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.
Filed under Bodyweight Exercise, Conditioning, Kettlebells, Workouts by on Feb 11th, 2010. Comment. 
David asked a follow up question regarding his Convict Conditioning routine. “Two questions: I forgot to ask, how would you add grip, neck, & calf work in there too; and can you give a more in depth outline of circuit training – how you would plan it?”
In today’s post I’ll cover hand strength training. For grip work I would train the hands two or three times per week. You could probably even get away with one session a week and still make good gains. Pick one to three exercises each time and go after it. These are the main types of hand strength but these are the main ones. Depending on your goals you may need other exercises.
Wrist levering – This can include wrist rollers, sledgehammer leveraging, dumbbell wrist curls, etc. Even handstands are good.
Crushing grip – This is usually done with steel spring grippers but can be trained in other ways.
Working the pinch grip with a block weight
Pinch grip – Pinching plates is the easiest form, block weights are great too, and then you can do feats like card and phonebook tearing.
Support grip – This is any type of holding. Kettlebell swings certainly work this. Farmer’s walk is probably one of the best exercises.
And many exercises cross over in different area. Bending nails works the wrists and your crushing and support grip. Plate curls will work your wrists and pinch at the same time. If you’re short on time I’d advise doing exercises that give you more bang for your buck.
Also for better hand health you should look at doing exercises like finger extensions especially if you go heavy into working the grip.
You don’t need to do heavy volume. Just one to a few sets is all you really need for your hand strength training.
In the next couple posts I’ll cover neck training and circuit training.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
Filed under Hand Strength by on Feb 9th, 2010. 1 Comment.
I received this question the other day after my post on Convict Conditioning, and since it was well thought out I’m going to give an in depth answer.
Hey Logan,
You obviously have far more experience than me and I don’t even compare to you in terms of strength/conditioning. You’ve done an awesome job from what I can see! I’d like your opinion, please I read Coach Wade’s “Convict Conditioning” and I want to do the “Big Six” moves!
Goals – strength in the “Big Six” and mutant conditioning.
Preference for the kettlebell swing.
‘Decent’ recovery abilities.
Equipment – barbell, dumbells, 35lbs & 70lbs kettlebells, & pullup bar.
Not much money.
I was planning on trying out the ‘Veterano’ routine with swings three times a week (light, medium, and heavy swing days). A concern–over training with back bridges and swings.
Do you think this a great way to reach my goals?
Is ‘Veterano’ not enough strength work?
Do you have any suggestions?
Thank you & God bless!
David
Considering your goals and equipment, I think what you have laid out is a good plan. If you want to get good at these moves you should do them. Adding in a conditioning component with the kettlebell swing makes it even better.
For those of you who don’t have the book yet the Veterano is a routine that consists of doing a few sets of one of the six exercises each day. In my opinion, since the volume is already kept minimal I believe this program would be better with more frequency.
These moves require a high degree of strength but also a high degree of skill. So practicing them more often should result in faster gains. One thing I learned from Pavel is that its better to do one set of an exercise everyday then six sets one day a week.
For this reason I would modify this routine to do two exercises each day instead of one. One arm pushups and bridges. Handstand pushups with hanging leg raises. And one leg squats with one arm pullups. This way you do each move twice a week instead of just once. Adjust the volume if you have to but I think this will give better results.
I wouldn’t worry about overtraining with the bridges and swings. If you’re knew to bridging or swinging just be sure to ease into it.
A light, medium and heavy swing days is a good way to approach it but I personally never liked light and medium days. When I train I want to go hard all the time. If it works for you do it but here is how I’d approach it.
While swings are one of my favorite exercises I caution you against relying on just one movement for your conditioning. When you do this you may become real efficient at that movement and your conditioning may not actually improve that much.
Its good to have a conditioning goal like a number of swings (see Bud Jeffries recent Kettlebell Swing article) to go after. But its good to have some variety too. Personally I would focus on swings one day a week and do some sort of circuit conditioning on another day. You can mix swings and snatches with other exercises like sprinting, burpees, jumping rope or many others. This’ll give you a different feel and end up being better for your endurance.
In fact this is what I am doing in my training right now except I’m focusing on kettlebell snatches instead of swings.
