell to get the heart pumping?

That’s my $0.02 on the matter, but my goals may differ from yours.

Edit: Having re-read your question, I think you are asking about swings and deadlifts with the same weight. My answer to that is swings, all day. Even if I had access to, say, a 135 pound kettlebell, I would get much more out of a set of swings at that weight than I would a set of deadlifts at that weight.

I deadlift 135 for 5 as a first warm-up set as I work up in weight. That’s it, a trivially light warm-up. It is far too light for any kind of deadlift work set. Swings with a 135lb kettlebell would be a much more challenging movement, no doubt about it.

87

^Excellent post.

twojar, if you have the disposable income (I suspect you do), I think you might enjoy a heavier kettlebell. At your strength level I’d go even past the 70 to something like an 88 pounder. I know that you use that 50 primarily as a conditioning tool, and even the 88 would probably be the same for you. There’s something extremely satisfying about swinging a heavier 'bell. I know that you can get your jollies in with monstrously heavy DL’s that I cannot even approach at this time, but I still think you’d enjoy having the option of an 80+ hell for heavy swings.

88

[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
^Excellent post.

twojar, if you have the disposable income (I suspect you do), I think you might enjoy a heavier kettlebell. At your strength level I’d go even past the 70 to something like an 88 pounder. I know that you use that 50 primarily as a conditioning tool, and even the 88 would probably be the same for you. There’s something extremely satisfying about swinging a heavier 'bell. I know that you can get your jollies in with monstrously heavy DL’s that I cannot even approach at this time, but I still think you’d enjoy having the option of an 80+ hell for heavy swings.[/quote]

The 88 is on my list of fitness stuff to buy this year. In order of importance, my list stands at…

Rehband Knee sleeves (buying tonight, assuming I remember to dig up the tape and measure my knees)

Inzer 13mm belt - Time to give belted training a try

Shoes that are not Vibrams - turns out these really suck for squats above 455

88 lb Kettlebell

Power cage for home if a good used bargain reveals itself to me.

89

FWIW, I think Contreras has an article on hear about “heavy ass kb swings,” which he suggests keeping to sets of 6 or something.

To add to the discussion a few posts up. The weight of the kb is actually more during something like the swing because of the centrifugal force, but I imagine that’s only towards the bottom.

Also, to magick from a couple posts back. They do have adapters to help convert a DB into more of a KB, if you want to try and get two instruments out of one, but I’m not sure how well they work for something like the snatch.

For you kb focused guys… what sort of development have you seen in strength/physique? It seems most folks use them as assistance for DL and Oly lifting, or as conditioning/metcon work. I think DJ talked about everyone’s strength increasing in the 10,000 swings article.

90

[quote]1 Man Island wrote:

For you kb focused guys… what sort of development have you seen in strength/physique? It seems most folks use them as assistance for DL and Oly lifting, or as conditioning/metcon work. I think DJ talked about everyone’s strength increasing in the 10,000 swings article.[/quote]

Just adding my experiences with kettlebell training.

I would consider myself a lifting novice, in the sense that I am not particularly strong, although I do feel I have the type of body that could potentially add muscle easily. My issue with weightlifting last few years is I have been unable to do dumbell/barbell moves without disturbing my left shoulder impingement and lower right back I have acquired from being a full time dentist spending all day in unbalanced positions.

I discovered the kettlebell about a year ago and I have really enjoyed it as I have been able to work around by chronic problems with minimal pain. At the moment I tend to work out 2-3 times a week. I tend to do some turkish get ups (5 reps each arm -I am up to 20kg now), and 1 handed swings with a 24kg for about 5 sets of 15-20 each arm. I finish my workout with some one handed farmers walks on a treadmill for 5 mins or so. Just by doing this I feel my physique has improved slightly, in particular my shoulders are slightly more broad. I also feel generally better about my body/health. Ideally I would love to do a wider variety of movements like presses, rows, pull ups, pushups for hypertrophy and strength but my shoulder isnt having it! Hopefully over time I can slowly improve my posture at work and try to undo the last 2-3 yrs of damage.

My gym only goes up to 24kg kettlebells, so once I master the 24kg get up, I will probably look to find a gym that holds heavier ones and essentially try and complete the S&S routine in full!

Something I have noticed as well is I am unable to do 2 handed swings without getting my usual one sided back pain, although with 1 handed swings at the same weight it’s virtually painless…perhaps something to do with my pelvic rotation from repeated twisting motions towards the right hand side while working.

A last note, has anyone done Dan John’s 10000 swing challenge with one handed swings?

