Feb/102
Pressing a 44kg Kettlebell
This weekend they held an RKC in nearby San Jose. While I was not an assistant this time, my friend and I decided to stop by just to say hello. Great to get to see and chat with guys like Pavel Tsatsouline, Dave Whitley and many others.
While I was there I decided to see how my training was going. As you may know one of my goals is to do the Beast Challenge which is to lift a 106 lb. kettlebell in a one arm press, pullup, and pistol. I hit the pistol for the first time the other week and I’m working towards the other two.
After focusing on the one arm press for a significant amount of time I decided to switch it up and focus on double presses. As this move is harder I had to drop down in weight regularly working with the 70 lbs bells. As I’ve only done two arm presses for a few weeks now I was curious if it was making my one arm press stronger.
Now I found out it was. I had access to a 44kg bell which I don’t have at home so I decided to attempt a press.
This video shows the second rep. After pressing it once each side I decided I should have got it on film. The second rep was not as nice as the first. While both had side action going on this one was a bit more.
Just one step closer on my path. Are you moving forward?
In strength,
Logan Christopher
Feb/103
The Time to Train
What time is it? Time to train!
We sent out a survey at www.Strongerman.com the other week and the results we’re quite interesting.
One of the most insightful questions was “What would you say is the biggest thing holding you back from getting as strong and enduring as you want?”
As this was an open ended question there were many responses but they could be broken down into a number of categories.
You know what the number one answer was? That over one forth of all people attributed to holding them back?
TIME
I must make a distinction. There is a difference between having enough time to get a decent workout in versus having enough time to do all the training you would want.
If you’re in the second group that’s good to be reaching for an ideal. Not everyone’s a professional athlete whose job it is to train. But I think most people fall more towards the first group.
Does it take time to train? Yes. Some people work a full-time job or even more than that. And then you have other responsibilities like family or friends. At that point working out can seem like something you just don’t have time for.
Here’s the thing. Workouts shouldn’t take long. I’m a big proponent of doing short workouts. I’ve done effective workouts shorter than 10 minutes. And if you don’t have ten minutes you need to take a good look at your schedule and find out where you can find that time.
Now not every workout is that short, but to be honest most of my workouts are under 30 or forty minutes. I haven’t done a workout longer than an hour in a long time. Not only are those marathon sessions unnecessary but they can be counter-productive.
As a concrete example, last week I did a kettlebell snatch test. The goal: in ten minutes to do as many snatches as possible. With a 32 kg bell this is an absolute brutal workout. I not only got 160 reps but I did it without setting the bell down (but with multiple hand switches) a new record for myself.
Ten minutes is tough. For beginners even with a lighter bell you won’t be able to last that long. Do eight minutes or even five. Since this is such an effective exercise working the entire body that’s all you need.
Now if you’re after certain goals you’ll have to play around with what you do and the timing in order to reach them. But it can be done.
Don’t tell me you don’t have time to train. That’s the worst excuse there is used by the lazy to mask their laziness. I can guarantee that you have the time somewhere
Stop making excuses and do it. If you train smart and effectively everyone has the time to train.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
Feb/100
Circuit Training Ideas
Hill sprints are always an excellent choice
There are many possible circuit training ideas. I’m going to list some just off the top of my head.
- Pick three exercises. Do each one for a minute before moving onto the next with no rest. Repeat this all for five rounds.
- Pick a strength exercises that you can only do for one to five reps. Have a conditioning move you can do a hundred reps in. Go back and forth between the strength exercise and conditioning exercise for a number of rounds. (This builds the ability to apply maximal strength while fatigued. Great for fighters.)
- Have 10-20 exercises of varying difficulties. Do as many reps of each before moving onto the next. Keep track of the reps for each exercise and your total time.
- Have an implement like a kettlebell on one end of a field. Do a set number of swings with it. Sprint to the other side of the field. Do a bodyweight exercise like pushups. Run back and repeat.
- Pick a number of exercises to work the whole body. Do a set followed by jumping rope for a minute. Go onto the next exercise then jump rope for a minute. Continue in this pattern stopping after you’ve done each exercise or just going once through them all.
There you have five potential workouts. With variations of each you could use these for the rest of your life.
Personally I like to mix it up with my circuits. Plan something then go after it. As long as you keep track of your workouts you can do something similar a month down the road and see how you’ve improved.
Alternatively, you can add a few reps or a bit of time to each exercise thus making each circuit harder. Do this on a regular basic and you have a formula for improvement.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
P.S. As for calve work as David mentioned about his Convict Conditioning Routine I haven’t directly worked my calves in even distant memory. Sprinting and/or jumping rope is all you need.
