I did the 10K Swing Challenge in 12 days last fall (starts here and ends here) and then did 25K swings over the first 50 days of 2023 (some details available here), both with a 28 kg bell, and I found chasing the Time Dragon to be motivating in both undertakings: How quickly could I get to 500 swings?
I never did get 500 unbroken, though—maybe that’s a challenge worth your effort?
How goes the experiment? You definitely re-lit the Dan John fire in me.
Going well, just had a busy last half of the week
Starting week 2 tonight, and I got my 50lb kettlebell in, which feels significantly heavier than the 35 just holding it in my hands so I hope it provides a bit of a bump up in effort and cardio effect
Heres some bullet points from the first week:
24 minutes or so give or take was about where my last 3 sessions ended up. I didnt bother chasing it lower because its mostly “rate limited” by the amount of swings, I wasnt really resting much so it wasnt a matter of shaving off more time from there, thats just how long the swings and exercises take really.
I did do the optional 5th day of just swings, got it done in about 14:30 in sets of 200,100,100,100. Mostly just to reset the grip and wipe my hands off and honestly relieve a bit of the boredom… The movement is fairly low effort, brainless, and monotonous so its really about as fun as counting to 200 sounds.
I switched the swing sets to counts of 15,20,25,40… 10 just feels like nothing and 50 was a bit too boring. Not much more too it than that.
I do think I stumbled upon a good way to help with the counting, which is to break the number up into a 2-count starting between the legs (after you get out of the single digits any way). So instead of 21…and…22…and… 23…and…24… its 20…1…20…2…20…3
Excited to start my second week with the actual weight recommended, I miiiiiight do something with the 500 swing day like one arm snatches or something just to kill some of the boredom, we will see how it goes.
V-diet progress - down 3 pounds and a half inch off the love handles.
Still have to read the books! Thanks again, just had too many days of work in a row (14 hours door to door) to get to them
What were your goals and what did you accomplish or notice about your fitness/physique in that time?
Allllright week 2 is under way with the 50lb bell
Did the workout in 26:55 which is a tad up from last weeks average time, but a new best for the 50lb bell (I always seem to set a new best the first time I try something)
The new bell didnt add a drastic amount of “effort” to the workout I would say, it was still easy-ish but boy howdy did it work my forearms like a son of a gun. They were burning by the end of the final swing sets and on the final-final set they were on fire towards the end. Definitely a nice upgrade from the 35lb one last week, which was unnoticeable from a grip perspective.
Im off for a few days so I might do a few brief pop ins but I generally like to group my log entry into notable throughts so we will see how it goes, see you all for the next one!
I am SUCH a fan of this, oh my goodness. Pairing 10k swing with the Velocity diet is something that made SO much sense to me. Glad you got the books: REALLY hope you enjoy them. I’m envious of you for being able to read them for the first time. That’s a magical experience.
I started reading them today! Starting with Easy Strength omniBook.
You might be aware of the Reddit protests happening all over the site so I’m staying off it for a few days, reading Dan John books seems like a much better use of my time anyway
Week 2 Day 2…
Its amazing how fast the body adapts to certain things… The forearm burn and fatigue was basically entirely gone today, after just one exposure.
I also use a 60lb weight vest for the walk I do after and the first day I wore it was brutal… traps and lower back were absolutely on fire when I got home after just 10 minutes, now the 15 minutes I do with is basically a walk in the park.
Weight is weird, but Ive dieted enough to know not to put too much stock in any number on any particular day. Started at 190, was 187 yesterday and am 188 this morning. Insert Shrug Emoji here
I had no real goal going in, to be honest. I’m hooked on 5/3/1, and I had a weird 12-day period between the end of one 5/3/1 cycle and a family vacation, so I decided to take a break from the barbell during that time. @T3hPwnisher had recently completed the 10K challenge in 7 days, so I figured I’d see what I could do in 12 days…
Originally I just planned to run the challenge as written, but only run it for 12 days—getting something like 6K swings plus the lifting that goes along with them. But I quickly realized that I could handle rounds of 600 swings, 2x daily, so I just went for it. Ended up with 14K swings and the lifts over 24 sessions distributed more or less uniformly over the 12 days.
