Workout of the Week

Kettlebells and 007 (Part 2) Intensity? Or Insanity?

February 1, 2013 By Mike Krivka 4 Comments

Overview

The intensity of your workouts can do everything from defining your goals to defining your personality. Some workouts will be low intensity; kind of like a lazy afternoon on a river interspersed with shooting some class III rapids every once in a while. Other workouts are like a firefight; short, intense, gut-wrenching and leave you in a puddle of sweat (and other bodily fluids if you’re not careful). Low intensity workouts are usually associated with building absolute strength; think Dan John and Pavel’s Easy Strength protocols. High intensity workouts are currently associated with building cross-modality strength and endurance; think CrossFit. Does intensity correlate to certain personalities? Could be! Think of the strong, silent-type of strength athletes – definitely low intensity. How about the wild, spontaneous, Type-A athletes – definitely high intensity. I know these are both generalizations – but you get the idea!

Defining Intensity

When you discuss workout intensity you need to look at load and duration as well – because they are interrelated. Intensity can be looked at as how explosive a muscular contraction will be needed for a safe, efficient, and effective execution of a given technique. In other words, a kettlebell snatch is a lot more intense than a biceps curl. Intensity can also be perceived as dependent on the overall physical condition of an athlete. Doing a series of fifty yard sprints would be intense for a powerlifter but not so bad for a soccer player – and it could outright kill a sedentary IT tech! Think about this: as intensity increases so does the anaerobic capacity requirement. If you think running sprints and running a 10k are the same because they are both running, then think again. The anaerobic requirements of a sprinter and a long distance runner are completely different; but the sprinter will fare much better than the long distance runner when it comes down to survival-based anaerobic functions. Also, don’t forget that intensity needs to be determined by the individual and is highly variable depending upon age, weight, diet, recovery, experience, and the presence of illness or injury, etc.

mkrivka_blog2 — An example of a low-intensity workout

Load refers to how heavy the object is that you are moving. Once again, heavy is a relative concept. If you are swinging a 53 lb kettlebell and switch to a 110 lb kettlebell, you will immediately get a sense for what load does to intensity. A light load will allow you to move faster for longer, while a heavy load will only allow you to move “fast” for only a short period of time. Did you notice how I snuck the relationship between duration in? Yeah, they are mutually exclusive in that one is going to adversely affect the other. If you don’t have first-hand experience with this phenomenon trust me, you will very soon! All it will take is doing your snatch test with a heavier or lighter kettlebell than you are used to and you will have a graphic example of the effect of load on intensity.

Absolute vs. Strength Endurance

Which one are you? Are you focusing on your absolute strength or are you working on stretching your strength and endurance to new heights? Well, as athletes (and if you are using kettlebells you are most definitely an athlete) then you have to be able to work towards fulfilling both of these area of your training. The accumulation of absolute strength will give you the ability to do more work and make physical tasks easier to accomplish. Plumbing the depths of strength and endurance will temper your spirit and give you the tenacity to keep going when the going gets tough.

So, can you accomplish both? Yeah – by learning how to moderate or wave the intensity of your workouts. When working on absolute strength, think double body weight dead lift, you need to stay fresh and strong in between each set. That means low reps, heavy loads and lots of rest between sets. The intensity will be high because of the heavy loads but the duration will be short. You won’t exhaust yourself quickly and you’ll be able to make steady gains. When working on strength endurance, think RKC or USSS Snatch Test, you need to work as hard and as fast as you can to meet the time requirement for each test. The intensity will be high because of the time constraints but the load will be low in order to let you move fast and stay fast. This is when you are pushing the limits of your strength, physical and mental strength, by going fast (while maintaining technique and safety) but you’re done quickly – really done!

Programming Intensity

So can you make steady progress to meet your absolute strength goals and your strength endurance goals? Absolutely! With a little planning and a lot discipline you can make this work. It’s not “snake oil”- it’s all about planning your workouts and leaving the gym behind while you still have some reps left “in the bank”. Planning the workouts to alternate low intensity workouts and high intensity workouts might look something like this over the course of ten workouts:

The above training outline isn’t going to work for everyone. It’s really going to depend on your existing strength base and your ability to recover in between workouts. What it does show is that with a little planning and a basic understanding of how to manipulate intensity you can progressively move forward and gain strength and endurance without excluding one or the other from your training.

The long and short of it is you’re going to need to gauge the intensity of the workouts based on your own experience and the advice of your RKC or coach. Going too fast with a heavy load will “blue flame” you and going too slow with a light load will get you nowhere fast. You’ve got to find just the right mix of load, speed and intensity – and that balance has to include attention to form, execution and safety.

High intensity Video:

About Mike: Michael A. Krivka, Sr. is a Washington, DC native who has been involved in Kettlebell training for over a decade and is currently an RKC Team Leader and member of the RKC Board of Advisors under Dragon Door (where he has been listed as one of the top reviewed RKC’s in the world for the last five years). Mike has traveled extensively throughout the United States teaching Russian Kettlebells to military (USMC, USN, USA and USAF) and law enforcement personnel (FBI, DEA, USSS and CIA) as well hard-living civilians from Soccer Moms to CEOs. In addition to teaching workshops and clinics he logs several hundred hours a year teaching and training with Russian Kettlebells at his own gym and martial arts studio. He is also a Level I CrossFit Trainer, and Olympic Lifting Coach.

When he is not tossing Kettlebells around he is teaching and training in the martial arts, something he has done since he was thirteen years old. His martial arts training, sparked by a childhood fascination with Bruce Lee, spans early training in Tae Kwon Do, Judo, Wrestling, Western Fencing, Sambo, Ninjutsu, Muay Thai and Gung Fu and has culminated in being awarded a Full Instructor JKD Concepts (Jeet Kune Do – Bruce Lee’s base art) and the Filipino Martial Arts (Kali, Escrima, Arnis and Maphilindo Silat) under Guro Dan Inosanto. He continues to train in and explore other martial arts to continue to hone his technical and teaching skills.

How to be Zombie Fit—Not Zombie Fodder

January 23, 2013 By Andrew Read 5 Comments

Rule # 1 Cardio - Zombieland

The world isn’t black and white. It’s shades of grey. As kids we all see things very black and white – good and bad, yes or no, like or dislike. But as we age and gain some perspective we start to see things from multiple viewpoints and this empathy allows us to deal with the many compromises that are needed to successfully navigate all the various relationships we have from family to work.