Jan/108
My Top 5 Training Tools of 2009
I figured I would do something special for the end of the year and that would be to list my top 5 training tools of 2009. It was hard to pull from all the things I use and do but I believe this is a fair list, when I look at what has been my focus in training, what have I seen results in, and what I believe has benefited me in ways that aren’t as simple as pounds and reps.
Great for shoulder and arm flexibility and health
#5. Indian Clubs
I picked up a pair of 1 lb. wooden clubs from John Wood over a year ago and I’m glad I did. I’ve used them steadily in the past year usually for sets done between presses and pullups. I find this helps to keep the shoulder girdle and elbows healthy especially when you’re lifting heavy.
You’ll also be amazed at the coordination you develop from swinging these light clubs. For me it seems like the swinging patterns I do are easy but I’m always reminded that that’s not necessarily so when my friends give them a try. I’d rank Indian Clubs as essential for working on some of the smaller muscles and attributes of fitness.
I’ve also worked some this year off and on with heavier clubbells which I enjoy too, but that’s quite different from the light wooden clubs.
Ideal tool for pullup training and more
#4. Gymnastic Rings
I would list bodyweight as a tool but some might construe that as cheating so I’m selecting a tool that is used for bodyweight training, and that’s the gymnastic rings. I haven’t delved into doing an Iron Cross or Maltese or anything that major yet, I just love them for pullups.
The natural groove of being able to rotate the hands and arms as you pull makes this exercise better then on a straight bar. You can lift more and its also better for your joints as you’re not locked into one path. This is important when you do heavy weighted pullups as I do.
My ideal tool for brute leg strength
#3. Trap Bar
Some people love squats. Some people love deadlifts. Using a trapbar is more like a combination of the two. And I find it suits my body and long limbs better than squats or deadlifts with a barbell. I have never hurt my back on the trapbar, which I can’t say the same for barbells.
I only really use it for two exercises, the deadlift and shrugs. Even if it was just for the first exercise it’s a must own piece of equipment for me. I was able to pull 200 kg. or 440 lbs. on it this year which is good progress for me.
Strength and Fun in one small nail
#2. Nails
I love short bending. Other bending like horseshoes, scrolling and braced bending is great too but I’ve stuck with short bending the longest and gotten the most out of it. In 2009 I went from barely bending Grade 5 bolts occasionally to killing them with a fair amount of ease. My best so far is to bend 15 in a workout. I also did 50 60D nails in half an hour this year.
If you’re familiar with bending you can probably guess my goal is to bend the red nail and I’m working up to it. I just got Grade 8 bolts and while my first attempt stopped me, I know I’ll get it soon.
Bending is great for not only hand and wrist strength but developing whole body strength that you can channel towards one single thing. It’s an addictive training and it can be over-done so know what you’re doing. I recommend the Diesel Crew’s Bending eBook to get started.
So many kettlebells, so many uses
#1. Kettlebells
Considering my main goal has centered around completing the Beast Challenge I’ve been using kettlebells steadily in presses, pullups and pistols throughout the year and am continuing to do so. These same moves could be done the same or similarly with dumbbells but I find that kettlebells are just plain fun. I own a lot of them so I might as well put them to good use.
However the real beauty of kettlebells comes in the ballistic exercises. Obviously I’m a big fan of kettlebell juggling but I’ve been concentrating on the 10 minute snatch test recently and just hit a big goal. More on that later. This is a place where dumbbells can’t come close to matching kettlebells.
I hope you gained something out of reading this list. If you’re inspired to go out and get one or more of these training tools all the better.
You don’t have to go into as much details but comment below and list your top five of 2009. I’d love to hear from you. Plus it may have to be something I go out and try.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
Nov/090
Kettlebell Juggling Interview
I’ll cut straight to the chase.
This Wednesday I’m being interviewed by Geoff Neupert on one of my favorite topics, kettlebell juggling.
I won’t hold anything back. And you can even submit your questions for the call.
It’ll be a great time. Go to the Kettlebell Interrogations page and sign up for it now if you haven’t already.
Geoff has been interviewing a whole bunch of kettlebell experts and generally strong dudes. I’m honored to get to follow the likes of John Brookfield and Zach Even-Esh (the last two interviewees in the series).
If you’ve missed the past calls, just be sure to get on board for this one.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
P.S. On the page I am billed as ‘One of the World’s Leading Physical Culture Renaissance Men.’ I like that title!
P.S.S. Oh yeah, if you want everything there is to know on kettlebell juggling be sure to check out The Definitive Guide to Kettlebell Juggling.
Nov/092
Kettlebell and Bodyweight Exercise Workout
Today I’m going to give you a tough kettlebell and bodyweight exercise workout.
I first came up with this workout after hearing reading about Bud Jeffries’ concept of Yardstick Conditioning in Twisted Conditioning 2 several years ago.
