athletic

Building Yourself Through Experimentation and Experience

Quick Tips

[This blog post has ZERO pictures.  Straight written word kids]

I’ve read a lot of books on health and wellness.

Nutrition, biomechanics, fat loss, athletic development, psychology of sport, anatomy and physiology, Orthopedic volumes and so many more.

I cruise through blogs that are maintained by some of the brightest and most innovative on the planet.

While I do feel that all of my reading has been for something, I also feel like at the end of the day… you’ve got to continue self-experimenting.

Some of the biggest names in the industry frown about self-experimentation, but I look at the concept as being no different from playing as kids.  You live, you experience,  you learn.

Obviously, don’t dabble around with something that could potential harm your life permanently, but don’t be afraid to… just… try stuff.

Try it.  See if it fits in your program.

The truth is that almost anything that you do exertion-wise is going to move you closer to your goals, especially if those goals are aesthetically based goals.

If you want to trim down, create less of a shadow, decrease your pant size, drop lb.’s on the scale, flatten that stomach, develop some muscular definition…

You’ve got to make an effort to progressively move more and eat with a sense of urgency.

Exercise is simple.  Start somewhere that fits your current strength and conditioning level and training know how, and begin climbing the staircase.  Stop over thinking it, just put on foot in front of the other and climb.  There are free resources all over the internet that can get you moving forward.

Progress yourself as quickly your body can tolerate over time.  Keep progressing.  The body is no different than the mind.  Imagine if you would have stopped learning mathematics at addition and subtraction.  Would you have understood Calculus?  No, you wouldn’t have.  You would have been lost like a puppy and miserable.  You’ve got to progress and build up to learning Calculus, at least most of us did.

Trust me on one quick thing here… you’re going to reach a point in your progressions where it feels like you’ve reached the top, but believe me, you can bust through that barrier.

There is another gear that you can drop in to.  Always another level of effort.

If you disagree with me, ask yourself if your body is holding you back, or if your MIND is holding you back.  You might be surprised at what you find here.  The mind is the command center of your universe… get it in check.

With eating, explore everything.  I am serious with this suggestion.

Buy something, cook it and eat it.  If you like the way it tasted, right down the recipe.  If you didn’t, find a new one.  Just because something doesn’t taste good the first time you try it, doesn’t mean that it will never taste good.  Give food another chance.  It’s not all vegetable’s fault that you don’t like eating it, it might be your desensitized palate.

If your diet primarily consists of processed foods, of course most veggies and fruits are going to taste like cardboard at first!

Everyone eats differently.  What I like to eat, and can tolerate eating on a daily basis is not the same as what you can tolerate eating on a daily basis.  This is just my guess.

If you don’t like boiled broccoli, sauté it.  If you don’t like either of those options, throw it on the grill.  If you still don’t like it, season it for heaven’s sake!  I don’t even think that plain broccoli is that appetizing.

If you hate broccoli, stop complaining about how much you hate broccoli and eat something else.  Find a substitute, an alternative.  There are thousands of foods on the planet.  Choose something else that provides a nutrient load that you body can use.

Seasoning can change a food, and to be quite honest, who cares if you add some salt to your food. Just don’t be a donkey and throw a pile of it on there.  Be sensible in your approach, a pinch is more than enough.  You season foods to enhance their flavor, not drown it out.

I’ve always wondered why people drown food in condiments.  Why eat something if you have to bury it in so much ketchup, BBQ sauce or some other condiment on it to the point that you don’t even taste the meal?  Not judging, just wondering why we do it.

Eating for performance is different from eating for aesthetics.  This might be getting a bit too detailed, but when I was eating to sustain my athletic performance, I didn’t have the greatest physique.  I was lean, but only because of my daily energy expenditure.  When I finished my athletic career, I cut out a few foods that I was initially led to believe that I “needed”.  Bread was one of them.

Thanks government created food pyramid for that load of B.S.

My abdominals popped through in less than 3 weeks.  Ironically, my performance didn’t suffer a bit.  I had no idea if this elimination would work, but it seemed logical.  Pure trial and error here.

Actually it was more like trial and success.

One thing that gets beaten like a dead horse is the concept of avoiding trying to out train your diet.

