Josh Hillis

Well known and long standing adages like “leave a couple reps in the bank” and “safety is part of performance” often, sadly, are put aside for fat loss circuits.

In this world of CrossFit, P90X, and super ultra-hardcore-bootcamps everywhere, it’s hard not to fall into the “more is better” trap that everyone is constantly pushing. As RKC’s we should be well aware that more isn’t better. It’s just more.

Fat loss clients come in with that perspective, and it’s our job to educate them. Often we’ll get a new client who will literally tell us “I want to sweat and puke and be sore.” Regardless of how stupid a goal this might sound to us, we’re best off giving them some of that, in the smartest way possible. We usually can give ’em what they think they want up front, then educate them over time.

In this article, we’re going to talk about what smart, RKC-style fat loss circuits could look like.

A Smarter AMRAP

CrossFit popularized the term AMRAP for “as many rounds as possible”, and I thank them for that.

Unfortunately, the concept of doing an AMRAP workout at 100% effort is a recipe for disaster. You can only push oxygen debt and muscle exhaustion for so long before exercise form goes out the window. So don’t do that.

Or as Yoda so famously said: “Stupidity leads to bad form. Bad form leads injury. And injury leads to the orthopedic surgeon.”

We’re going to slow our AMRAPs down – somewhere in the neighborhood of 80-90%, and err on the side of too little vs. too much.

We’ve all been fed a myth about intensity. And it feeds that thing inside us that always tells us we should be doing more. But it’s false. I experimented with my clients for two years during the writing of my first book, and found no difference in results between running clients at 80-90% intensity in workouts and running them at close to 100%.

So… 80-90% intensity… all of the benefits… none of the injuries… shouldn’t that be like, totally obvious, right?

The Josh Hills Fat Loss Circuit Progression: Not Just More Rounds

More rounds is also another stupid thing that most circuit based workouts do. Just more. More, more, more. More isn’t better. So very un-RKC.

I consider 5 rounds the magic number for any of these workouts. They may have to work up to being able to complete five rounds. That’s fine. But when they are getting up over 7 rounds, bump ’em up a level. That could be a harder bodyweight progression, a lower bench for pistols, a lighter band for pull-ups, or a heavier kettlebell.

But lets not turn this into a Group X class. Lets up the weight on our circuits instead of just cranking out a zillion rounds.

This is a super important point, and I’ve never seen anyone else in the entire fitness industry bring it up. There is a right amount of work to get done in a circuit, and you can have it happen like clockwork every single time. It’s right about 5 rounds. It’s heavy enough that they *have to* rest during the 20 minutes, but no so heavy that it looses it’s circuit-ness.

It also lets clients know that it’s *ok* to rest. Obviously if they could crank through the 20 minutes without any rest, they’d be doing 10+ rounds or so. It gives them a target, it lets them know how they are doing, and it lets them know when they can progress. These are all major points for having clients understand and be engaged in the workout program.

20 Minutes of Circuits, Then Do Strength

A 20 minute bout of circuits, at 80-90% intensity, should be enough high intensity stimulus for all of the fat loss results we want. And it should be enough to satisfy the clients who want to feel like they are getting throttled.

After that, we can move on to very well rested strength work. We put the circuits at the beginning (after a joint mobility warm up), because it’s hard enough to keep everything tight in a circuit anyway – we want them as fresh mentally and physically as possible, to do the circuit with the heaviest weights possible and the most perfect form.

We’ll put three movements in the circuit, and then we’ll do the fourth movement in the strength portion. For example, if we have a push, a pull, and a squat in the circuit, we’ll do a hip hinge in the strength part. If we have a push, a squat and a hip hinge in the circuit, we’ll do a pull for the strength part. That way, we’re always hitting all four basic movements, but we’re rotating through which ones we do in the circuit and which ones we do for strength.

If the client also needs FMS or any other corrective exercises, you can super-set the correctives with the strength work.