Grip started out as the challenge, but as you’ve already discovered, that goes away quickly. From there, it was just a matter of bringing down the rest periods and settling into the right weights for the lifts—they needed to be a challenge, but for me, they weren’t the focus. I was taking a “break” from the barbell, after all.
My appetite was steady but not outrageous, even with 2x daily sessions. Physique-wise, I noticed myself getting leaner without really trying hard (which was a problem for me in the past), and I finally settled into a 16/8 IF eating pattern, and that worked well for the duration.
I didn’t capture “before” shots because I wasn’t really expecting a big change, but here’s me early on the morning of the “thirteenth” day:
and flexed, under anabolic lighting:
Best I can do for reference is my “before” and “after” shots for the 2023 T-ransformation Challenge:
where the top row is 01 January 2023 and the bottom row is 29 May 2023. I think I’m bigger in both of the 2023 shots, and I’m leaner at the end of the T-ransformation than I was at the beginning, but I don’t think I look as lean now as I did after 14K swings in 12 days.
Anyway, that’s probably way more information than you really wanted, so I’ll stop clogging up your thread now—but I am absolutely pumped to see where these Dan John Experiments take you!
My avatar was taken under a famously anabolic light fixture at MetroFlex Long beach, so im very familiar with how important those are!
The swings are quite easy, I could very easily handle 500 twice a day if time and my family life allowed (I suppose I could tell them to hit the bricks for 20 minutes in the morning, but it feels very selfish), and as Im discovering now the biggest obstacle to doing them is simply overcoming boredom haha. I am trying some techniques to combat that a bit but it really is as exciting as counting to 50 is (or 100 or 200) when doing the swings
Pics are good man, I’ll have a set of my own towards the end of the challenge to throw up, thanks for sharing yours.
Week 2 is in the books! Seems like i barely started this log and here we are already half way through the first block
Man that 50lb bell is really something on the grip, doing the sets of 100 for the 500 swing day was quite the effort on my grip by the end. I had planned to go for longer sets by by rep 100 my forearms were on fire, and that only got worse with each set. Otherwise though the whole effort of the workout is a bit mild still, 10 minutes on the assault bike is much more of an ass kicker if thats what I was after, but this has other benefits too I feel.
Weight is down from 190 to 186 in 2 weeks, and a full inch off the waist so im pretty happy with that progress. This 4 week blitz should prove to be worth while I think.
Actually had a decent-ish cheat meal tonight for pre-fathers day (I work all day tomorrow so thats off the menu), but it was just half a mexican dish split with my wife and some little treats after, 2 weeks into a super low cal diet. I have had great, great success with the Feast-to-fast kind of method before so I look forward to seeing what the numbers are in a day or two
Starting week 3 with a new twist
In week 1 I did the written reps of 10-15-25-50, which was fine but the sets of 50 were a combination of boring and hard to keep track of counting wise
Week 2 I changed it to 15-20-25-40, which was a bit better all around I would say
This week I’m doing sets of 25(3 reps of the daily exercise),25(2 reps), 25 (1rep), then 50 and back to 3 reps. So I dropped the rest after the last set of 25 because it’s just not necessary as the swings have proven to just not be that taxing on my cardio
I shaved another 4 minutes off my time, down to just 20:30 for day 1 which at this point is basically as fast as it goes I think. I wasn’t really resting except to sip a drink but otherwise it was just straight through back and forth.