But shades of grey don’t stick in your head like black and white messages do.

Squatting hurts your knees is a great example of a very black and white saying that has sadly stuck around for years beyond what should have been its use by date.

The one that ticks me off the most though is that cardio makes you weak. It’s funny; because when I was in the military we believed that cardio made you a more effective soldier. When I competed in martial arts tournaments almost qualifying for the Olympics we believed that cardio made you a better fighter too. But somehow people who stand still and only lift weights tried to get it in our heads that cardio is bad for you.

Recently I have been on a yearlong experiment to blend strength training with cardiovascular work. Initially this was a bit of a joke. You know, “the first rule of Zombieland is cardio” and all that. But as I started travelling down that path more and more I became more and more determined to prove the detractors wrong. Fitness, actual move-your-body-all-day long-fitness has been prized by warriors since time began. And that people were now saying it was unnecessary grated heavily against me.

In the RKC we have the expression “to press a lot you must press a lot”. It’s pretty self-explanatory and says succinctly that if you want to press heavy then you need to press with both volume and load to be successful. But somehow when we wanted to reverse engineer something like running fitness instead of being told “to run a lot you must run a lot” we got this confused message that implied deadlifting more would make you run better. I’m not sure if anyone else watches marathons but the Kenyans who win don’t look to me like they have big deadlifts!

So to see if you could get that kind of fitness I created a plan that would force me to see if I could have both strength and cardio. I spoke with my editor at Breaking Muscle about an ambitious plan to go from standing still lifting weights to completing an Ironman triathlon (3.8km swim, 180km ride, 42.2km run) in twelve months. Unfortunately for me she loved the idea, which meant I had to figure out how to get in the kind of shape that would allow me to complete one.

And so I began.

I ran a bit, I swam a bit and I rode a bit. Gradually those distances started to increase, as did the number of times per week I could sustain that kind of training. I’ve had all sorts of problems during training from numerous muscle tears to being hit by cars but I’m now at the point where I am coping with about twenty hours of endurance training per week. While my lifts in the gym suffered greatly to begin with, and still do a little due to the always present fatigue in my legs, they’re back close to what I was lifting before starting all this. My pull up and push up numbers are good (dropping some weight helps with those tremendously). And most importantly distance of any kind no longer scares me. My regular Saturday morning run is longer than a half marathon – I’ve got enough gas in the tank to out run any horde of zombies now.

The first lesson I learned also was one of those often laughed at RKC jokes – “to have strength endurance, first you must have strength”. Well, if you replace strength with the word speed you end up with the same thing. To go long quickly you need speed endurance. The way to gain speed endurance is to run both far and fast, just like in our pressing analogy, except this time we’re replacing the load you lift with how fast you run.

My weekly running consists of:

Two easy moderate length runs of up to forty-five minutes (think of these as the “light” days in Rites of Passage – a way to build volume without breaking your body down at all).
One hard day of speed work (I need to emphasise not sprints, but faster than race pace work. This is like a heavy day and has a big recovery cost on the body and should always be followed by an easy session such as one of the moderate forty-five minute runs).
A long run of up to three hours. (Again, treat this like a heavy day and make sure that the next run is short and easy).

My strength plan is KISS perfection:

Day 1

Squat 3 x 5
Handstand push ups + pull ups 3 sets of AMRAP
Extended push ups + extended pull ups 3 sets

Day 2

Deadlift 3 x 5
Handstand push ups + pull ups 3 sets of AMRAP
Extended push ups + extended pull ups 3 sets

The extended sets are done following a concept I first got from Jerry Telle where you start with the worst leverage and then gradually progress to the strongest. So start with close grip push ups for max reps, then rest about ten seconds and go to shoulder width push ups for max reps, then to wide push ups for max. For pull ups start with wide grip pull ups for max reps, then shoulder width for max reps, then shoulder width chins, then finally close grip chins. These are a great way to build some muscular endurance without adding much size – vital to keep weight down if your goal is to travel fast.

(I also need to add that normally I would perform some abdominal/ core work but I have a strained hip flexor right now and I’m avoiding stressing it as much as possible. I would follow the same sort of format though in going from a harder version of an exercise to an easier one such as hanging leg raises to lying leg raises).

I would add that if I were training just for an event like a Tough Mudder I could easily add in one or two more weights sessions. However on top of my running I also ride and swim and two is the number I can still fit in without seeing performance drop off.

Because I’m doing so much fitness work I don’t need swings or snatches. I hate to break it to you all, but unless you’re a novice runner or completely inexperienced with weights (like many endurance athletes) neither of those will make you a better runner on their own. You need to combine strength training with running and run both far and fast.

And when the zombies do come….

I’ll see you next to me while we laugh at all the cardio haters who didn’t make it.

—

Andrew Read

Andrew Read, Senior RKC, is head of Dragon Door Australia and Read Performance Training. Recognised as Australia’s leading functional strength trainer he is a regular contributor to Blitz, Inside MMA, International Kickboxer, Oxygen, Ultrafit and Breaking Muscle. His coaching background spans nearly twenty years having worked with many Olympic and world championship level athletes.

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

January 18, 2013 By Josh Hillis 4 Comments

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.

—

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.

Kettlebells and 007 (Part 1) by Mike Krivka

January 11, 2013 By Mike Krivka 6 Comments

If you’ve watched any of the Bond movies, you’ll notice one undeniable fact: James Bond is one tough and resilient mother! Okay, there was a while when one-liners were more important than the ability to shoot or throw a decent punch, but those days are behind us now that Daniel Craig is portraying 007. Bond is back and he’s as tough as ever—which is just the way I like him!

So, what does this have to do with you? Well, quite a bit actually. I contend that the training necessary for a top-tier secret agent is the same for a Super Mom or Dad, or even a semi-decent athlete. Let me explain—and this is important so PAY ATTENTION! You need the same physical abilities and attributes as a secret agent but you won’t need them to the extreme degree—but you never know! You need the ability to pick up heavy things; push, pull, and squat with a load; and move fast and hard when necessary. What’s not super about that?

