Kettlebell Endurance Training

Kettlebell Endurance Training:

Welcome to Encinitas, California! Today Kettlebell Movement is bringing to you a workout that will gradually progress and keep you pushing with few breaks. The idea is to learn how to rest the bell in the rack position for brief moments to catch your breath. When you take the bell overhead, rest the bell there too. The windmills and overhead squats will turn a high cardio set into mobility and stability. This will allow you to keep pushing through the entire duration of the set. This is one of my favorite progressions in kettlebell training, one that takes you through all of the basic kettlebell and various strong-person lifts with increasing difficulty. You will use every muscle for this session, grab a medium weight bell for higher than usual reps.

Warm-up:

Turkish getup: Starting at the top in the overhead loaded lat position and swing switch snatch or clean&press with each one. Four minute timer.

Get downs: swing switch and snatch starting at the top. 4 minutes.

Moving into the next round, you won’t put the bell down until the round is done use the rack and overhead position to rest.

Round One:

Alternating hand kettlebell swings: 3 minutes

Rack the bell and swing switch and clean: 60 seconds

Swing switch clean and push press or jerk: 3 minutes

Swing, clean, push press and windmill: 4 minutes

Just like round one, try not to put the bell down until the round is over, use the overhead loaded lat position to catch your breath!

Round Two:

High pulls: 12, 9, 6, 3 for 3 minutes. If you run out of time continue doing singles until the timer is finished.

Snatch: swing switch and snatch; 4 minutes

Snatch to overhead squat: 4 minutes

The beauty of this workout is that you get to warm up and prepare your body for each lift as you go, eventually doing the most complex moves at the end. I think this kind of workout is a great demonstration of the flow that kettlebell training has. It’s equal parts power and relaxation, the better you are at that, the easier this workout will be and the smoother it will look. If you find yourself unable to rest the bell in the rack and loaded lat, then barring technique, flexibility is almost certainly the issue. It does take a certain amount of flexibility to be able to lift weight overhead safely and effectively. Strategic stretching and dynamic range of motion exercises in your lats and hip flexors can often fix this problem quite quickly.

You will most likely be sore in your upper back, glutes, hamstrings and abdomen from this workout. You will probably feel like you were running at full tilt for minutes at a time and you will also help create some much needed flexibility. The overhead lifting is amazing for improving your posture by teaching your nervous system awareness of your plumb line like nothing else. Use this workout often and challenge yourself to move up in weight as you gain strength. You can add this routine in to any existing workout but no need to overtrain and see your results diminish. If you get done with your workout and feel ready to take on the world, you’re doing well!

Thanks for joining me,

Peter Hirsh