I wanted a way to combine kettlebell exercises with bodyweight exercises in a single intense workout that would test overall conditioning as well as build muscular endurance. I picked four exercises that I felt where foundational and ones I wanted to work on. Those exercises are:
Double Kettlebell Jerks
Pushups
Bodyweight Squats
Kettlebell Snatch
(When I originally did this it involved hindu pushups and hindu squats, although when I started doing this workout again recently I’ve done the regular versions of pushups and squats.)
Each exercise is done for 5 minutes straight. Then without a break you move onto the next exercise in the order listed.
The goal is obviously to do the highest number of reps in each exercise.
But another big goal is to get to the point where you can do the exercise without dropping the bells or getting out of position for the whole five minutes. This means you can only rest with the kettlebells in the rack or overhead position for the jerks, and just overhead with the snatches. You can do as many hand switches as you need with the snatches.
On the pushups you stay in the plank position (much easier to maintain five minutes of hindu pushups). With squats its easy to go all five minutes so recently I added cables, a portable power jumper from lifeline, to make them harder.
Of course, in the start do as many sets as you need to do the whole five minutes.
For the kettlebell exercises I use 24 kg bells. You’ll want to start lighter especially if you have no experience with long sets. Eventually I’d like to work up to 32 kg bells. That may take awhile. I shouldn’t have to say it but technique is real important here.
I would recommend only doing this workout once per week mixed in with your other training. And each time you do it you seek to add just a few more reps to each exercise.
It’s a challenging workout. But rewarding and if you enjoy bodyweight exercises and kettlebells it’s a great way to work on those fundamental exercises.
Give it a try and let me know how you do.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
Nov/090
Conditioning Concepts
Tire Flipping Can Build Strength and Endurance
How do you know if your conditioning is getting better?
Yes its easy when you do the same workout over and over again. If you are running then you know you’ve made progress when your times go down. If you are doing a set of kettlebell snatches or bodyweight squats you know you’re better if you can do more reps.
But does it really mean your overall conditioning is better? Perhaps you’ve just increased your skill in the exercise and built up the muscular endurance that was previously holding you back.
You may not really increase your wind or cardio capabilities.
You’ve likely heard of the SAID principle in training. That is Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands. This means your body will get better specifically to what you make it do.
And what this can mean is that even though you are training hard, you could be getting better at one specific exercise, but if you’re not careful you can really be sliding back in the grand scheme of things.
There is no great example of what conditioning is.
One concept I shoot for is to be able to go into any arena of training and perform well, if not dominate. Obviously, I won’t be winning a powerlifting meet one day and running an ultra-marathon the next. But that’s a guiding principle for my training.
Back on the SAID principle we realize that there isn’t 100% carryover from any one thing to another. Much of the time there won’t even be 50% carryover depending on how you do things.
Are you conditioning yourself hard or are you building muscular endurance?
When we step away from the cardio machines and get into bodyweight exercises, kettlebells or whatever we start doing exercises for our conditioning that have a muscular component. This is a good thing. But you have to be careful.
You want to build muscular endurance and you want to build conditioning. You can build both at the same time. However, there is ALWAYS going to be one thing that fails first.
Pushups can get you breathing hard but unless you are one of those guys that can do them non-stop your muscles are going to force you to give up way before your lungs would.
Here’s a different example. I just finished a set of kettlebell snatches with the 53 lb. bell a couple hours ago. I hit seven minutes with a 25 rep per minute pace. That’s 175 reps in 7 minutes. My goal is 250 in 10. Something stopped me.
Was it my conditioning? I was sucking wind big time but no I could have kept going. Was it my muscles burning? Nope. With swings and snatches the load is fairly well distributed so no problems here. In this case it was my hands which tend to be the weak point for most people in this exercise. They tore open and in order to preserve myself from more damage I stopped.
There’s a problem when you rely on one means of conditioning. If I only did kettlebell snatches (or swings) I could never fully push the boundaries of my conditioning. I could increase my ability but not as well as if I did something else.
Let’s use the example of a guy that lifts weights in low rep sets. He also runs long distances to get his cardio. Do you see the missing component here? Will this guy be able to apply any strength and conditioning at the same time? You throw him into an intense circuit style training and he’ll crap out fast.
My case is to use a variety of conditioning exercises and methods to eliminate this problem. Variety is good here. Yes you should have goals and regularly do the same workout trying to progress. But on top of that add more.
Also you need to work different levels of conditioning. There’s a big difference between sprint level conditioning and longer term conditioning.
Think about the difference in running a hill sprint versus flipping a large tire for two minutes non-stop. Doing a ten minute snatch test versus a bodyweight exercise circuit that lasts an hour.
