I’ve been doing some research lately on resting heart rates and how that relates to overall fitness. What I’ve found is that just like most things out there, the camp is divided. Some believe that it is a very good, maybe even the best indicator of overall fitness. Some believe that while it is useful, [...]
This is a question that is often asked on the Dragon Door forums. Lots of people will weigh in with their suggestions, mainly revolving around already being able to hit certain goals with the KBs already in one’s possession. The impetus for moving to a bigger kettlebell is to give the muscles more work to [...]
This is a question that is often asked on the Dragon Door forums. Lots of people will weigh in with their suggestions, mainly revolving around already being able to hit certain goals with the KBs already in one’s possession.
The impetus for moving to a bigger kettlebell is to give the muscles more work to do. It is common knowledge that moving heavier weights builds bigger muscles, faster.
With all that in mind, both Clif and I have considered moving up to a 32kg kettlebell. In Old Russian Measurement, that’s Two Poods of serious iron, my friends. We think that will help us prepare for the test in December where we will need to press 2.5 poods, which is approximately 89lbs. There is an 88lb kb (The Bulldog) that we would need to press once with each arms to call ourselves “men among men.” (Hmm. That turns out to be awkward construction when used in the plural.)
What it looks like might happen is that Clif will go with an Ader kb, which he can get with free shipping for a limited time only. I am thinking of staying with The Party and getting a Dragon Doorkettlebell. I’m just too scared to try new things, that’s all. I know what I’m going to get with DD.
Today the schedule called for our standard SFP 2.0 workout, which is a winner all around.
Since hitting 10 sets of 5 reps with the 24kg kettlebell, my next goal is to increase to six reps per set. Today I got four sets of six. My left grip started going and my form began to suffer so I went back to five reps per set.
The run was fine. I didn’t push as hard as last week, when I broke my under 1 minute record, but still hit the top of the hill at 1:04.
The only change we’ve made is to do 5 minutes of mace swinging at the end of the run instead of the 5 minutes of KB swings. I think I need to work on my technique, as I hit myself in the back a couple times. I can tell this is a great pulling exercise, though. We’ll see what my shoulders and back have to say about it tomorrow morning.
5 exercises X 3 rounds; about 15 minutes. Sounds simple, easy even; except when its not. Today was jump rope, pushups, hack squat, pullups, and russian twist.
Full body, push, leg, pull, and core. We’ve said it before and most of the books and blogs say the same thing. Include these types of movements and you will be stronger and fitter. Today I felt both.
It was a medium effort, but with maximum results. 100 jumps fast, 20 pushups, 20 hack squats, 4 pullups (obvious the one that needs work) and 20 russian twists. The hack squats were done with the 24kg kettlebell, and the russian twists with the 16kg kettlebell.
Today was basically day 1 of our revised plan where we select from different exercises and perform them in a circuit. Monday is a “medium” effort day where five exercises are selected and the circuit is done three times.
I selected the following: Hindu pushups x 5, pullups x 5, hanging leg raises x 5, Lunges (with 1 kb in each hand) five steps out and five steps back, swing-catch-squat for 10 reps.
I did about a minute of warmup, which was very minimal. Total workout time was around 15 minutes. We are still experimenting with the number of exercises in each set because that has a big impact on total time worked and on the effort involved.
When I was done, I felt like I had had a pretty good workout, but that I could have done more. I guess that’s the point of a “medium” effort, isn’t it?
Clif and I have been working on some combo stuff, which is what we are focusing on August.
Our friend, Steve Maxwell, was one of the inspirations for that, and here is a great video of him teaching some guys a bunch of wicked exercises in a circuit. Many of these are incorporated into our own plan. Looks like it’s time to get some rings and clubs!
Today was supposed to be Crazy Barefoot Nature Day, but instead was “Wimpy American with Bad Hangover Day!”
The Party’s disgust will be two-fold on this one. 1) No matter what the reason, skipping workouts is for sissy’s. Injuries, Hangovers, time-constraints, etc they all shouldn’t matter, when the Zombies attack, I don’t get to call in sick 2) It wasn’t even Russian Vodka, it was a wine tasting. Yes, I admit it, lots of wine, and I’m incapacitated for the entire day.
The only redemption will be to down a bottle of vodka and do snatches till puke…..
I call this workout “The Punisher” for two reasons. First, my eating was not up to par this week and even at my morning weigh-in, I was still over where I was last Saturday. That was disappointing. In my worst week previously, I didn’t go below Saturday’s weight until Thursday. So I had to do something I knew would burn some calories so I could try to beat last week’s weight at my post-workout weighing.
And again, I know it’s not right or important or good or motivational to weigh every day. Nevertheless, that is exactly what I do.
I didn’t to CBND because there was some kind of activity going on at the school. I went back to my trail and did a four mile run, with four 1/2 mile intervals of higher effort. It was a good workout. The trail has 1/2 mile markers, so it is easy to know the waypoints.
After I had done half miles of easy, hard, easy, hard I saw that my second “hard” half-mile was slower than my first. The first was about a 7:30/mile pace, and the second was about 7:45. That was my turnaround point, halfway through the run.
The second reason I call this one “The Punisher” is that to motivate myself to push a little harder, I set a goal for the next hard half-mile. If I could beat a pace of 7:45, I could keep it at a half-mile interval. If I was slower, I would have to keep up the pace for a full mile. That worked, and I hit 7:30 again. I wondered how that would work on my last split, because that was my last half-mile and I would be back at my car. I pushed it anyways and came in just a few seconds better than the 7:30 of the previous interval.
Best news was that I was able to weigh in 4 oz short of last Saturday, so I did lose a teeny tiny bit of weight this week after all.
We thought by going through that just once, it would be a nice, kind of light, variety day. Well, it turns out it was no such thing!
(I shouldn’t write this yet, because Clif does his workouts at night and so he won’t do this one until tonight. I’m not sure it would be fair to warn him.)
Anyway, it started out really easy. I wasn’t really breathing hard until round three, when I added the front squat. Those three were like walking up a slight incline, but rounds 4 and 5 were like scaling the mountain! I struggled to do 30 seconds of clean and press with each arm, and actually had to switch more frequently. Snatches too, on the last round. Man, those were really hard and I would not say I would consider my form at all perfect.
To make up for some failures in the last two rounds using the 24kg kettlebell, I repeated the final round using the 16kg kettlebell, which made it a little easier, but was still fairly challenging.
Total time was about 15 minutes and it was pretty tough!
