I figured I’d start a series that goes into more depth about some of the topics both Bud and myself will be covering at our upcoming Super Human Training Workshop.
Far from being just promotional, I aim to teach you some useable information here.
The workshop is set up to cover quite a wide variety of topics. The truth is a certain area may not be the thing you want to learn most about, but another aspect is.
The fact is I’ve gone to events before not real excited about certain topics but then blown away by them when I actually saw the material. Just keep that in mind.
Let’s start with the Kettlebells.
As you likely know I just hit my goal getting 301 snatches with the 24kg kettlebell in 10 minutes and multiple hand switches. (And I plan on beating my own record soon.)
I’m going to be releasing a DVD set that covers everything, and I do mean everything, about technique and training leading up to it. And that will be available soon. Stay tuned for a notice about it later this week.
But of course I’ll also be teaching this material at the workshop. While video is great it is no replacement for hands on work one on one and we promise to deliver tons of that.
Bud has done several workouts involving one, two or three thousand plus kettlebell swings, dependent on the weight he was using. Marathon swing workouts!
He also has a book coming out on the topic. But once again the workshop is the place to learn hands-on.
Here are those informative teaching points I promised. 
Both of us chose a goal, focusing on a single exercise, and went forward with it, seeing just how far we could take it. And it wasn’t an overnight thing. But years of training went into becoming the very best at it.
That single goal focus is HUGE. When you have it you will obtain your goal, assuming the required knowledge and effort is supplied. When you don’t have it you will flounder around (trust me I speak from too much experience).
Another aspect relating specifically to the kettlebell training is how it was structured. Bud and I did quite different things in these regards but there was at least one big commonality. And that was…
Cycling the weights up and down.
You should not only stick to a single weight with any exercise. But by working heavier and lighter you make faster progress.
And I don’t believe this only applies to swings and snatches. In fact, I incorporate it into everything I do these days.
What I just gave you is GOLD. Go re-read it and apply it to your training if you’re not currently doing so.
Swings are Bud’s specialty. Snatches are mine. We’re both fairly decent with push presses and jerks. Actually Bud has done some crazy numbers with those too.
So we will be teaching all of the above.
For some reason, people get messed up on the difference between presses, push presses and jerks. But really its quite simple.
- Presses – No leg dip
- Push Presses – One leg dip
- Jerks – Two leg dips
Understanding them is simple. Doing them is another. I’ve seen far too many people becoming uncoordinated just trying to do a jerk. At the workshop we promise to fix that.
Plus give you the proper way to rack a kettlebell, that will make all the above exercises become easier.
Then there is also the Natural Press which is sort of like an upper body push press. Still no leg drive but using your upper body to explode the weight up.
So that’s what we’re covering in the kettlebells portion of the workshop.
To get more details and sign up go here.
It’s a really cheap price with a bunch of extra goodies thrown on top to sweeten the pot. Be sure to sign up before February 28th for the early bird half off price.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
Filed under Conditioning, Kettlebells, workshops by on Feb 21st, 2011. 2 Comments. 
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
Filed under Kettlebells, Strength Training Concepts, Workouts by on Feb 18th, 2010. 3 Comments.
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
Filed under Bodyweight Exercise, Conditioning, Kettlebells, Workouts by on Nov 16th, 2009. 2 Comments.
An important part of a complete training program is to do some sort of conditioning work. Of course, this can come in many shapes and sizes.
Sprints, kettlebell swings and snatches, skipping rope, and high rep bodyweight exercises are a few of my favorites.
And just like in any other training, your conditioning work should be made progressive. The thing is its not so easy as just adding more weight like you can with a barbell.
In these cases you’ll most often be working with volume and time. That is to do a certain amount of work (no matter the exercises or tools used) in a period of time.
If you can do the same work in less time, or more work in the same amount of time you’re doing better than before. Since this is a conditioning based activity progress means you’ve improved your conditioning.
You can change up what you do to condition yourself from session to session as long as you have a ‘test’ workout. That’s a specific workout you come back to again and again to see if you’ve improved.
I’ll share with you what I use later on to test out my conditioning levels, later on. But for now just make sure you do progressive training when it comes to strength AND conditioning.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
Filed under Conditioning by on Aug 11th, 2009. Comment.
I have practiced some GS (girevoy sport) techniques previously. Some of the basic stuff like corkscrewing your arm downward. Although my swings and snatches were rarely done with maximum tension, I now know that what I was doing was pretty far from the real techniques used in kettlebell lifting competitions. Previously, I talked about how I was approaching this whole event. You know, with an open mind and all. So that was not hard. A little more difficult was making my body do things differently then I had been doing all this time.
One of the main things is breathing naturally. Also called anatomical breathing. Basically when you are in a downswing your torso is collapsing so you will breath out. As you come back up you naturally breathe in.
This is fine when you are not under a heavy load. Breathing out as you descend in a squat with 500 pounds on your back would be a bad idea. Kettlebells are relatively light (assuming you use weights you are capable of) so this is not a problem.
The whole idea of bracing for a kettlebell swing (snatch or clean too) is not wrong but a different application. Breathing in one method is optimal for strength and the other for endurance.
So I had to consciously think to breathe out on the way down and round my back. There were many other points like this that I need to work on.
Why would you choose one way of doing things over the other?
Let’s talk about the whole philosophy of the AKC. Valery Federenko is frighteningly strong and enduring. He is a world champion at this stuff. Right there is proof that he knows what he is doing. Many of the techniques he taught us where things he taught himself or learned on the road to doing over 130 Jerks and over 90 Snatches with each hand using 32kg (70 lb.) kettlebells.
Kettlebells are made for these lifts. And high repetitions. These techniques are the optimal way to do that. If you want to reach the highest numbers in these lifts then you should use these techniques. Using kettlebells in other ways can be done. They can be used, and effectively, for bodybuilding or weightlifting, but that is not what they are made for.
Now if you are not competing with kettlebells, would you still want to use these techniques? There is no doubt that properly training in this manner or any other can be very beneficial for health and fitness.
So is training this way better than the Hard-Style method of training? Assuming that the only goal was health and fitness, so that we avoid the argument of different training for different reasons. Or perhaps just martial artists or athletes who want to be in the best shape for their sport. I don’t know for sure. The only thing I can say here is that it would be a fun thing to do a study on.
More coming soon.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
Filed under Conditioning, Kettlebells, Lifting Technique by on Sep 30th, 2007. Comment.