Workout A:

As many rounds in 20 minutes:

Assisted Pullups x 3
Kettlebell Push Presses x 10L+10R
Kettlebell Goblet Squats x 10
3 minutes rest, then
Single Leg Deadlifts 3 x 5L+5R
with 1-3 minutes rest between sets, then
Side plank 2 x 0:30L+0:30R
Plank 2 x 0:45

Workout B

As many rounds in 20 minutes:

Bear Crawl x 50 ft
Walking Lunges x 100 ft
Kettlebell Swings x 25
3 minutes rest, then
Assisted Pullups 3 x 5
with 1-3 minutes rest between sets, then
Side plank 2 x 0:30L+0:30R
Plank 2 x 0:45

Workout C

As many rounds in 20 minutes:

Convict Conditioning Style Pushup Progression x 10
Kettlebell Bent Over Rows x 10L+10R
Kettlebell Swings x 25
3 minutes rest, then
Bench Pistols or Split Squats 3 x 5L+5R
with 1-3 minutes rest between sets, then
Side plank 2 x 0:30L+0:30R
Plank 2 x 0:45

Food, Food, Food

Look, no fat loss article can ever be complete without mentioning that the food is going to be the number one driver of fat loss. Smart fat loss workouts complement a smart food program. That’s why it’s so totally stupid to kill people in the workouts or push the envelope to the point of injury – it just isn’t going to make a difference.

Be smart, check people’s food journals (both quality of food and quantity of food) and do intelligent circuits at 80-90% intensity, with smart progressions over time. Your clients will stay healthy, happy, and injury free, and most importantly – get all of the fat loss results that they hired you for.

***

About Josh Hillis: RKC, NASM-CPT/PES/CES, Z-MRS/MIS, www.21daykettlebell.com: Over the last 8 years as a personal trainer, Josh has worked with every kind of fat loss client, but he is a specialist in helping fit women lose the last 5-10 pounds of stubborn fat. He’s been quoted by The Los Angeles Times, The Denver Post, he’s been in USA Today, and was a featured expert for Experience Life! Magazine. Josh has written six books on fat loss and kettlebell training, created an audio program on fat loss nutrition for On Target Publications, and contributed a chapter “Fighter Workouts for Fat Loss” to The RKC Book of Strength and Conditioning for DragonDoor Publications. Josh holds beginner and advanced fat loss nutrition workshops on a monthly basis at several kettlebell gyms in Colorado. Josh is the creator and writer for www.LoseStubbornFat.com, which has over 32,000 subscribers in over 200 countries world-wide.

Breaking out of Standard RKC Sets and Reps for Fat Loss

The RKC is a school of strength – and the programs we most often use put us into sets and reps that maximize… wait for it… strength.

While the maxim that just getting stronger and eating right will get you an amazing body still holds true, there are times when you will want to put your fat loss goal front and center. And in those times, it’s worth some small sacrifices in potential strength gains in the quest for the body you want.

For the folks that feel like strength-is-awesome and fat-loss-is-stupid out there, keep in mind that many of your clients are coming for fat loss. Kettlebell and bodyweight workouts are awesome for fat loss, and we can optimize the process by putting fat loss first. And we can better serve our clients, by letting their goal be our goal, instead of pushing what we think is cool onto them.

Lets Take a Look at Popular RKC Strength Programs

Step Cycle: Ideal minimalist strength program

Work with a weight until it’s mastered, then move up to the next weight.
Works well with bodyweight skills.
Works well with a minimal number of kettlebells (and how most people started with RKC kettlebells back in the early 2000’s)
Efficiency is built in the 3-5 reps/3-5 sets range

Wave Cycle: Ideal for building strength in the long term

Weight is ramped up two steps up and one step back or three steps up and two steps back – repeated.
Standard barbell strength cycle
Efficiency is built in the 3-5 reps/3-5 sets range

Block Cycle: Ideal for staying efficient and strong at two different qualities of strength

Works well with kettlebells, barbells, bodyweight
Two week blocks, alternated often enough to stay efficient at both.
One of the two blocks builds efficiency in the 3-5 reps/3-5 sets range, and the other block builds some other quality (usually the other end of the spectrum 15-20 reps)

What all of these have in common is that they build and maintain efficiency and strength in the 3-5 rep, 3-5 sets range. As much as I love me some 3-5 rule workouts, fat loss goal folks don’t need to be all spendin’ their whole life there.

Break Out and Accelerate Fat Loss

For fat loss, we want to deliberately do workouts we aren’t efficient at, on a regular basis.

“Regular Basis” is an important distinction – we actually want to build strength and efficiency in a set/rep plan, and then change on a planned and regular interval. This is significantly more effective than doing workouts that are constantly varied or even totally random.