A secret agent needs to be:

Strong
Resilient
Tenacious
Flexible
Mobile
Agile
Athletic

These are all physical attributes that you can develop through a well-rounded functional training program. You need to have a balance of strength, speed, power and endurance—just like you’d need to chase down a couple kids all day, or to keep yourself motivated while you’re huddled over a computer.

Let’s see how that stacks up against the CrossFit Ten Attributes of Fitness:

Strength
Agility
Flexibility
Power
Speed
Stamina
Accuracy
Balance
Endurance
Coordination

Not bad. Actually darn close. Both lists have similar physical and mental aspects. So, how many of these attributes do you need? I would say you need all of them. You might need more of some and less of others, but you will still need all of them. You will also need to spend extra time on the attributes where you’re deficient.

Now would be a good time for me to define each one of the Secret Agent Attributes mean to me and how I think you’ll need to develop them.

Let’s start with Strong. If you could only improve one attribute—and this applies to most everyone—it would be strength. I’m not talking about increasing your bench press or biceps curl, I’m talking about adding pounds to your deadlift, clean or military press. Increasing your ability to move heavy weights is going to put some meat in the right spots and make you harder to kill! I think Mark Rippetoe was quoted as saying, “Strong people are harder to kill.” I couldn’t agree more. I don’t mean that in a literal sense—unless you really are a secret agent! What I’m referring to is real muscle (not the puffy muscles from bodybuilding) which allows you to perform difficult tasks with ease and survive situations that would injure or kill others. I really like the CrossFit dictum of “training for the known and unknown”. I think this is an important mindset to keep in mind when conceptualizing your training program and components. In short, get strong to be strong.

Resilient – To me, being resilient means that you can do what needs to be done, without getting destroyed in the process. Resilience is different at different ages. As a secret agent in your prime (30’s), resilience means escaping the villain’s underground lair while being shot at, chased by henchmen, while still having a little left in the tank to show the cute redheaded damsel you saved a good time… if you know what I mean. As you get older, resilience means bouncing back from a tough workout quickly, taking an unexpected fall without injury, or even changing a tire on the side of the road. Once again, it’s only a matter of degree not function. By the way, as far as I’m concerned, resilience is also a mental attribute—meaning you can face adversity, persevere, and accomplish your goals.

Tenacious – I love that word! When I think of tenacity I think of my old dog Katana Loki (yeah, I know, cool name). She was a Staffordshire Terrier (another name for Pit Bull, but don’t hold that against my little girl) and I used to play tug of war with her and she would NEVER let me win – EVER. She only weighed about forty-five pounds but she would give everything she had when it came down to it. As a physical attribute, tenacity is the ability to find the way to accomplish your goals, even if the path is difficult or painful. Being a secret agent, or even a Jane or Joe Bland, is sometimes a tough path and you’ll need to have the physical and mental ability to keep going even when you want to quit. How do you develop tenacity? The only way is to train outside your comfort zone and do the workouts that others won’t. You’ll become physically stronger, and you’ll also have the mental muscle to match. Bruce Lee made an interesting observation about fighting many years ago. He said, “If you want to learn to swim jump into the water. On dry land no frame of mind is ever going to help you.”

“Flexible as silk and as strong as steel,” one of my Gung Fu instructors admonished us to become in every aspect of our lives. Looking at some people, you might think flexibility is the antithesis of strength, but I think it is part of the same package. To me, flexibility means you’ve developed your physical attributes to accommodate movement within your sport or activity, within and sometimes exceeding normal range of motion. I’m not saying that you have to do full splits, but you should have enough command of your muscles that you can move and perform without running into roadblocks of inflexibility. I’m fortunate that I’ve always been relatively flexible, but I still have to work to maintaining it. I’ve worked with a lot of athletes who were extremely strong but couldn’t even touch their own toes. Think about this— being strong makes you harder to kill, but flexibility makes you even harder to injure. Is there a mental aspect to flexibility? Hell yeah! If you can’t take the obstacles thrown in front of you and turn them into hurdles, then you need to get a grip and focus on the goal.

You might ask, “Isn’t being ‘Mobile‘ the same thing as being flexible?” Hardly! To me, being mobile means that you have that ability to move and function at the full capacity of your body. After many years of taking hard falls in wrestling and judo you’d think my back, neck, and shoulders would be toast, but that’s not the case. I’ve spent a lot of time keeping all of my joints and connective tissue mobilized through various means like foam rollers and yoga. As a secret agent, you never know when you’ll have to climb to the top of a tower to disarm a nuclear weapon. Or, as a parent you never know when you may have to chase down one of your kids from the top of the play set at McDonald’s. Being mobile makes you more resilient and will also give you more confident in your ability to get the work done without injury. Explore the information on the MobilityWOD site or attend a Primal Move workshop and you will understand what you need to work on.

Being “Agile” doesn’t necessarily mean jumping and leaping like a ballerina in the Bolshoi. To me it means the ability to quickly and seamlessly transition from skill to skill. I am reminded of an experience I had while working with some tactical officers from a large metropolitan police department. The officers prided themselves on their shooting skills, and I was impressed with their ability to “kill” paper targets. When they asked for my assessment I gave them a quick skill test to show them the real life level of their pistol work. I made them do 5 kicks to the heavy bag with each leg, and 4 lengths of hand over hand on the monkey bars, 5 burpees, and 4 bodyweight deadlifts. Then they had 30 seconds to put 5 rounds in the “X”, change magazines and then put 5 more rounds in the “X”. (Note: everyone had a chance to shoot their 5+5 first, in order to establish a baseline of accuracy and time.) How did they do? Well, no one had an accidental discharge in the process, but no one came anywhere near their previous score. So is agility a physical or mental skill? The answer is yes…

Everyone is “Athletic” to one degree or another. If someone says that they’re a “runner” then they are considered an athlete. If someone else says they’re a “tennis player,” then they are considered an athlete as well. Some people are more athletic than others in my eyes. If someone is a NCAA wrestler, a high level MMA competitor, or an Olympic caliber gymnast, then they are going to get kudos from me. If you are trying to find your “inner athlete” then you are on the right path and I commend you. To me being athletic means that you have developed the basic skills of your sport to a relatively high degree, and are able to apply them under dynamic circumstances. What are the skills that you will need as a secret agent? It’s a long list but it would definitely include running, climbing, combatives, etc. All of those skills take the preceding attributes (strength, resilience, tenacity, etc.) and put them into a dynamic, competitive environment where your skills are tested to see if they “hold up under fire”. In other words, an athlete puts himself into a competitive environment to see if his training and skills hold up. The same thing should hold true for the secret agent—and for you. I’m not saying you have to topple megalomaniacs seeking to control the world’s supply of gold, but you want to be able to test yourself through the auspices of a difficult workout on occasion in order to see if your training is actually working.

