Did the 200 snatches mentioned in this dragondoor article today with the 16 kg Kettlebell as an off day(!)  exercise 🙂
I was able (obviously) to do it under 10 minutes and finished off with 10 Turkish GetUps (5 on each side).
Now I have swollen calluses which I didn’t have for a long while. Reason for this, I have short fingers and the handle of the cheap @ss 16 kg KB is quite thick. So I can not do a finger lock properly which would have made things much easier.
Done 150 two handed kettlebell swings in 6 sets of 25 reps, calluses becoming back part of my appearance.
Added 10 Â inclined push-ups, 10 pull-ups (from the edge of a table) and 10 pistol squats. Lots of stretching and rest in between as I still kind of strain my lower back a bit, trying to get used to the much heavier weight.
I will try to increase the reps and decrease the sets, maybe 3 sets 0f 50 reps? I hope my hands and forearms do agree with this 🙂
So on Monday i managed to form some nasty calluses on both of my hands doing the 15-15 50 Set Kettlebell Snatches workout. Still I liked this cardio-strength-endurance combo style and wondered if I could be doing Turkish Getups this way and to take it easier combine them with Windmills.
The 15-15 would be to short (so I thought) as the full TGU takes more time then a Snatch. I decided to do the following:
36 seconds doing 2 TGU’s and 2 Windmills with a 16 kg Kettlebell
36 seconds of rest
20 sets like this.
Turned out I was actually able to do 4 TGU’s and 2 Windmills in each set. So after the first 5-6 sets that’s what I did. I did my share of sweating, I was not fatigue at the end so this was a nice workout, given the fact that the TGU is pretty much a whole body workout.
In the end I did 71 TGUs and 40 Windmills in 26 minutes 🙂
I came across this article while searching for some links to use in my previous post:
Kettlebell Snatching on a Warrior Diet!
I lately tried to use more weight with less repetitions to improve my strength and this article is a bit on the other side of the spectrum. It makes you do Kettlebell Snatches in 15 second work 15 second rest fashion for 25 minutes! Thats 50 sets but hey 15 seconds doesn’t sound like much work right?
Wrong! After a couple of sets the forced rest makes each consecutive set a tiny bit more challenging and depending on your current form you start sweating like a pig half way through.
I paced myself at 6 snatches per set and kept this rhythm throughout the workout. Thats 300 snatches in total, not bad. I could go faster but with the cheap*ss vinyl kettlebell of mine, I would have ripped away everything inside my hands. Even at this pace I managed to get calluses immediately, one even filled with blood then popped open and I had to use my training towel to clean the handle.
I kind of liked this 15-15 HIIT thing and I started to wonder how it would be to use this 15-15 50 sets thing and to Turkish Getups?
I used the Tabata Clock from Hans-Christian Sperker (its Beerware so if you like the tool buy him a beer 🙂 ) and recorded that with Audacity as a MP3 file. Audacity can use several files and mix them together so you can put some music behind the metallic voice of the Tabata Clock but I didn’t have time for that and also, since its a 15-15 interval, that metallic voice was almost always there 🙂
Well on Wednesday, stubborn as I act lately, I decided to keep working out, and did a half 300 Kettlebell Workout despite the blood filled calluses on both my hands.
Needless to say, one of them blew up on me early in the exercises and to my surprise it wasn’t painful at all (just a bit messy).
Anyway, the half 300 Kettlebell workout is as follows:
25 Snatches (5 Left hand then blood 10 right hand 10 left hand)
25 Plank to Push-up position
25 Alternating One Handed Kettlebell Swings (Starting on the left)
25 Burpees (just plank and jump no push-up)
5 Turkish Get-ups (Left)
5 Windmills (Right)
5 Windmills (Left)
5 Turkish Get-ups (Right)
30 Mountain Climbers
Well today should have been a rest day for me but I just couldn’t sit tight and had to go for what I call a “Cardio Rest Day”.
All swell (though unnecessarily ambitious) but my choice of workout proved to be painful at the end.
I decided to do 300 alternating one handed kettlebell swings.
As a result, although it served the purpose for being a decent cardio workout, it also gave me my first ever in life (I’m 35) blood under the calluses I have (from doing KB exercises) on BOTH hands!
Bummer! I will try to come up with some workout tomorrow which will not make things worse. The calluses are currently not very painful so I will do nothing and wait for them to get hard enough to pull off eventually.
Nasty stuff but a little price to pay for the benefits of the Kettlebell.
Cheers 🙂