Randomness and “muscle confusion” are in vogue for fat loss, to the detriment of the fat loss industry. At best, constant variation is good marketing, at worst, it shows massive ignorance on the part of the trainer. In fact, every time I hear someone say “muscle confusion” or “I love my trainer ’cause we do totally different workouts all the time!” I want to smack the trainer all up-side the head. I love variety as much as the next guy, but sometimes I just want to be all like, “Y’all do results much?”

Intelligent fat loss should be built on a long term plan that includes building one quality in one set/rep range, and then changing to another quality in another set/rep range that you aren’t currently efficient at. While this is a slow boat to superhuman strength, it’s a speedboat to fat loss.

Set/Rep Ranges and Strength Qualities

1-5 reps: Low Rep/Heavy Weight – Strength
6-10 reps: Medium-Low Reps/Medium-Heavy Weight – Strength/Endurance
10-15 reps: Medium-High Reps/Medium-Light Weight – Endurance/Strength
15-20 reps: High Rep/Low Weight – Endurance

Again, we aren’t really interested in the athletic qualities we’re building, except that we need to consistently go from one end of the spectrum to the other.

It takes 4-6 weeks to build efficiency in a set/rep range. That means that – for fat loss – we want to switch the set/rep scheme every 4-6 weeks – No sooner, and no later.

And while it can be popular to change “everything” every 4-6 weeks, it’s unnecessary. You can keep the movements and the equipment exactly the same, and cycle just the sets/reps, and get all the fat loss results you want.

As a rule: Change the sets/reps for results. Change the equipment or the movements only when you get bored with them.

The Josh Hillis Four Month Fat Loss Cycle:

Here is what an effective cycle of fat loss set/rep programs looks like over four months:

Month 1: 3×15
Month 2: 5×5
Month 3: 2×20
Month 4: 4×8

It’s pretty sexy, isn’t it?

Fat loss workout programming really is just as simple as going from one end of the spectrum to the other, consistently.

In general, the number of sets is inversely proportional to the number of reps.

What an actual workout could look like:

Supersets:

A1: Convict Conditioning Pushup Progression 3×15
A2: Heavy Kettlebell Swings 3×15
B1: Convict Conditioning Pullup Regression 3×15
B2: Goblet Squat or Two Kettlebell Front Squat 3×15

With 1 min rest between each superset, and then 3 minutes rest between A and B.

Giant Sets

A1: Convict Conditioning Pullup Regression 3×15
A2: Goblet Squat or Two Kettlebell Front Squat 3×15
A3: Convict Conditioning Pushup Progression 3×15
A4: Heavy Kettlebell Swings 3×15
With 3-5 minutes rest between each giant set.

Timed Density Circuits

How many rounds in 20 minutes, rest often as needed to maintain perfect form:

A1: Kettlebell Bent Over Rows x15L+15R
A2: Convict Conditioning Pushup Progression x15
A3: Heavy Kettlebell Swings x15

Fat Loss, Your Workouts, and Your Food

I can’t help closing out a fat loss article without mentioning food. As always, your food is the foundation. Your scale weight is entirely going to be a function of your quantity of food. Your leanness, on the other hand, is going to be a function of your workouts and your quality of food.

Ultimately, with workouts, we are looking to effect your leanness at a given bodyweight. Use your workouts to change your shape, change your muscle to fat ratio, and add lean, firm, tight sexiness to your body.

With the four month set/rep workout cycle above, and the right food, you can have the lean sexy body you’ve always wanted.

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Josh Hillis: RKC, NASM-CPT/PES/CES, Z-MRS/MIS, www.21daykettlebell.com. Over the last 8 years as a personal trainer, Josh has worked with every kind of fat loss client, but he is a specialist in helping fit women lose the last 5-10 pounds of stubborn fat. He’s been quoted by The Los Angeles Times, The Denver Post, he’s been in USA Today, and was a featured expert for Experience Life! Magazine. Josh has written six books on fat loss and kettlebell training, created an audio program on fat loss nutrition for On Target Publications, and contributed a chapter “Fighter Workouts for Fat Loss” to The RKC Book of Strength and Conditioning for DragonDoor Publications. Josh holds beginner and advanced fat loss nutrition workshops on a monthly basis at several kettlebell gyms in Colorado. Josh is the creator and writer for www.LoseStubbornFat.com, which has over 32,000 subscribers in over 200 countries world-wide.

Josh Hillis

Smart Fat Loss Circuits

How To Accelerate Fat Loss by Breaking Out of Your Set/Rep Plan