91

[quote]twojarslave wrote:

[quote]isis07734 wrote:
With the same medium-light KB weight, do you think the swing would work more than a fast paced, but safe DL, or straight leg DL?[/quote]

Edit: Having re-read your question, I think you are asking about swings and deadlifts with the same weight. My answer to that is swings, all day. Even if I had access to, say, a 135 pound kettlebell, I would get much more out of a set of swings at that weight than I would a set of deadlifts at that weight.

I deadlift 135 for 5 as a first warm-up set as I work up in weight. That’s it, a trivially light warm-up. It is far too light for any kind of deadlift work set. Swings with a 135lb kettlebell would be a much more challenging movement, no doubt about it.
[/quote]

You got it, I should have written that question more clearly. Thanks!

92

1 Man Island:

It’s hard for me to give a really good answer because I don’t had a good straight up comparison of myself doing KB training vs how I progressed on heavy barbell lifting - I’m older, lighter, and have a generally different lifestyle now than I did when I was doing heavier barbell training.

I would say that barbell lifting is probably superior for raw strength development.

Physique development is very diet-dependent, but I also suspect it would be difficult to build a stage-caliber physique with kettlebell movements. This is not an indictment of KB’s, just an acknowledgement that they’re inherently more difficult to use for the type of isolation-style work required to build a good “detailed” physique. It’s like criticizing an apple for not being an orange. The KB is just a different thing altogether.

With that said: I do believe that most sub-elite level people could/can make good physique and strength progress with KB work alone, if their life makes that the most convenient option, or if that’s what they enjoy most. I’m taking some physique progress pics and posting them in my log (I’ll put up another one in the next week or so) and while I’m hardly a fitness model, I believe that I’m making some token improvements. I also note that my strength on KB movements has improved (I’ve gone from barely being able to press my 88 pounder once to doing six straight clean-and-presses while keeping BW steady at 210-211 pounds, and I can swing the 88 for a strong 25-30 reps now, whereas I could barely do 10 when I first got it). How that would carry over to barbell strength is difficult to say, but I believe that my “functional life strength” has significantly improved: stupid stuf like picking up someone’s suitcase or carrying heavy box to the car is a lot easier now.

Point is, it’s absolutely possible that barbells and DB’s are “better” than KB’s for strength and/or physique development, but if your life makes KB-at-home the most convenient or if that’s what you enjoy, you certainly CAN make progress - both physique and strength - with a kettlebell-centric program. I think the trick is you have to be willing to put in the work. If someone tries one workout with a kettlebell and does 10 sets of 10 swings with a 35 pounder and says they didn’t get anything out if it, well, they obviously should have done more reps or picked a heavier bell. KB work, programmed properly, should be able to make some pretty effective gains. Does that make sense?

93

Yeah, I understand there will never be a twins study w/ kbs vs bbs.

A lot of KBers get really gung ho about it and most of the improvements tend to be in terms of total reps or reps for time, with weight increases coming secondary… so it’s hard to gauge its efficacy. That, or they were training BB stuff the entire time, so maybe it had no effect aside from increased work capacity.

It makes sense in the context of life and what works for each individual, but it sounds like a less important tool for those w/ the means and goals suited for a more traditional route. I think pwnsher said is DL is driven by kb swings, so there’s 2 pts for the kb camp.

94

Miscellaneous discussion fodder:

I’m a big fan of what I’ll call “easy volume accumulation” techniques. What I mean by that is working relatively easy sets of an exercise in throughout a workout (i.e. how some people improve their pullup work capacity by doing random sets of pullups throughout their other workouts) if you need to build some volume or work capacity, so by the end of the workout you’ve accumulated a bunch of volume, but no single set feels terribly taxing until the end.

See my log for a few examples, but here’s one from today:

KB Snatch 20x26
Double-KB Front Squat 5x44’s
KB Snatch 20x35
Double-KB Front Squat 5x44’s
KB Snatch 20x44
Double-KB Front Squat 5x44’s
KB Snatch 10x53
Double-KB Front Squat 5x44’s
KB Snatch 10x53
Double-KB Front Squat 5x44’s
KB Snatch 10x53
Double-KB Front Squat 5x44’s
KB Snatch 10x53
Double-KB Front Squat 5x44’s
KB Snatch 10x53

The snatches are the real meat of this workout (my main goal was hitting several quality sets with the 53 pounder). But the double-KB front squats, though each set individually is quite easy, add up to another 30 front squats with dual 44-pounders. That’s not really heavy loading, it’s easy to recover from, but it seems to have a very beneficial effect on my leg development and work capacity.