Note: I have to mention a very powerful concept that changed how I train myself and others. You will see this as an underlying theme within the workouts and throughout the whole program. While no one workout will address all of the skills below, most address several. Dan John identified five movement skills which need to be practiced and that you should be using when developing strength and experience:

Push
Pull
Squat
Hinge
Carry
Other – i.e., Turkish Get Up, “Ground” work

This grouping of movements should define your strength program, and also give you a framework for identifying your strengths and weaknesses. (For a more detailed explanation of this, pick up Dan John and Pavel’s book Easy Strength. It will give you a completely different perspective on your training requirements.)

For more super-powered James Bond-style workouts, check out Mike’s book, Code Name: Indestructible.

—

About the Author:

Michael A. Krivka, Sr. is a Washington, DC native who has been involved in Kettlebell training for over a decade and is currently an RKC Team Leader and member of the RKC Board of Advisors under Dragon Door (where he has been listed as one of the top reviewed RKC’s in the world for the last five years). Mike has traveled extensively throughout the United States teaching Russian Kettlebells to military (USMC, USN, USA and USAF) and law enforcement personnel (FBI, DEA, USSS and CIA) as well hard-living civilians from Soccer Moms to CEOs. In addition to teaching workshops and clinics he logs several hundred hours a year teaching and training with Russian Kettlebells at his own gym and martial arts studio. He is also a Level I CrossFit Trainer, and Olympic Lifting Coach.

The Metabolic Punch-Up Workout by Andrea Du Cane, Master RKC

January 9, 2013 By Andrea Du Cane 18 Comments

A quick and effective workout to burn off the holiday fat and get your heart pumping.

14 kg kettlebell

I don’t know about you, but I never seem to have enough time during the busy holidays to get my regular time in the gym. I’m over committed, and trying to squeeze the most out of my precious workout time. After the fun is over, I’m left a bit tired, perhaps with an additional pound or two on the scale and playing catch up at work.

To combat this dilemma I came up with this brutal and efficient workout.

Feel free to mix it up as you see fit.

You’ll notice how I start with the ballistics, and end with the grinds during the first few rounds. Towards the latter part of the workout I switch the drills around and put the grinds first and end with the dynamic lifts. It is significantly harder starting with the explosive lifts, by the time you get to the presses and squats your heart rate is already high and it’s much harder to control your breathing for the slow lifts.

The key is that at no time during the round to you put the kettlebells down. Not until the entire round is over. The other key ingredient is using double kettlebells throughout the workout. Double bells means a lot more load per round. It’s just more bang for your buck!

Double kettlebells are used for entire workout:

Ladies: 18lbs, 10kg, 12kg, or 14kg (for strong ladies)

Men: 16kg, 20kg, or 24kg (for strong men)

Rest in between rounds just long enough to catch your breath.

It is imperative that you do active rest between sets and grab water as needed.

Once you begin the next round, there is no putting the kettlebells down!

Round One:

10 double swings

8 double cleans

4-5 double presses

4-5 double squats

REPEAT for round Two

Round Three:

8 double cleans

4-5 double presses

4-5 double squats

10 double swings

REPEAT for round Four

Round Five:

4-5 double presses

4-5 double squats

8 double cleans

10 double swings

REPEAT for round Six (you can stop at round five if needed)

Note, this workout sneaks up on you! You may need or want to drop down to lighter bells or drop a rep of each exercise. Many will just get through rounds 4 or 5.

ALWAYS work at your own HONEST pace. If you are gassed or losing form stop before things go bad. There is always tomorrow!

—

Andrea Du Cane is a Master Kettlebell Instructor, CK-FMS, CICS, Primal Move National Instructor RIST, ZHealth certified. She is the Author of The Ageless Body, and The Kettlebell Goddess, The Kettlebell Boomer and Working with Special Populations DVD’s. She has been featured on the TRX-Kettlebell Power DVD, Breaking Muscle website, From Russia With Tough Love book and DVD, Best Body Magazine, and Oxygen Magazine.

Andrea Du Cane

Master RKC

CK-FMS, CICS

ZHealth, R.I.S.T.

andrea@kettlebellfitness.com

www.kettlebellfitness.com

Viking Salute Workouts

December 28, 2012 By Gus Petersen 7 Comments

Excerpt from The RKC Book of Strength and Conditioning book

GusPetersenMain

This workout consists of combining a Snatch, reverse lunge, and shoulder Press from a kneeling position into an intense, highly effective full-body workout that burns calories, increases muscular endurance, and translates to meeting real-life physical demands.

The workout is appropriate for intermediate to advanced kettlebell practitioners. It is designed as a blueprint, so you can add or take away elements, personalizing the workout to suit your fitness level and goals.

Half Viking Salute

The 53-pound kettlebell is a good weight to start with for the Half Viking Salute if you’re a male who is in good shape, experienced, and weighs between 165 and 195 pounds. If you’re over 195 and mean, start with a 62-pound kettlebell. Hard women will want to start with a 26-pound kettlebell; others will be plenty challenged with an 18-pounder.

Take a kettlebell in your right hand and do a Snatch. With the bell still in the overhead position, elbow locked, step back in a reverse lunge onto your left knee. From the kneeling position, left knee and right foot grounded, lower the kettlebell to the rack position, hit your power breath, and Press the bell. At the top of the Press, take another power breath and stand up, stepping forward with your left foot until it’s even with your right, all the while with the kettlebell arm locked out overhead. This entire sequence counts as one rep. With your feet shoulder width apart, repeat the entire sequence for the desired number of reps (see workout variations section below for suggestions) with the same hand. Then switch seamlessly to the left hand and match the number of reps.