Diet update: down 5 lbs and a full inch off the waist now, but I had some reaaaaaal deep fatigue these last two days (like literally falling asleep sitting up playing with my kid) so I ate a little extra fatty snack with my shakes today to maybe get some extra ketones and calories in, feeling better this evening so far. Although I did put in 50 hours at my ER job in 4 days so maybe that contributed too
I’ll probably throw in a cheat meal this Saturday heading into my work week starting, went well last week. Even though it’s a 28 day diet I’m doing it with the kettlebell swing challenge which I think will go a tad longer due to the work days I’m doing it around. Looking like I can hit a solid 8-10 pounds when all is said and done, a very solid “summer reset” if I can pull it off
@T3hPwnisher i am reading through easy strength omniBook and am reminded of why I both enjoy his writing but always tended to avoid his programs
I think my brain has a tendency to want to add, and He has a tendency to simplify and remove. He has a 2 exercises 2 days a week program which just breaks my body builder brain into pieces haha. But I understand that program isn’t necessarily for me.
But when I read stuff like in my youth my eyes would glaze over, time will tell if I’m a wiser man now.
As Dan John would say the goal is to keep the goal the goal, so on with the plan I go.
As for easy strength next month, he says several times if he could go back and rewrite it he might just use 3x3 for the whole thing… so I wonder if that’s the smart money or if I stick with the OG rep rotations. Any ideas ?
I think, for me, I’m gonna stick with 3x3 for the most part and play it by ear on the days when I’m feeling good or bad.
And remember; Easy Strength is just that: Easy STRENGTH. It’s the strength work of a program, but you can (and certainly SHOULD) do more AFTER that workout. Use Easy Strength to develop your strength, and then get in a walk, or conditioning, or bodybuilding work, or whatever else needs doing.
Agggh that’s where I always mess up and add too much I think. Maybe I’ll just throw in some body weight sets to failure or something. Or just some arms/delts/abs kind of shit to keep the recovery impact low.
Week 3 in the book
Not much new to report, weight loss has slowed (I had a couple teeny tiny dietary transgressions - ate some cheese off the top of a pizza and some edemame so nothing huge) but I’m down another half inch off the waist which is the big thing I measure really. Getting that from 37” to 35” in a month will be a great move
7,500 swings in the book. Sticking with my 25-25-25-50/set scheme as that has proven to be the most doable from a practical and non-boring standpoint.
I did switch the sets of 50 to one handed, and early on in the week that fried my lower back as it increases the ROM a bit. It was surprisingly easy from a grip standpoint.
I might throw in some lighter KB snatches for the 500 reps tonight
Okay 500 rep workout tonight… Did the following instead of just 500 swings
25 one armed snatches Right
25 one armed snatches Left
50 one arm KB swings alternating every 5 swings
50 KB swings
Did thats x 3 and added an extra 50 regular KB swings at the end… Very good combo for easing the boredom of counting to 500. Had to glove up for the snatches though cause wow that bell rotating really rubs the hands, and the clanging into my wrist probably proves my form needs some work
diet: Skipped my cheat meal this week because it just felt like the wrong timing… not really sure what that means but it just didnt feel “right”, scale didnt budge this week even if the tape measure did, so im gonna do 2 more velocity diet shake days and see what Tuesday brings, hopefully at least 1-2 pounds down on the scale and then I’ll feel like its ripe
Mini diet update: Cheat meal day finally got the scale moving again down 1lb to 184 and .25" off the waist 2 days later… The human body is insane I swear… Eat more, lost weight shrug
Dude, SAME experience. Like: exact same. Really wasn’t feeling the Rampage for 2 weeks, called it off: had some of the worst results during that time. Brought it back and hit an all time bodyweight low. It’s wild!
I’m about to embark on an experiment combining MMS and Easy Strength, so I’m even more excited about this log.
I’m so curious to follow that journey… part of this log for me is to avoid adding and adding to plans so I’m gonna just do Easy Strength and then MMS even if it looks like I could combine them no problem
Worst case scenario I have a light few months of training, best case I get results beyond my usual because I followed a trusted trainer.