I also like ladders (1 rep, 2 reps, 3 reps, etc) which serve as a nice natural warmup to get you primed for a couple of really challenging sets at the end.

95

New guy here.

Long cycle clean and jerk is a lot of conditioning and learning how to pace yourself. When I did my first kettlebell competition, I did double jerks with two 20kg kettlebells and pretty much blew my wad in the first few minutes. I managed to struggle through to total with 60 reps by the end, but it was rough. Once I started seeing the value of pacing yourself, I improved a lot.

My wife is a much bigger KB competitor than I am (she is using the 24kg for the one arm long cycle right now) but I still enjoy training with them from time to time.

There was a site called “KettlebellWOD” which had a good sport progression approach. You’d start at say a 60:120 ratio (60 sec work/120 sec rest) for a few sets then drop the rest by 30 sec each week until you were doing 60 sec of work with only 30 sec of rest in between. Then you’d bump up to 90:120 and repeat. It’s a nice long term approach, easy to fit in, and could be beneficial.

96

Grouch, great work on the clean and jerk for you and the bride.
Resting in the rack is so uncomfortable.

I found in one of our moving boxes Dave Whitley’s 101 Kettlebell Workouts. I still think you can download it for free. The 30 under 30 are fantastic, but the gem is the stacking workouts

Do five rounds of this, 30 seconds between sets, 90 seconds between rounds. I used a 55 lb.

Do for reps or 30 seconds

Swing x 10
Rest 30

Swing x 10
Goblet Squat x 5
Rest 30

Swing x 10
Goblet Squat x 5
Pushup x 15
Rest 30

Swing x 10
Goblet Squat x 5
Pushup x 15
Slingshot x 15 (passing bell around body)
Rest 30

Swing x 10
Goblet Squat x 5
Pushup x 15
Slingshot x 15
Clean and Press 5 L, 5 R

Pick lung off floor when finished

97

Just to update how things are going in the Kettlebell world for me…

Training was going very well up until a few weeks ago when I had a terrible sinus infection that put me on my butt for a whole week with no training. Did not want to eat and ended up losing 7 pounds and feeling like crap. Before then I hit the RKC 100 reps in 5 minutes with my 55# again after doing Power Cleans and Box Squats, actually got 103 reps. What made this better than the first time I accomplished this was I did not have to lay on the floor for 10 minutes afterwards!! I was also improving nicely with Long Cycle as far as technique was concerned. Since then most of my 5/3/1 lifts have been on a slight decline or stand still including my reps for time with kettlebells and also technique with jerks has sucked again as well. I will slowly but surely build back up as time moves along.

Resting in the rack position like you guys mentioned above is terrible. I have watched video after video of guys explaining it but cannot seem to find a decent spot for my elbows to rest. It’s something I have been trying to work on during workouts constantly especially if I’m going to give the sport a shot in the future. Pace is also another one of those monsters I’m trying to slay as well but I figure once I get my technique and resting position down then I will concentrate on pace a little more.

98

Another very simple workout that I have really, really enjoyed:

My new job requires getting into the office a bit early some days, and while I’m an OK morning person it’s hard for me to work out with a lot of intensity before 7 AM. I have done the following 15-minute workout which serves as a nice morning pick-me-up. It’s not too hard at the beginning and gives you a few sets to wake up before the real work starts.

Goblet Squat 10 x 26, 35, 44, 53, 88
Double-KB Front Squat and Press 3 x 44’s (Five sets)
KB Clean and Press 2 x 88 (Five sets)

One set per minute will get you a very nice, quick full-body workout in 15 minutes.

99

Where did every one go?

Here are two workouts that I’m doing. One with double 55’s the other with an 88.

Layered chains

3 rounds chain style using doubles
Front Squat x 5, See Saw Press x 5

3 rounds
Double Clean x 5 Front Squat x 5, See Saw Press x 5

3 rounds
Double Swing x 5 Double Clean x 5, Front Squat x 5, See Saw Press x 5

3 rounds
Double Swing x 5, Double Clean x 5, Front Squat x 5, See Saw Press x 5, Alternating Row x 5, Pushup on bells x 5

Trying to get used to using an 88
One arm row 3 x5, L, R
Racked Front squat 3 x 3, L, R Need to stay tight to keep bell in rack
Push Press 5 x 1L, 1R
Turkish Getup 5L, 5R
15 minutes of two hand swings, 15 reps per set

100

I started incorporating swings into my training and my mid & lower back are insanely sore after my first two sessions of swings. I mean to the point where it’s hard to get up, bend over, etc…

Is my form off or is this normal when you first start doing them with higher volume?