Note: When performing this technique, we lunge backward onto the knee that’s opposite the Snatch arm, so that the forward, grounded foot is the same side as the Pressing arm, because this supports the core optimally.

Full Viking Salute

The progression from Half Viking Salute to Full Viking Salute definitely increases the intensity and the required skill level of the exercise. The 35-pound kettlebell is a good weight to start with for Full Viking Salutes if you’re a male who is in good shape, experienced, and weigh between 165 and 195 pounds. If you’re over 195 and mean, start with a 44-pound kettlebell. Most women will start this technique with an 18-pound kettlebell. Everything in the Full Viking Salute is the same as Half Viking Salute, except at the top of the Snatch, instead of letting the bell flip over to rest on your forearm, you end up gripping the kettlebell in the bottom-up position. With your kettlebell arm locked out, do a reverse lunge, lower the kettlebell arm to a bottom-up rack position (elbow against the ribs, thumb not touching the chest as it would in a standard rack position), and perform a bottom-up Press, locking the arm out at the top. With the kettlebell still pressed overhead, stand up and repeat the sequence for the desired number of reps, using the same hand. Switch to the opposite hand and match the number of reps. As you perform the sequences of Full Viking Salutes, the fact that you are holding the kettlebell in the bottom-up position forces you to move slowly, deliberately, and smoothly; stack the kettlebell with optimal efficiency; focus on proper breathing; and maintain overall body tension.

Variations

There’s far more than one way to skin a cat, but as far as program design, here are a few options for incorporating these two techniques into a workout.

Viking ladder with pull-up

This variation alternates Half Viking Salutes and weighted-foot pull-ups in a 1- to 5-rep ladder. If you are right-hand dominant, start with your left. With the appropriate weight as outlined above, do one rep of a left-hand Half Viking Salute, and transition seamlessly into a right-hand Half Viking Salute. Then, after no more than a 60-second rest, do one weighted pull-up with a kettlebell anchored on one foot. For a 165- to 195-pound male, use a 35-pound kettlebell. For a mean male 195 or over, a 44-pound kettlebell is ideal. Most women will want to begin with no weight and can modify this with a Cybex pull-up machine, chin-ups, or assisted pull-ups, or they can simply omit the pull-up. Continue up the ladder, performing two Half Viking Salutes on each side, followed by two weighted pull-ups, until you’ve completed the fifth set of each exercise. At that point, you will have done 15 reps of Half Viking Salutes on each side and 15 reps of weighted pull-ups.

Once you’ve mastered this ladder, you can work your way through another ladder of 5 reps for both the Half Viking Salutes (both sides) and the weighted pull-ups, or as far up as you can without hitting muscle failure. You can also do the same ladder workout as above, but instead perform a Full Viking Salute, as described in the previous section. Keep in mind that because of the added intensity that compromised leverage brings to this variation of the exercise, doing the bottom-up Full Viking Salute is going to seriously challenge the neuromuscular connection of your non-dominant-side grip strength.

Standard Viking workout

Another option is to do three sets of five reps of either Half or Full Viking Salutes (same weight specifications as above), with 1 1⁄2 to 4 minutes of rest between sets. Because of the increased reps and sustained intensity of each set, this option is perhaps more demanding than the ladder system. For that reason, there are no pull-ups in this variation. To increase the difficulty, you can add sets and/or weight, as well as decrease your rest time between sets.

Heavy Viking Salute Workout

If you want to push heavier with the goal of making strength gains, simply add enough weight so you are only able to do one to three repetitions of Half or Full Viking Salutes for two to six sets, with 1 1⁄2 to 4 minutes of rest between sets.

Take a kettlebell in your right hand and do a Snatch.

From the kneeling position, left knee and right foot grounded, lower the kettlebell to the rack position, hit your power breath, and Press the bell.

At the top of the Press, take another power breath and stand up, stepping forward with your left foot until it’s even with your right, all the while with the kettlebell arm locked out overhead. This entire sequence counts as one rep.

High-Intensity 10-Minute Viking Salute Workout

If your goal is to push your endurance, decrease the weight so you’re able to do 20 or more reps of Half or Full Viking Salutes on each side. Crank out as many as you can in five minutes, rest for 30 seconds to a minute, and repeat. Build progressively until you’re able to reach the 10- minute goal.

FOR THE TOUGHEST WARRIORS

If the above variations don’t meet your criteria for pain, add two kettlebells into the mix: double-kettlebell Snatch (either regular or bottoms-up), reverse lunge, double kettlebell Press (regular or bottoms-up), stand up, and repeat.

***

Most of my clients hate Viking Salutes because they are grueling and require the full attention of your mind and body. But if you’re looking for a full-body workout that delivers results and translates to real-world challenges and adventures, look no further. Viking Salutes pay big dividends.

– Gus Petersen

GusPetersen, RKC, CICS, owns ProEdgeKettlebells in Denver, Colorado. A 20-year fitness veteran, Gus started using kettlebells in 2003 and has never looked back, using exclusively kettlebells with his highly satisfied clientele. Gus is the creator of the Kettlebell Athletic Training (K.A.T.) Fitness System, available on 5 DVDs from DragonDoor.com. He may be reached at Gus@proedgekettlebells.com.

Gus shares a heart-stopping story about his recent stroke… and his quick recovery. Read Gus’s electrifying interview on Dragon Door!

5 Kettlebell Complexes to Blast Fat and Boost Muscle

December 21, 2012 By Pat Flynn 46 Comments

The purpose of this article is to venture a few workout suggestions—that is, some of the dirtiest and the damnedest ever seen.

I, like most who are blessed with some form of attention disorder, suffer from a low adherence to unchallenging and uninteresting exercise programs. If there is any chance of me following a program with little deviation, then from time to time, I need to experience the rush of workout that redlines me.

To say it another way, I subscribe to the general theory that tough workouts are more fun.

Now to this, the critic may pose a question regarding effectiveness. What good is having fun in the weight room, if we have nothing to show for it aside from the short-lived euphoria of a mental lollypop and swampy undergarments?

And to this doubter, I would say touché! To forgo effectiveness for fun would surely flip us over the edge of reason. But to assert that fun and effective are mutually exclusive is an exhibition of broken logic.