I hope that helps you out and if you have to ask any follow up questions. Be sure to let me know how you progress.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
P.S. If you want to check out Convict Conditioning, click here.
Filed under Bodyweight Exercise, Conditioning, Workouts by on Jan 27th, 2010. 7 Comments.
It looks like a lot of people enjoyed my last post listing my top 5 training tools of 2009. There were many comments and questions so I’m going to try to respond to them today.
Sonnon with a Clubbell
Many people had some variety of leverage tool in their top five. Clubbells, maces and sledgehammers. And there was one question asking about how 1 lb. Indian clubs could possibly give a workout when the starter clubbell is 15 lbs. (BTW, Clubbell is the name of the specific tool put out by Scott Sonnon and RMAX.)
Let me start by talking about leverage tools in general. The whole idea behind them is that a relatively light weight on the end of a long lever is going to make the weight feel incredibly heavy. Depending on the weight and length of the tool will depend on what you can use it for.
Maces generally are the longest objects. They’re almost always swung with two hands and are still popular among Middle Eastern and Indian wrestlers.
Most clubs, including clubbells, are a bit shorter then the maces, but they come in a variety of weights. Depending on which one you use you can go one or two handed.
Clubs can be swung in a wide variety of ways. There are whole DVD’s and books filled with the different possible movements you can do. Any sort of swinging can bring a real three dimensional training into your program however you do it.
Indian Club Swinging
The light Indian clubs are really more of a weighted joint mobility. Done properly with certain swinging patterns you’ll be able to do moves you couldn’t possibly do with 15 lbs.
The leverage and force of the swings makes them such great tools. For this reason they are targeted in building coordination and keeping healthy more than building muscle or strength.
Neither one is better or worse, they just have different uses.
Another common implement was some sort of cables. These are a great tool and something I plan to use more in the near future.
Cables provide a resistance unlike any other. While with a weight the pull of gravity and the weight is always constant with the cable it is not so. The longer you stretch the cable the greater the resistance becomes.
There are cables of different sizes and they can be used in many ways. You can mimic standard weighted moves like presses, curls, squats and more. But cables can be used in ways that cannot be done any other way (except expensive machines) like the behind the neck pressout or front chest pulls.
The Lifeline Chest Expander
So why would you want to use cables? By this point I hope its obvious. You can target and hit muscles in ways that you can’t do any other way.
Both tools, the cables and Indian clubs, are great for rehab as well as taking preventative measures against injury.
Another common top 5 was some kind of odd object. I’ll have more on that another time.
An important thing to realize is that there is no top 5 training tools. Its going to depend on the person and their goals, to discover what should and will work best for them.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
Filed under Clubs, Flexibility/Mobility, Health, Strength Training Concepts by on Jan 19th, 2010. 3 Comments.
Almost a year ago I was talking to professional strongman Dennis Rogers and he presented me with an opportunity.
His friend and one of the world’s strongest men, Bud Jeffries was looking for someone to take over his business.
If you’ve been in the iron game for awhile its likely you’ve heard of Bud and www.Strongerman.com.
Perhaps you’ve been influenced by his work with Twisted Conditioning or How to Squat 900 lbs (among much else).
I know I have.
Due to some issues with the business he wanted to step back, have someone else take over and allow him just to write and train.
I took that job. Now this has been a secret project that virtually know one knows about. In fact, you are one of the first!
But all that work has finally come to fruition. The NEW Strongerman.com is live.
Go check out the site. There’s a bunch of great articles up. You can get his best selling ebooks right now.
But that’s just the start. Go now to find a few of the exciting projects we have in the works.
And be sure to sign up with your email on the site. Not only will you receive tons of incredible strength training and endurance building tips but we’ll give you a bonus to get started with.
Just last week I interviewed Bud to talk about what he’s been doing lately in his training. We’re talking about shedding 100 lbs and counting. Doing thousands of kettlebell swings in a single workout. Training MMA fighters and much more.
You get the whole hour long interview just by signing up on the site.
I hope my enthusiasm comes across because this is something that you should be excited about. Just talking to Bud recently has increased the intensity of my own workouts. It can do the same for you.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
P.S. When you visit the site please leave a comment telling us what you think or would like to see. Would love to hear from you.
Filed under Uncategorized by on Nov 5th, 2009. Comment.
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.
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