I should stop telling you not to try this, and let you try it for yourself.  Go ahead, workout like a maniac and eat whatever you please.  See what happens.  It’s an experiment right?  So, go ahead and experiment with it.  Challenge the thought.  If you’re an Ironman, I don’t want to hear a word from any of you, because you’re about the only category of human that can make this work.

Experiment and experience.

Guys and gals are writing books, shooting DVD’s and maintaining blogs (just like this one) that preach a certain way of doing things in order to get results.

But how about this… learn a little something, enough to get you started, and begin carving out your own path.  Nothing about fitness is the law.  There are theories that I would prefer to follow, but if you break them, who cares!

The more you do something, despite your knowledge, know-how or skill level, the more you learn.

You develop knowledge that sticks because you experienced it.  You didn’t read about it and do nothing, you experienced it first hand.  You became an eye-witness to what works well for you and what doesn’t.

It’s important to break out of your shell… practicing and experiencing things.  My suggestion, as I have learned in my own life, is to get out and practice as many things as you can.  You’ll develop likes and dislikes, and you’ll carve your own path.

I tried not to get too specific with anything here.  This is a thought process that applies to everything.

Trial and error, self-experimentation and experience are tremendously powerful methods for catapulting a person forward toward their goals.  If you have the conviction and dedication to follow through over the long-term, you’ll find methods that are the best fit for you.

Just remember, the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.  Trust yourself…

 

 

Cheers to trial and success!

 

 

KG

 

It’s Just a Kettlebell Swing and Suspension Trainer Workout

Quick Tips

A few months ago, I wrote a post titled:

—>  It’s Just a Kettlebell Swing Workout

Kettlebell Swings

That has been my most popular post on this blog, by far.

I wrote it because I wanted to convey how simple a workout can be, and probably should be for most people.

Totally stripped down.  Nothing but a timer, a towel and water bottle, and a kettlebell of a decent weight.  You could make the argument that a “totally stripped down” workout would only involve bodyweight exercises, but that’s beside the point.

A lot of people avoid physical activity because of two things:

  • Time
  • Preconceived thoughts and anxiety about how the workout will feel.

Simple workouts are time effective and aim to limit anxiety.  You look at the agenda for the workout and say to yourself, “Oh, I just have to focus on kettlebell swings today.  I can do that”.

If you have a kettlebell or have the means to acquire a kettlebell for the future, I will ALWAYS encourage you to make the purchase.  Don’t wait, don’t peruse, don’t over-analyze.

Just buy and be done with it.  You won’t be sorry.

Well, I take that back, you could be sorry… if you buy it and fizzle out and using it.  Then it’s just another heavy object holding a door open.  What a shame that would be.

Anyways, I wanted to build on that post, because I felt that the workouts displayed were rock solid, and applicable to a large population of readers.

They are simple, yet brutally effective.  I would consider them entry-level workouts, however, I have to admit that I continue to use the 15sec work/ 15sec rest (24 rounds) kettlebell swing protocol to this day.

The only difference is that I have climbed the ladder in weight.  When I started with the protocol, I used a 20kg kettlebell from LifeLine Fitness.  I then climbed to the 24kg kettlebell, then to the 28kg kettlebell and now on to the 32kg kettlebell.  All were purchased from LifeLine Fitness also (yes, I promote these guys heavily, they make equipment worth buying).

Don’t be fooled by elaborate training protocols.  Keep it simple and be detailed.

A simple workout/program executed to perfection will trump the world’s most complex/perfectly written program done poorly.

Stay in the “simple” zone, do it right.

That being said, I would like to say that kettlebells and suspension trainers are a match made in heavy.  For roughly $300, you can outfit your home with a Jungle Gym XT and a nice variety of kettlebells ranging in weight.

The combination of a suspension trainer and kettlebells is magic.

Seriously, they are match made in heaven.

Let’s look at workout that I’ve employed over the years…

Kettlebell + Suspension Trainer

A workout like this is complete.

The kettlebell swings alone are enough to initiate a tremendous training stimulus, but when paired with the other movements, the workout is magic.  Push, pull and ballistic movements for the upper and lower body are all represented here.

With high volume workouts, I typically choose simple rep schemes.  It’s annoying trying to remember how many reps to complete in the middle of round, when you’re real focus should be on controlling your breathing and fatigue.  Once you experience this frustration, you’ll wish that you would have picked simple rep schemes.