Fun is subjective and unquantifiable. I mean, how does one measure fun? In oodles? Sure, that sounds kind of tasty, but there’s no such metric for evaluation, nor will there ever, because not everybody’s idea of fun is the same.

And to be fair, not everyone will find as much delight in the upcoming assignments as I. It just seems like (because it seems like is honestly the best approximation I got on this subject matter) that most, not all, but most, find tough to be more fun than easy.

I won’t speculate on the reasons why. I have shared my observations on what I believe to be true and will now show you how to add a little bourbon to the sauce of your training program.

These workouts (the bourbon), which you can plug into just about any conditioning slot in your training program (assuming you have one), will fortify your spirit, harden your muscle, and peel away body fat.

Let’s begin.

What Is Metabolic Conditioning

Metabolic conditioning is now a term familiar to many, and since there is little good purpose to be served by trotting an old horse once more around the track, I will only touch on this point lightly to familiarize any new recruits, and then refer out to more extensive works.

In short, metabolic conditioning is any exercise, or series of exercises, aimed at improving the efficiency at which your body stores and delivers energy for any given activity.[1]

Some of the best work I’ve found on metabolic conditioning comes from Arthur Jones, who arguably coined the term back in the 1970s. Jones, while working with a group of varsity football players at West Point, found that when he shortened the rest periods between exercises in a circuit, his cadets were unable to handle the metabolic demands—despite them being in good shape.

So what gives? Why were these strong and well-conditioned athletes experiencing rapid shutdown when rest was dramatically shortened or eliminated between exercises in a circuit?

Jones offered the following theory:

“If there is interest in totally unsupported theories, then I do have a theory… a theory that I have no great confidence in at this point; I think that the body may simply be unable to provide the required chemical changes that are necessary to work that hard for a prolonged period of time. The required oxygen is available, and the circulatory system is capable of distributing it rapidly enough… the required nutrients are also available, but perhaps the body cannot provide the required metabolic changes at such a pace.”[2]

Jones continued to train his cadets in this fast-paced manner and concluded the following:

“Once a subject becomes capable of training in this fashion without going into shock as a result, then it becomes possible to work his muscles to a point of momentary failure while maintaining both the pulse rate and breathing at very high levels throughout the entire workout. And, since it was impossible for the beginning trainee to work in this fashion, it is thus obvious that something besides strength and cardiovascular ability has been improved… the subject has also greatly improved his metabolic ability.

And just what advantage does such a factor give an athlete? Well, how would a coach like to have a football team that literally did not require rest for a period of 30 minutes? Such a team could return to scrimmage immediately without the necessity to huddle… thus giving their opponents no chance to rest.”[3]

For the entire collection of Arthur Jones notes on metabolic conditioning, I highly recommend that you head over to ArthurJonesExercise.com and read his full article on Flexibility and Metabolic Condition.[4]

The premise of metabolic conditioning is to marry strength and cardio. The goal is to keep the system under stress, and working as a whole for some prolonged period of time. The simplest way to do this is to string together a series of compound exercises, and presently I will show you how to achieve this effect through kettlebell complex training.

What Are Kettlebell Complexes?

For our purposes, complexes (specifically kettlebell complexes) are compound exercises to be performed successively and uninterruptedly.

Compound exercises, as you may well know, call upon the coordinated action of multiple muscle groups to move multiple joints through a range of motion simultaneously.

But to perform them successively and uninterruptedly means to string these exercises together and execute them without the luxury of rest.

Complexes can be performed with almost any implement or no implement at all. The kettlebell, however, lends itself uniquely to complex training. The compact nature of the implement, along with its offset center of gravity, encourages one to flow seamlessly from movement to movement. As the saying goes, you can’t swing a barbell between your legs.

Who Are Kettlebell Complexes For?

I play Tae Kwon Do. I competed throughout college, and many times was bested by a more skillful competitor. What I’ve learned from this sport is that sometimes you you will lose because someone is better than you and that’s OK. It’s how you learn.

But never should you lose because someone is better conditioned than you.

That’s where kettlebell complex training comes in. My mentor, Brian Petty RKC, a lifelong fighter, once told me that kettlebell training is the closest thing you can get to fighting without throwing a punch. He explained to me that kettlebell complex training allows us to generate “high quality fatigue” and that the feeling of lactic acid flooding the system to the point of one feeling almost panicked, or poisoned even, is the reality of a physical confrontation. I agree on all points.

To understand why this is important is to know that a fight is often won in the last round, and when there are two competitors of equal skill, the winner is the one with greater strength and staying power.

I should also mention that when coupled with a workable diet, metabolic conditioning will melt fat like raw meat on a hot grill. This is how I keep under 8% body fat year round.

The great deal of stress and systemic fatigue generated from kettlebell complex training stokes the metabolic furnace, creates a large oxygen debt, and promises prolonged caloric after-burn. To understand this is to know why short and intense kettlebell complex training sessions are far more effective for melting fat than low-intensity aerobics ever were.

Into The Lungs of Hell

I believe kettlebell complexes are such handy fat-chopping devices that every fitness enthusiast should have at least five pegged to memory. Now I have more folders full of complexes than Romney has binders full of women, so if you’ll permit me, I’d like to offer a few up a few of my favorites.

The Great Destroyer

The Great Destroyer is like an extremely hot pepper. It’s both alluring and frightening. You want to taste it, but as soon as you do you regret it.

Once you run your first set of The Great Destroyer, I think this will strike you as a pretty good analogy.

The Great Destroyer Consists of the following:

Double Kettlebell Swing x 10 Reps
Double Kettlebell Snatch x 10 Reps
Double Kettlebell Front Squat x 10 Reps
Double Kettlebell Clean and Press x 10 reps
Push Ups x 10 Reps
Bent Over Rows x 10 Reps

Recommended Operating Weight:

Pair of 16kg or 20kg kettlebells for most males
Pair of 8kg or 12kg kettlebells for most females

The Hellion

This single kettlebell complex is deceptively challenging. The fatigue, like a night prowler, creeps up and slams you unexpectedly.

