Tag Archives: swing

What I am up to lately? Turkish Getups :)

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Two months have passed since my last post.

I have slowed things down a bit since then, exercise-wise.

With more focus on the Turkish Getup and complementary body weight movements doing them SLOW!

Yes, you heard me, slow. I realized I was rushing the moves lately, resulting in sloppy style not utilizing the core muscles properly. For some moves slower is better if you are not opting for cardio and/or endurance. Well you kinda get the endurance bit with slow.

Last time around I mentioned doing TGUs with the 36-36 HIIT protocol and I did. I was able to squeeze (literally) 4 TGUs inside 36 seconds. I thought I was super, I thought “Well this has gotten easy with the 16 kg kettlebell, I definitely need to move up to 24 kg”.

While I still should get the 24 kg for the ballistic moves (swings snatches etc.) I couldn’t be more wrong about my mastery of the TGU using the 16 kg bell.

I took it the other way around, stretching a single full TGU cycle over 40-50 seconds, doing proper footwork, stance and the bridge.

Turned out that 5 reps on each side at this pace was a complete workout on its own. Really working all the muscles that should get involved… properly! 🙂

Now I am taking the slow path for non-ballistic kettlebell moves to improve form, stability and balance. I also slowed down the cardio moves like for example the squat thrust.

This way I revisited the 300 Meltdown Kettlebel workout. Taking it slower to improve and emphasize proper form instead of rushing the moves trying to beat the time made a world of difference as how my muscles feel and look 😉

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRpbM9nzDcM

Turkish Get Up Combo Workout

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After a short holiday down south for 5 days I am back with another Turkish Get Up workout in form of a combo set:

Starting out with 5 Snatches (preferably on your weaker side) then switch to 1 TGU while the kettlebell is over your head, get down then up, rack it on your chest and do 5 squats then 5 presses then 5 cleans and finally 5 1 handed swings where after you switch hands (or if you need to rest, do rest) and do the same super set with your other hand. Repeat this cycle 5 times with appropriate rests in between. I took 1-2 minute rests in 2-1-2 fashion.

This workout was taken from the fine site http://trainersteve.tumblr.com/post/9584433175

Kettlebell Workouts combined with Warrior Diet

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This week I started yet again another serious session of Intermittent Fasting as described in the Warrior Diet.

I discovered and started doing it Mid-January last year and was able to drop from 89kg (196lb) to about 76kg (168lb) in about 4 months prior to really getting into gear with Kettlebells.

I continued with the way of the Warrior feeding 🙂 after I started doing Kettlebell workouts on a regular 3 times a week basis. I gained weight as I was building muscles. After a while I loosened up on the way of the Warrior and along with muscles came back some bodyfat.

On an important side note, I have the Auto-immune disorder Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. I read one article and a couple of comments in forums that Intermittent Fasting actually has a positive effect on Auto-immune disorders. On my annual full body check-up it looked good. All values within the healthy range. And the ever so annoying tiredness in the afternoons gone.

Anyway, this year went less effective regarding my Warrior Diet style eating and although I didn’t put back on much of a belly but I was on the fattening road. Hashimoto’s has one interesting side-effect (at least in my case), changes occur slowly, no matter whether good or bad.

And this year I also decided to completely cut off supplements as well and did go that way. But now that I will do a low carb calorie deficit diet and shed some stubborn fat, I went out to get myself some liquid L-Carnitine for before the workouts, some Whey protein for right after the workouts and some vitamins for those days where I can not eat sufficiently.

With the decreased calorie intake the 16kg Kettlebell wasn’t that easy anymore but I still intend to move up to 24kg and 32kg soon. Less reps with more benefits.

Here is this weeks workouts I did on Monday, Wednesday and Friday:

Monday: 50 Snatches (25L 25R) 50 Plank to Pushup 75 2 Handed Kettlebell Swings 25 Burpees 5-10-5-10-5-10-5 (TGU & Windmills alternating hands, see former workouts) 50 Mountain Climbers

Wednesday: 50 Snatches (25L 25R) 25 Pushups 100 Two Handed Kettlebell Swings 25 Burpees 5-10-5-10-5-10-5 (TGU & Windmills) 50 Mountain Climbers

Friday: 50 Squats 50 Jumping Jacks 50 Snatches 25 Pushups 100 Kettlebell Swings (25L 25R 50 Two Handed) 6 TGUs with 24Kg dumbbell (3L 3R) <— sufficient to kill me off

I started with a 16 kg Kettlebell one year ago still use it and …

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Well I finally realized that despite my intention to stay with it and increase the difficulty of the moves that I have reached a plato in my progress.

Ballistic moves, most notably the swing, are not effective anymore and what is even more important, since I am not challenged by the weight, my technique has suffered severely. I have lost my form.

After doing 150 2H swings, 150 mountain climbers and 20 clean presses (10 on each side), I decided to tried the Turkish Get Up with 24 kg dumbbells and 2H swings with both 24 kg and 32 kg. Tough job, especially the TGU.

Hence I decided to get myself both the 24 kg and the 32 kg, for strength moves and ballistic moves in that order 🙂

Blood under my calluses on my hands

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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 🙂