I have to credit Bud Jeffries primarily to opening my eyes to this. His Twisted Conditioning 1 & 2 go into more details on these concepts and much more.
If you missed the previous announcement check out the new www.Strongerman.com where we are working together to bring you to very best training information. And if you haven’t got those books yet do it now. They’ll make you train harder and in a more complete manner.
In the near future I’ll give you more on this subject including some complete workouts.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
Oct/093
Rise Above Strongman Competition
100 lb. Keg Press
I may not have been writing recently but I sure have been training.
And about a month ago I went to my friend Doug’s gym Rise Above Performance Training.
I was a trainer for Doug when he went through the RKC and we stayed in touch after that. He was holding an anniversary party and strongman competition and asked me to come down.
By the way, if you live near Belmont, California you should go check it out. More info can be found at www.RiseAboveStrength.com.
Right when I arrived, the strongman competition was just getting started. I jumped in no hesitation. Here’s a summary with some lessons learned at the end. Also I hope you enjoy the pictures and videos.
The first event was a keg press. Even with all my training this was actually the first time I ever pressed a keg. At 100 lbs. this one proved difficult. I managed 3 reps, knowing with a little practice I could at least double that number.
The second event was the tire flip. It was a light tire so it was done for max reps in 2 minutes. This one I excelled and taking first place by a single rep.
Rolling Thunder
The third event was weighted pushups. Throwing chains over the body then doing reps between two concrete blocks. This was my worst event of the bunch.
The fourth event was the Rolling Thunder. If you are unfamiliar with this one it’s a grip tool put out by Iron Mind. The thick bar and rotating handle makes it difficult to grip. We kept adding weight to see who could lift the most.
The last event was a medley. Pushing a sled, carrying a 70 lb. keg overhead, doing a farmer’s walk with 120 lb. dumbbells and pulling a rope with a weighted sled on it. All this was done for time.
Overall I placed third or forth out of out of the seven. Not bad when you consider most of the competitors where bigger and more muscular then me. And the fact that they trained there and most of these events were familiar to them.
Would have loved to go there and dominate but the primary concern was just to have some fun. Its great to get to use your training that you work so hard to build every once in a while. And competition is always fun.
And afterwords I did a few of the things I’m known for. Kettlebell juggling, tearing phonebooks, cards, bending nails and even a horseshoe.
Speaking of kettlebell juggling tonight Scott Bird from Straight to the Bar is holding a twitter chat on the subject. To come join the conversation go here for details.
This video will show a couple clips from everything that went on there.
Phonebook Tear
Another good reason to compete or do something like this is it shows you how you’re doing. Even though I had never pressed a keg before I got to see how my training has prepared me to do that. I got to see how my conditioning would hold up in unfamiliar exercises like the tire flip and medley.
And it would point out weaknesses, like my horizontal pushing strength, which I am now adding back into my training. Everything for some time has all been overhead pressing. Not anymore.
So go and compete. Take a different training class once in awhile. Try using a new training implement. This is your call to action. Get out and do it!
And if you enjoyed this post please comment below.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
P.S. There’s a big announcement coming tomorrow so watch your email inbox for that.
Jul/090
Broken Finger?
It was just over a week ago. I was doing single arm kettlebell presses. But I wasn’t just using one kettlebell. I was using two in one hand to increase the difficulty.
Everything was going great until the last rep of my last set.
I can’t tell you exactly what happened except I lost control at the top, both kettlebells came down and my fingers got smashed between the handles.
Haven’t felt that kind of pain in some time.
The end of the ring finger on my right hand swelled up and turned black and blue. I thought it was possibly broken at the time but now I think it’ll be all right.
And that brings me to two lessons.
First, be careful. Injuries do occur when lifting and exercising. Almost always its because of neglect or stupidity. Neglecting to keep correct and safe form. Using weights you really shouldn’t be handling (trying to show off or prove something among your buddies). Mostly just getting sloppy when you should be laser focused.
In this case when I lost control I should have just ditched the weights and moved away instead of trying to regain control. Never fight a falling weight!
And if you’re doing certain lifts or feats of strength realize the potential for injury may be increased. Just be aware of the facts if you choose to take certain risks.
This in no way means you shouldn’t lift or exercise. People get injured all the time from doing next to nothing. Be smart and safe and you can train completely injury free.
Sometimes you just need a reminder. Hopefully reading this serves you well so that you don’t have to crush your finger to get back on track.
And secondly, when you do have an injury, train around it. Do not take it as an excuse to layoff completely (of course if its really bad you should do just that). But with a minor injury to any part of the body you can still train other areas.
I was back training the next day. Have hit plenty of PR’s since then. Although some of my hand training had to be cut out I’m still going at it hard.
This doesn’t mean you should be stupid and not let the injury heal. But nothing can stop you when you are on the right track.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
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