After completing each round, I would rest anywhere from 45-75 seconds depending on your conditioning level.  Don’t be a hero and rest for 45sec in the first round if you can’t handle it.  This decision may bite you in the ass in the later rounds when your fatigue levels spike.

Fatigue accumulates throughout the workout, just as it does for every workout.  It’s inevitable that it’s coming, but timing it so that you complete quality work while you can is the idea here.

The number of rounds that you complete is depends on your ability to complete quality work (exercise technique, complete reps, etc).  If your form breaks, you make the decision to rest before re-engaging, or you pull the plug on the workout altogether.

Safety first, always.  Form good habits.

Put this workout in your back pocket for now, load it in the chamber when you need a challenging high tempo training session.

 

 

Cheers to ST’s, BW’s and KB’s!

KG

(PS:  I turned on “Location Tagging” so that you’ll really believe that I reside in God’s Country… Eau Claire, WI)

A Kettlebell Swing Workout (Part 2): Singles and Doubles

Quick Tips

An entire workout can be centered around the kettlebell swing.

There are very few exercises other exercises I would feel comfortable saying that about.  But the kettlebell swing is definitely a movement that be an all-in-one solution.  One stop shopping if you will.

Based on the popularity of my previous post, It’s Just a Kettlebell Swing Workout, I decided to go ahead and continue posting samplings of other kettlebell swing based workouts.

But I must be clear about one thing:  I am in no way endorsing that the kettlebell swing be the only exercise that you leverage in your movement training programs.

While the kettlebell swing is certainly a world-class movement, it is important to develop strength and power through other exercises as well.  Remember, the human body pushes, pulls, jumps, twists, carries, etc.

Humans have to be able to execute a wide range physical tasks if you stop and think about it.  Especially when you consider that you never really know what the demands of the workday or weekend are going to bring.

It really pays to be physically prepared.

Workouts are scheduled bouts of physical exertion.  You know exactly what is going to happen during a workout and how it is going to happen.  So much of our daily lives are unscheduled, random and out of our control.  The workout is one aspect of our lives that we can control.  We control the amount of effort, intensity, exercise selection and duration of the workout.  We have complete control of what happens during this brief period of time.

It’s a real turn on for some people who feel like they have little control over anything else in their schedule.

Anyways, back to the point of this blog post.

Kettlebell swings, and how we can organize and rearrange kettlebell swings into highly effective training sessions.

When I sense boredom creeping up on my training habits (as many of you have also experienced) I know that it is time to shuffle a few things around.  I value the impact that 2-handed kettlebell swings- especially heavier swings for longer duration work sets- can have on maintaining my body composition, but I also know that too much of anything can be a bad thing.

Boredom is part of being human, so it’s important to inject energy into your training sessions.

In this case, single arm swings added an element to my training session that reinvigorated the entire session.

Here is what the workout looked like.

Kettlebell Swing Workouts

If you get serious about adopting kettlebell swings into your workouts, you’re quickly find that your body will enter a different realm of lean.  I have to admit that I thought kettlebells were gimmicky in the beginning, but after submerging myself into kettlebells exclusively one Summer, I prove my own opinions incorrect.

I got really lean, really quick.  From just swinging the damn thing between my legs, back and forth like a pendulum.  The concept seemed too good to be true initially.

Interestingly enough, I didn’t have the greatest technique at the time, but I had established a great foundation of all around strength, stability and resilience to fatigue which allowed me to continue advancing my workouts.

This is an important point.  I would strongly advise that anyone reading this post go and seek out a professional who has the credentials of a high level swinger.  RKC (Russian Kettlebell Challenge) or StrongFirst certified individuals would be a great place to start.  Most of these folks were trained under Pavel Psatsouline, who is the godfather of kettlebells in the Western World.  You would get fantastic tips, tricks and technique adjustment from these individuals.

But, if you have a willingness to learn and a decent bodily awareness, I also personally believe that you can teach yourself how to swing at home.  Set up a smart phone and shoot short clips of yourself swinging.  Compare it to other videos like the following:

Neghar has great technique… check out her blog…

Pay attention to the difference in your technique and Neghar’s swing technique.  Critique yourself bit by bit.  Make the small adjustments.  Most people will notice that they are “lifting” the bell versus swinging it, or squatting versus hinging the hips.