Check it out, The Hellion goes like this:

Two Hand Swing
One Arm Swing (Left + Right)
Single Arm Kettlebell Thruster (Left + Right)

Start with two reps of each movement. Then, after your first cycle through, perform four reps of each movement. Continue to ladder up by two reps every cycle until you are performing a total of ten reps of each movement. Descend the ladder in the same fashion. 😀

Recommended Operating Weight:

One 16kg or 20kg kettlebell for most males
One 12kg or 16kg kettlebell for most females

Sequential Dismay

Imagine what it’d feel like to have a thousand cold knives slipped into your quads, twisted, and withdrawn. That’s Sequential Dismay.

The sequence of this complex is based off the Fibonacci series in reverse, starting from eight, and combines double kettlebells cleans and front squats.

In case you’re a little rusty on your logical sequences, Sequential Dismay looks like this:

Double Kettlebell Clean x 8 reps
Double Kettlebell Front Squat x 5 reps
Double Kettlebell Clean x 5 reps
Double Kettlebell Front Squat x 3 reps
Double Kettlebell Clean x 3 reps
Double kettlebell Front Squat x 2 reps
Double Kettlebell Clean x 2 reps
Double Kettlebell Front Squat x 1 rep

Recommended Operating Weight:

A pair of 20kg or 24kg kettlebells for most males
A pair of 12kg or 16kg kettlebells for most females

Fresh Off the Yacht

This type of complex should be made like biscuits: fresh every morning. Pick five single arm kettlebell exercises and perform five reps of each, back to back, with no rest. Once you’ve completed the series on one side, switch arms and repeat.

Here is just one recipe idea to get you started:

One Arm Swing x 5 Reps
One Arm Clean x 5 Reps
One Arm Snatch x 5 Reps
One Arm Jerk x 5 Reps
Reverse Lunge x 5 Reps

Recommended Operating Weight:

One 16kg or 20kg kettlebell for most males
One 12kg or 16kg kettlebell for most females

The Man Maker

I got this kettlebell “sandwich” idea from Jiu Jitsu champion Steve Maxwell, when he paired the double kettlebell clean with a push up on the handles.

I’ve since taken his original recipe, added a few ingredients, and turned it into a party-sub.

The sandwich reference indicates that there are two pieces of “bread” from which to load ingredients (exercises). For our purposes here, the bottom piece of bread is the double kettlebell snatch, and the top is the renegade row (a push-up on the handles of the bells paired with plank rows).

Begin by performing one rep of the double kettlebell snatch and the renegade row. Each cycle there after you will load one additional ingredient (one rep of one new exercise), and continue to cycle through, without rest, until you have constructed a 5-layer sandwich.

I believe an illustration of this monstrosity is obligatory:

Layer 1 – Double Snatch + Renegade Row

Layer 2 – Double Snatch + Double Press + Renegade Row

Layer 3 – Double Snatch + Double Press + Front Squat + Renegade Row

Layer 4 – Double Snatch + Double Press + Front Squat + Double Clean + Renegade Row

Layer 5 – Double Snatch + Double Press + Front Squat + Double Clean + Double Swing + Renegade Row

Perform only one rep of each exercise. No rest between layers.

Recommended Operating Weight:

A pair of 20kg kettlebells for most males
A pair of 12kg kettlebells for most females

Concluding Thoughts

Even at the risk of being overly repetitious, I’ll reiterate that these workouts are brandy to the sauce of ordinary conditioning routines. Just how too much booze ruins the sauce, these too can be overdone.

When applied judiciously, however, kettlebell complexes are marvelous, but the last thing I want to happen to anyone is to collapse in the midst of The Great Destroyer, with two bells overhead, like an overcooked soufflé.

Please lift responsibly.

– Pat Flynn

PS – If you have any questions on how to work kettlebell complexes into your training routine, please drop them in the comment section below.

About Pat Flynn

Pat Flynn is a certified Russian Kettlebell Challenge instructor, fitness philosopher, and 7^th degree blackbelt in hanging out. Pat is the founder of ChroniclesOfStrength.com where he talks mostly on how to chop fat and multiply muscle through kettlebell complex training.

[1] Glassman, Greg (June 2003). “Metabolic Conditioning”. CrossFit Journal (10).

[2] http://www.arthurjonesexercise.com/Athletic/Flexibility1.PDF

[3] http://www.arthurjonesexercise.com/Athletic/Flexibility1.PDF

[4] http://www.arthurjonesexercise.com/Athletic/Flexibility1.PDF

Strength Despite Limitations… by Corey Howard, RKC, CK-FMS

December 14, 2012 By Corey Howard 9 Comments

The RKC is about Strength. Many times we’ve referred to it as a “School of Strength.” After all, what’s better than lifting heavy stuff? In fact many instructors have said the secret to a happy life is lifting heavy stuff overhead! As RKC’s we sometimes base our abilities on a heavy deadlift, pull-up and overhead press. But what do you do if you can’t physically deadlift? What if some anatomical limitation prevents you from pressing heavy stuff overhead? Are you left to a life of spinning classes and pretty little selectorized machines? No!

I am one of these people. I physically can’t deadlift, or squat heavy anymore. I can’t press heavy things overhead on a consistent basis. Don’t get me wrong… I’m a former competitive powerlifter, I love lifting heavy stuff! Due to a nice case of scoliosis I physically can’t put weight on my back, or vertically load my spine, and heavy deadlifting is just not smart anymore. Take a look at a recent X-ray of my spine:

So now what? What do you do for a client like me? Heck, what do I do? I use the tools the RKC and DragonDoor has provided… CK-FMS, Swing variations, Get-ups, and Paul Wade’s Convict Conditioning book. Let’s take a look at these-

CK-FMS – As we all learned from Brett Jones and Gray Cook, we’re only as strong as our weakest link will allow. If we have an active straight leg raise issue, or a stability issue, it adversely affects our performance because we aren’t moving efficiently. Brett once said that for some people the correctives become part of our daily routine, and for me that’s true. I’m always going to have a t-spine mobility issue, and as a result I’ll always have a stability issue. If I don’t make those correctives part of my practice sessions my low back is in pain the next day.

Swing variations – Swings are the foundation of what we do, and there are so many variations. Typically I have two days devoted to only swings. The first is a one arm swing interval variation day, and the other is a heavy swing day. For example I may do 30-40 minutes of one arm swings with a 24k, then later in the week I might perform 2 hand swings with a 48k for 30-40 minutes. One arm swings help with conditioning as well as stability issues due to the asymmetrical loading. The heavy two hand swings are as close to heavy deadlifting as my body will allow, yet work great for building strength in a safe yet ballistic manner.

Get ups – David Whitley says get-ups are essentially the human gate pattern, and he’s right! Get ups allow us to move safely under a load while our body fires in a X-type of pattern. Look at the initial post to elbow move for example, we drive through our bell side glute while posting on the opposite elbow by firing that lat. Everything moves diagonally, just like when we walk. Get ups teach me to move under a load while still providing the much needed overhead stimulation. Ten minutes of get ups do the trick!

Convict Conditioning – When I was powerlifting, I used to have a high and low intensity day. Some powerlifters call it Dynamic and Max effort days. Basically this is a day of lower weight with higher reps to essentially practice the movement, shore up weak links and build efficiency, followed with a max effort day 72 hours later with fewer reps and heavier weight, very similar to the swing methodology discussed above. I have chosen to focus on three bodyweight strength movements; pistol, pull-up and handstand push-ups. Since I can’t back or front squat, the pistol is a safe alternative that still allows me to safely apply a load on heavy days yet still get high rep squat variation practice in on my light days. The pull-up is also a movement that allows me to hang a kettlebell from my foot or a belt to add a load, while practicing a horizontal version on my light days. Finally handstand push-ups are really the only way I can press anything overhead without being crippled the next day! All three movements are easy to modify using the different levels provided in Paul Wade’s Convict Conditioning.

So how does this look in a program?

Day 1: 10-min of light get ups followed by light easy bodyweight strength practice

Day 2: 30-40 min of One Arm Swings

Day 3: 10 min of heavier get up practice followed by heavier low rep bodyweight strength movements

Day 4: 30-40 min of heavy swings

Being strong is an important part of life. It’s how we survive. No matter what physical limitation you have there are resources available and ways to work around almost anything. The last thing anyone should ever do is sit down on a machine, choose a weight, and push out some mindless reps. Grab a kettlebell do some get ups and swings or some bodyweight strength work.

An excuse only exists if you allow it to.

About Corey:

As the owner and founder of Results PT, Corey started the company in 2004 out of his house, with the goal of creating an energizing atmosphere that’s geared toward the client’s success. Since 2004 his vision has grown along with the list of clients, and in 2008 he opened Sioux Falls’s first private personal training studio. Corey has trained and helped many people lose a lot of weight, including a few people that have lost over 100lbs. He also has experience training fitness figure competitors and pagent girls. His clients have been featured in local and national magazine articles, appeared on television, and competed nationally. He originally became a certified personal trainer while living in Minneapolis in 2002 and over the years has created a successful strategy and program that reaps success. He also has experience in competitive powerlifting and loves total body kettlebell workouts that promote athleticism. He can be reached at www.resultsptonline.com or www.coreyhoward.com

1999 Sioux Falls Augustana College graduate. BS in Bs Admin, Soc, Psych.
I’ve been in a gym lifting, training, and learning about fitness since 1992.
After living in Mineapolis, Mn for 5 years my wife (Tricia) and I moved home to Sioux Falls, SD where I started Results Personal Training out of a spare bedroom in our house. Over the course of time it slowly evolved into Sioux Falls’s first private training studio with 2000 sq. ft, of kettlebells, power racks, free weights, a slosh pipe, and many other fun implements.
Former competitive powerlifter
After tearing my left tricep and being forced into early retirement from powerlifting, I discovered kettlebells with some encouragement from Brad Nelson, RKC. And in 2009 I earned my HKC.
In 2010 I went on and earned my RKC.
In 2011 I earned my CK-FMS and became the first kettlebell functional movement specialist in South Dakota.
In 2012 I was an assistant instructor at the RKC certification course. South Dakota’s most Senior ranked kettlebell instructor.
I’ve had clients range in age from 10 to 75, who’s goal range from weight loss, pageantry, increasing a vertical leap, and just fitting into smaller jeans.

100’s Workout by Phil Ross, Master RKC

December 7, 2012 By Phil Ross 10 Comments

Our lives are exceedingly busy.

Time is a commodity that we can ill afford to waste. There are many occasions when we only have a small window of opportunity to train. You only have 35 to 45 minutes to train. You have to get your workout in. You’ve worked very hard to attain your level of fitness and you want to keep it. What can you do?

Here’s a great workout combining body weight and kettlebells.

It’s called the 100’s Workout.

Begin with warming the body up very well:

Jump rope for 2 or 3 minutes, employ 5 to 7 minutes of stretching and other various warm-up techniques. Do three rotations of Deck Squats (10), Push-ups (25) and Abdominals (30). Now you are ready for the 100’s Workout.

There are several ways to do this workout. I’ve done anywhere from 3 to 5 of these exercises, depending on the available time and the chosen set of exercises. This is something that you’ll have to decide for yourself and how you are able to perform on a particular day. In addition, the amount of weight that you use makes a difference. Obviously – the higher the weight, the harder the workout.

Following are some examples:

Routine #1:

100 2 Hand Swings, recover, stretch.
100 Bottoms-up Squats, recover, stretch.
100 Kettlebell Snatches, recover stretch.

You should be able to accomplish each exercise in 5 to 6 minutes with a 2 minute rest and re-hydration period in between. You should be done with this section in a total of 20 minutes. A light stretch and you are finished and on with your day.

Routine #2:

100 Hand to Hand Swings (50 each Side)
100 Single Rack Squats (Change every 10 reps, 50 each side)
100 Dual Jerk Presses- It is best to do them in sections – VERY difficult to perform 100 of these in a row. You will most likely need 3 to 4 sets in order to complete the 100 repetitions.

You should be able to accomplish each exercise in 5 to 7 minutes with a 2 minute rest and re-hydration period in between. You should be done with this section in a total of 23 minutes. A light stretch and you are finished and on with your day.

Use your imagination and try other combinations of exercises when you do your 100’s. It’s a great deal of fun and yields a phenomenal workout.

As always: Train Hard & Train Often!

Phil Ross, Master RKC