We have the ability to teach ourselves things- not just mental education but physical education also- which I sometimes think that we forget.  We can be self-sustaining.

If you find that you have little time, and want a workout that is bare bones simple, try this little diddy…

10 minute kettlebell swing workoutRecently, I jumped into this exact workout prior to my evening plans.  I didn’t have much time to train but needed to get some amount of work done to feel good about myself, so this 10 minute workout fit the bill.  Using a 28kg KB, I recorded 215 swings.  Not a world record but also not too bad in my mind.

Kettlebell swings are a highly productive exercise.  Add them to your training, and with an ounce of consistency I know that you’ll see some significant return on your investment.  Just do it.

Cheers to swing workouts!

KG

Completely Un-Organized Kettlebell Training for Fat Loss and Athletic-Like Conditioning: Part 2

Quick Tips

Part 1, if you made it through that novel, was me thinking out loud about systems.  Part 2, right here, is what I actually did to spark that post.

Here we go…

Using my trusty jump rope, I started the training session with a 10 minute jump session.  I always start slow with two-foot jumps and work into more progressive drills like running, single foot, etc.  I keep the rope moving continuously, only stopping to change a shitty song, scratch or grab a swig of water.

Last night, this is where the un-organized part comes in.  In the kettlebell training world, there is a world-famous tough guy test called the “SSST”.  The “SSST” stands for “Secret Service Snatch Test”.  Initially, I thought it was another gimmick workout but I later learned that there was actually a story behind it.  Interesting.

So, here is what the SSST entails:

  • Perform as many snatches as possible in 10 minutes using a 24kg (53lb) kettlebell.
  • Record your score while trying to hold your lungs and eyeballs from shooting out.

That’s it.  

My best score with the SSST is 226 repetitions respecting the perimeters of the test bulleted above.   

I haven’t attempted a full SSST for about 2 years, and I would like to think that I could get 250 reps in the 10 minute time frame.  Who knows.  I tend to not have a governor when it comes to pursuing competitive type stuff.  All or nothing.  

The kettlebell snatch is a technical move just like the dumbbell snatch, so there is a method to the madness.  Grip, arc of the bell, hip snap, etc… all make a HUGE difference in your numbers.  The first time I tried the SSST I ripped all of the skin off of both of my palms.  It’s important to note that a “rep” in the SSST is counted only if the elbow is locked out overhead.  

Back to last night…  

Initially, last night was scheduled to be a recovery style training session because of the intensity of the previous day’s workout.  Typically I would just jump rope and bike while keep my heart rate in specific BPM zones, then call it a day.  Nope, I decided to try something different.  I decided that I would mess around with mini-circuits using my kettlebells.

Here is what I did:

5 minutes each of:

1)  Kettlebell snatches (alternating hands every 10 reps)

2)  2-Hand Kettlebell swings (30 reps then rest until ready)

3)  Intense jump rope (not sure of the revolutions per minute)

Done.

For the snatches, I completed 110 repetitions and for the swings I completed 120 repetitions.  My heart rate stayed where I wanted it and I felt great during the session.  The jump rope at the end was a bear.  

All in all, the workout lasted about 30 minutes, which was perfect because that is roughly how long I would have biked for had I gone that route.  

Soreness today was not bad and overall the workout was a success.  

Is it possible to train improvised in every session?  Of course, but I am still not convinced that it is superior to an organized, progressive training system.  Attempting to train too many qualities at once seems to make a person “average” in all of those qualities.  However, for fat loss efforts and general athletic-conditioning, I think training sporadic will work just fine assuming you are using big movements with solid technique and load.  

Again, at this point I would look to stay within a system.

Also, be realistic about the SSST.  If you aren’t qualified to be snatching a kettlebell, don’t attempt the SSST.  Honestly, this is high level stuff.  I don’t mean to make myself or anyone else sound superior in any way, but injury prevention is important to me.  Snatching a 53lb kettlebell for 10 minutes straight is not for the average person.  Don’t be a hero.  If you don’t have the technique or the conditioning, stay away from it.  Building your technique, strength and conditioning and then give it a go when you are capable.  Make sure your hands are prepared, you won’t want to grab your steering wheel for a week if you don’t rough those hands up first.  

 

Cheers to the improvised workout…

 

KG